Richard Raymond Simon[1] (born September 21, 1933) is retired American auto racing driver and racing team owner. Simon drove Indy cars in USAC and CART, and made 17 starts at the Indianapolis 500. At the 1988 Indianapolis 500, Simon set a record as the oldest driver in Indy 500 history (54 years, 251 days), a record that was later broken by A. J. Foyt.
Simon was a longtime car owner, founding Dick Simon Racing, helping to begin the Indy car careers of Stéphan Grégoire, Arie Luyendyk, Raul Boesel, Lyn St. James, and many others. Simon had a notable record at the Indy 500. Of the many rookies he entered at Indy over the years, not a single one failed to qualify for the race. Simon never won a race as a driver or as an owner. His best finish as a driver was 3rd at Ontario, and as an owner he had six second-place finishes. Simon had a best finish at the Indianapolis 500 of 6th in 1987 (as a driver), and 4th in 1993 as an owner with Boesel.
Simon sold his race team to Andy Evans who formed Team Scandia in 1997. He returned to Indy car racing in the late 1990s and entered cars in 2000 and 2001.
Early life
Simon was born in Seattle, Washington.[2] His mother developed multiple sclerosis, and died at a relatively young age, while Simon's father later left the family. This forced Simon to take over the upbringing of his younger siblings.[3]
After completing his primary education in Seattle, Simon received a skiing scholarship that enabled him to attend the University of Utah.[2][3] During his collegiate career he was highly decorated, twice winning the Intermountain Ski Jumping championship, and for three consecutive years winning the Landes Memorial Ski Jump, held in Alta, Utah.[2]
Simon began his racing career in 1962, racing super modifieds. Between 1962 and 1967, he won more than 30 races in the western United States, and in 1965 won the South Lake Valley Racing Association championship.[2]
Championship car career
Simon made his first USACChampionship car appearance at Seattle International Raceway in 1969, failing to qualify for that as well as two other races that season.[1] Simon made his first start in 1970, driving a second-hand Vollstedt chassis at Phoenix International Raceway, where he sidelined by magneto failure after only 4 laps. He made his Indianapolis 500 debut that season and finished 14th position. At Ontario Motor Speedway that September, Simon captured his career-best finish of 3rd place, and he finished 10th in the 1970 USACNational Championship.[1][2] 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. In 1982, Simon captured national attention after walking away from a spectacular rollover accident at Riverside, an incident that was later showed on ABC's That's Incredible!.[4] 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 in USAC, 78 in CART) over 19 seasons spanning from 1970 to 1988. Among those starts are 17 Indianapolis 500 appearances. He completed 1,954 laps in the Indianapolis 500 without leading any, the second highest such total ever.
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. Simon himself retired from driving in 1988, one of the motivations being his difficulty in finding sponsors for himself as opposed to younger, up and coming drivers, saying in later that sponsors did not "want to sponsor somebody’s hobby, and that’s what they consider when an owner’s out there racing.”[5] 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 three runner-up finishes in 1993, the team's best season result.
At 61 years old, Simon stepped behind the wheel of Davy Jones' car for shakedowns ahead of the 1995 Indianapolis 500, as Jones was in California for a NASCAR event.[5] Overall, 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 LeagueIndyCar 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.
Personal life
Simon was an adventurist and enthusiast. He was an experienced skier, scuba diver, registered pilot, sky diver, and parachutist. He was a national champion parachute jumper, and made over 1,600 jumps during the 1960s. In 1970, he left a desk job at an insurance company to pursue a career in auto racing. Simon is married to Dianne.[3] Simon was once questioned by the FBI under the suspicion of being the airplane hijacker D. B. Cooper. He proved that he was discussing sponsorship with the president of General Foods in Upstate New York on the date of the hijack.[6][7][8]
American
