Dick Simon

This article is about the race car driver. For other people named Dick Simon, see Richard Simon.
Dick Simon at the 2016 Brickyard SVRA Pro-Am race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Dick Simon (born September 21, 1933 in Sandy, Utah) is one of the oldest men to ever have raced in the Indianapolis 500. He was 55 years old during his final Indy 500 start in 1988. A multiple starter and top-ten finisher in the race, he also became a car owner, founding Dick Simon Racing helping to begin the IndyCar careers of Stéphan Grégoire, Arie Luyendyk, Raul Boesel, and others. Simon also fielded cars for Lyn St. James. He sold his race team to Andy Evans who formed Team Scandia in 1997. He was back in the game in the late 90's and entered cars in 2000 and 2001.

Driving career

Simon's IndyCar at Pocono in 1984

Simon made his first driving appearance at Pacific Raceways in October 1969. He failed to start the race and failed to qualify for the other two races that he attempted that season. He made his race debut the following spring driving a second-hand Vollstedt chassis at Phoenix International Raceway but was sidelined by magneto failure after only 4 laps. He made his Indianapolis 500 debut that year and finished in the 14th position. At Ontario Motor Speedway that September, Simon captured his career-best finish of 3rd place and he finished 10th in the 1970 USAC National Championship. Simon would continue to be marginally competitive throughout the 1970s, never matching his finishes of the 1970 season. In 1979, Simon sided with USAC during its split with CART. In being one of the few drivers to complete the USAC schedule, Simon finished 8th in the Championship. In 1980 Simon moved to CART and continued to have little success throughout the 1980s while remaining marginally competitive. He logged his best CART season in 1987 when he made 11 starts and logged two top-tens including a 6th place at the Indy 500, good enough for 20th in the CART Championship. A partial season in 1988 where Simon logged a solid 9th-place finish in the Indy 500 was his last as a driver.

Simon's driving career includes 183 starts (115 USAC and 78 CART) over 19 seasons spanning from 1970 to 1988. Among those starts is 17 Indy 500 appearances.

Team ownership

Main article: Dick Simon Racing

Dick Simon fielded his own race team beginning in 1983 and shortly thereafter began fielding cars for pay drivers, Dick Simon Racing being one of the most competitive teams offering race seats to such drivers almost always fielded current-year March and Lola chassis and had a competitive engine package. In 1989 the team fielded two fully funded drivers in Scott Brayton and Arie Luyendyk as the team moved towards the front of the pack. Simon fielded a car in the 1992 Indianapolis 500 for Lyn St. James who became the second woman to drive in the race. Raul Boesel finished 5th in points with 3 runner-up finishes in 1993, the team's best season result. The team had a difficult 1995 and Simon sold the team to Andy Evans who turned it into Team Scandia. Simon returned to ownership in the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series in 1999 but saw little success. The team was shut down after the team's driver Stéphan Grégoire failed to qualify for the 2001 Indianapolis 500.

Motorsports career results

SCCA National Championship Runoffs

Year Track Car Engine Class Finish Start Status
1968 Riverside Raceway Chevrolet Corvette Chevrolet B Production 3 Running

American open wheel

Complete USAC Mini-Indy Series results

Year Entrant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Pos Points
1978 United States
PIR1		 United States
TRE1		 Canada
MOS		 United States
MIL1
14		 United States
TEX
12		 United States
MIL2		 United States
OMS1
8		 United States
OMS2
20		 United States
TRE2		 United States
PIR2		 32nd 69

Indianapolis 500 results

Year Car Chassis Engine Start Qual Rank Finish Laps Led Retired
1970 44 Vollstedt Ford 31 165.548 32 14 168 0 Flagged
1971 44 Vollstedt Ford 33 14 151 0 Flagged
1972 44 Lola Foyt 23 180.424 25 13 186 0 Out of Fuel
1973 27 Eagle Foyt 27 191.276 19 14 100 0 Piston
1974 44 Eagle Foyt 10 184.502 11 33 1 0 Valve
1975 44 Eagle Foyt 30 181.891 31 21 133 0 Flagged
1976 17 Vollstedt Offy 16 182.342 19 32 1 0 Rod
1977 17 Lightning Offy 30 185.615 29 31 24 0 Overheating
1978 17 Vollstedt Offy 10 192.967 15 19 138 0 Wheel Bearing
1979 17 Vollstedt Offy 20 185.071 26 26 57 0 Clutch
1980 8 Vollstedt Offy 29 182.787 30 22 58 0 Lost wheel
1981 22 Watson Offy Failed to qualify
1982 22 Watson Cosworth Failed to qualify
1983 22 March Cosworth 20 192.993 30 15 161 0 Flagged
1984 22 March Cosworth 20 201.835 26 23 112 0 In Pits
1985 22 March Cosworth 14 208.536 14 26 86 0 Oil Pressure
1986 23 Lola Cosworth 33 14 189 0 Flagged
1987 22 Lola Cosworth 6 209.960 7 6 193 0 Flagged
1988 22 Lola Cosworth 16 207.555 28 9 196 0 Flagged
1995 77 Lola Ford XB Practice laps only
Totals 1954 0

Starts 17
Poles 0
Front Row 0
Wins 0
Top 5 0
Top 10 2
Retired 10

NASCAR

(key) (Bold - Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics - Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Winston Cup Series

Personal

Dick Simon was once questioned by the FBI for being D. B. Cooper.[1][2]

References

  1. ↑ The Talk of Gasoline Alley. May 19, 2006. 1070 WIBC-AM.
  2. ↑ Schmitz, Brian (May 27, 1994). "Simon's Stress". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved May 6, 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.