Classic American People: Willy T Ribbs
Steve Havelock recounts the struggles of one of America’s (if not the world’s) first black men to make it big in motorsport – it’s a story of sheer grit, determination and not taking ‘no’ for an answer…
When faced with adversity, some folk just sink, while others rise to the challenge and succeed. William Theodore Ribbs, an African-American born into a comfortably well-off family in San Jose, California, in 1955, followed his boyhood dreams of becoming a top racing driver and, in spite of being subjected to horrible racial discrimination, death threats, sabotage and lack of corporate support, he made it and became the first black man to drive a Formula One car and the first black man to race in the Indianapolis 500.
At the start of his racing career in 1977, he came to England to race and was crowned Dunlop ‘Star of Tomorrow’ Formula Ford 1600 Champion. Back in America, he raced in Formula Atlantic single-seaters, was highly successful in Trans-Am and IMSA GTO and raced Indy cars. He also ran the gauntlet in NASCAR. He was the subject of the highly acclaimed Netflix film Uppity, which was released in February 2020. This was a no-holds-barred account of his life in the predominantly white man’s world of motorsport. Just a few months later, in May, George Floyd was killed by police, which was filmed. This appalling incident sent shock waves around the world and again brought prominence to the Black Lives Matter movement which was founded in 2013 following the controversial killing of black teenager, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Willy’s story and Uppity, directed by Adam Carolla and Nate Adams, founders of awardwinning production company Chassy Media, were thrust into the spotlight. Here, Willy, who now lives in Texas, shares some of his views and experiences. First, I asked him how the film came about, to which he said: “Prior to Uppity, I was involved in a film produced by Adam Carolla called Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman, and Newman was very influential in the beginning of my career.” Paul Newman was not only a great actor, but he was an extremely good racing driver with influence. He was racing in Trans-Am and he got Willy his first drive in the Series in 1983 with a top team.
Willy continued: “If it wasn’t for Paul, I might not have made it. Carolla knew my relationship with Paul Newman and interviewed me. After that film was produced, Carolla got a lot of feedback about my interview and he called me and said: ‘You’ve got a hell of a story. What you’ve done needs to be recognised and people need to know. Would you let us do it?’ I said: ‘On one condition, we tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’ He agreed, and that’s how the project started. It was two and a half years before we were done. My wife and I saw it in December 2019 in Carolla’s office. I was prepared to be disappointed. When it was over, my wife was in tears. I was very happy and everyone who has seen it says: ‘It’s really not about racing is it? It was about overcoming a huge obstacle and being successful.’ When we first started filming, we were telling a story.
“As the film developed, the story became more clear. It sort of evolved as we went along. Everyone who was interviewed, from Bernie Ecclestone to Bobby Unser, told the story, along with me telling the story. It all came together in one big message. We finished eighth in the best 2020 films on Netflix.” I asked Willy if the George Floyd killing and the BLM movement had drawn attention to the film. He replied: “Well, yes. People were appalled at what happened. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back – worldwide, not just in the USA. Then, you add the division that Donald Trump has created along the way. You take all those elements and put them together and you’ve got an explosive combination. There would be no BLM if young men and women weren’t being slaughtered.”
Carolina on my mind…
Winding back the clock to 1978, Willy received an invitation from Humpy Wheeler, boss of Charlotte Motor Speedway, to go and race in NASCAR at the World 600. Humpy would organise the race car. Little could prepare Willy for what awaited him. He had been raised in California, where the colour of a man’s skin was not a huge issue. His grandfather and father had done well in the plumbing business and farming, and his dad raced at club level in sports cars without a problem.
Willy said: “My mother was concerned about me going down there and told me to be careful. My dad and grandfather didn’t say a whole lot. I was naive at that time. I always thought and always believed that anybody that drove a race car had to be a good person. You couldn’t be a bad person and drive a race car. That was because I loved the sport that much. But when I got down there, you could see the cultural difference between the south and the west coast of California where I came from. It was dramatic, night and day. I knew I wasn’t going to get a warm, red carpet welcome.” “So why did Wheeler invite you?” I asked. Willy continued: “He wasn’t interested in me as a driver, or even being a help or influence on my career. He
couldn’t care less about my career. What he saw was an audience that he thought he could bring in with me being in the race. North Carolina might be 33% African-American, so he thought there may be an opportunity to bring more money in through the gate.”
Once Willy was in Charlotte, the other drivers and officials didn’t talk to him; he was booed, folk would spit as he walked by, and death threats were made to him and also to Humpy. Amazingly, Willy said: “I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Actually, sometimes I enjoyed it. They would flip me off and I would laugh, and they would get mad because I laughed at them. I never lost one ounce of sleep or feared for my life. I knew where I came from and I knew my background and knew how to handle myself. I wasn’t worried at all. And I wasn’t alone. My cousin Donnie was with me all the time, and he was a massive man who played in the NFL.”
On a trip into town, Willy was stopped by the police and given a ticket for a minor traffic violation. However, this got blown out of all proportion and it was reported that he had been involved in a serious car chase and altercation with the police. Back at the track, his race car was given to someone else and he was told to pack his bags. Willy said: “It was an absolute 100% lie. I got a ticket for crossing the street the wrong way. I went diagonally up the street into a parking lot. Because I was from out of state I had to follow the police officer down to the precinct to pay the ticket which was $27. I still have it. They made up this fake story. It didn’t dawn on me, but then I realised why so many black men were being lynched in the south. It was all based on lies. There were cases where white women would say a black man tried to rape her and they were lynched. They were trying to lynch me and my career with a lie. What they did is what has been done for decades, if not centuries − create a lie and lynch you.”
It was during this time that Willy was given the name ‘Uppity’ because he wouldn’t kowtow to them. He said: “Well, it was actually two words and the second one started with ‘N’. They just didn’t want me there, at all. I don’t know if Humpy realised it, but not many African-Americans were going to come to the race anyway, if any, because they didn’t feel welcome. It was a hostile environment with Confederate flags everywhere, flying all over the race track. The Confederate flag means two things − treason and pro-slavery − that’s what it means. Anyone who flies that is telling you that they are treasonists, insurrectionists and that they believe in slavery. If they say it’s just our southern heritage, they can shove that heritage up their asses. That’s not what it means. To this day, NASCAR is trying to get African-Americans to come to the race track. But even in 2021 the environment is hostile. Still.”
Willy’s career stalled. In spite of him being a British Formula Ford Champion, no one offered him a drive or sponsorship. He went to work for his father, delivering plumbing parts in the company van. A couple of years later, someone he knew wanted Willy to accompany him to a Can-Am race at Laguna Seca and show him the ropes. Willy was reluctant, but eventually agreed, and it was a good thing because there he met Jim Trueman, a racer, a team owner and wealthy owner of Red Roof Inns. Jim knew talent when he saw it, and sponsored Willy in the single-seater Formula Atlantic Championship. He did really well over the next two seasons, but still there were no offers.
Then at the end of 1982, Paul Newman contacted him and said he’d been following his career. He had contacts at Budweiser and they arranged a drive for him with a top team, DeAtley Motorsports, who they sponsored in Trans-Am. Indeed, Budweiser sponsored the whole series, so it was a huge deal. It had taken Willy five years to get his first paid professional drive. Trans-Am was massively popular in the US with widespread TV coverage and an abundance of great drivers. In spite of his new Trans-Am Chevrolet Camaro being worlds apart from the lithe Formula Atlantic single-seaters, with 800 horsepower and massive tyres, Willy won his fourth race and went on to win four more, finishing a close second in the championship to his team mate, the highly experienced David Hobbs (See Classic American People in issue 325/ May 2018). He was awarded ‘Rookie of the Year.’ Alas, there had been a lot of friction in the team because Willy had been ordered to play second fiddle to Hobbs.
For ’84, they switched to Corvettes. In the first race, Willy was punted off the track by another driver. He got mad and gave him a slap. He was immediately fired by his team. The next day he received a call from Edsel Ford who hired him to drive a Mercury Capri run by Jack Roush. Willy missed four races while his new car was being built and so had little chance of winning the championship. When he did get going, he won four races and had several podiums to finish third in the championship.
In ’85, he won eight races, but was pipped into second in the championship by new team-mate Wally Dallenbach, who won five. However, Willy got really upset with Jack Roush after suffering four mechanical failures which he felt never should have happened and possibly cost him the championship. He lost faith in the team and they parted company.
A lot more happened during ’85. Willy had been approached by the flamboyant boxing promoter Don King who told him he had connections with Miller beers and he’d get him into the Indy 500 and make him a superstar. It was a dream come true, but it quickly turned into a nightmare. The team he was placed with took Miller’s money, but made it abundantly clear to Willy that they didn’t want him. It’s difficult to imagine, but, according to Willy, they sabotaged his efforts to qualify.
Fearing that he might end up getting killed he asked Jim Trueman what he should do. “Get the hell out of there,” replied Jim, so Willy baled out and was crucified by the press with headlines such as ‘Chicken Ribbs’.
In December ’85, Don King fixed it for Willy to go to Portugal to test Bernie Ecclestone’s BMW turbo-engined Brabham BT54 F1 car. Willy first met Bernie at Brands Hatch back in ’77. The test went well, and Bernie was impressed, but Italian sponsors Olivetti wanted Italian drivers, so it came to nothing. Willy was the first black man to drive a current F1 car and to this very day only he and Lewis Hamilton have done so. What
“WITH A SECOND-HAND CAR, AGAINST ALL THE ODDS AND AFTER MASSES OF SETBACKS, ON THE LAST DAY OF QUALIFYING, WITH JUST 15 MINUTES LEFT ON THE CLOCK, WILLY QUALIFIED FOR THE INDY 500.”
might have been? Willy and Don then went their own ways. Willy said: “Don likes quick money and he realised that auto racing is not quick money. But he meant well. Once he realised this requires some work, he said: ‘Well, screw that.’ I don’t think he wanted to spend the time in understanding how to market me in the sport.”
For 1986, Willy signed with Brooks Racing and won a couple of IMSA GTO races in their Camaro while Roush Racing again won the championship. That same year, Miller beers and Jim Trueman sponsored Willy to return to NASCAR where he ran in four races. Nothing had changed, the people were still hostile and his own team let him down with a string of exploding engines, and so that was that. Sadly, Jim Trueman died from cancer aged 53, and Willy not only lost a good sponsor but a good friend.
When Willy was a lad he met his boyhood hero Dan Gurney, so it was a dream come true to drive for Dan’s AAR Toyota team in ’87. Their main rival was old adversary Jack Roush and his Fords. Willy wanted to thrash Roush’s drivers and some hard battles and even fisticuffs ensued. He won four races and had several podiums. Together with team-mate Chris Cord, they clinched the IMSA GTO Manufacturers Championship for Gurney and Willy was named IMSA Driver of the Year. Willy remained with AAR for the next four seasons, picking up several more wins and podiums.
He had done brilliantly in tin tops, “which paid the bills”, but his heart was still in single-seaters and he had unfinished business in IndyCar. He took a call from Bill Cosby, who hosted one of the most successful TV shows in America. They met up, and Bill said that he wanted to sponsor Willy to the tune of $350,000 to help get him into the 1991 Indy 500. In Indy terms, that was chicken feed, but it was a good start.
They hooked up with Derrick Walker of Walker Racing and, thank goodness, they were welcoming and incredibly supportive. Derrick was a Scot and “half the team were Brits,” Willy reflected. What happened next is a terrific story that is covered in detail in Uppity. With a second-hand car, against all the odds and after masses of setbacks, on the last day of qualifying, with just 15 minutes left on the clock, Willy qualified for the Indy 500. “It was do or die trying,” said Willy.
Amazingly, as he peeled back into the pit lane, virtually all of the other teams came out to applaud him. “That was the high point of my career,” he said… There was no fairy-tale ending however, as his engine blew in the race.
Willy soldiered on, struggling to get support. He raced in the Indy 500 again in 1993 and actually finished. He eventually retired from racing in 2001, but then took up historic racing, winning the 2019 SVRA Vintage Race of Champions Series in a ’69 Corvette.
Looking back, I asked, was he bitter? He replied: “No, not really. For all the bad I dealt with in my career, and all the evil people I dealt with, there were those who were so good it overcame the bad. My grandfather, my dad, and Muhammad Ali, who I got to know well, were my mentors. Jim Trueman knew what I was dealing with. Paul Newman did, and so did Dan Gurney. They knew what was bad, the racial slurs, the opposition, the sabotage, all of it. They stepped in to prevent as much as they could. I will always know and I will always be confident that I could win in anything if it was competitive and I did − no matter what it was − open wheel, Trans-Am, sport cars. That’s what keeps me secure in my reflection on my career. I didn’t get the support, but that was beyond my control. Certainly it was not fair, but I’m not going to become an alcoholic over it.”