Wayne Taylor’s F1 Dream Comes True!

Wayne Taylor has accomplished a lot since leaving South Africa and landing in the United States. Now 67, the owner of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti is about to click one very important desire from his bucket list. After years upon years of driving and entering sports car races, Taylor is about to compete in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix in the 1978 Wolf WR4 FIA Formula One World Championship race car driven by countryman and 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter.

Of course it’s every driver’s desire to climb into an F1 car and put it through its paces. Especially on a significant and historic circuit like the street course at Monaco. Not every driver, no matter how competent or competitive, gets that opportunity, but when this one came about, Taylor was ready to jump into the car.

Never mind that his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship team, working under the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti banner, is competing on the WeatherTech Laguna Seca road course this weekend with their Acura ARX-06 GTP challengers, as is his Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Super Trofeo North America Lamborghini team in their Huracan. Both of Taylor’s sons, Ricky and Jordan, will be competing in the United States while dad fulfills a dream he’s had since before he was a teenager.

“I’m very excited,” Taylor stated before leaving for Monaco earlier in the week. “It’s been a lifelong dream, but the dream started out of being in F1 in the ‘70s, and it just didn’t happen. I couldn’t get it to happen and so chose sports car racing.”

His was a fortunate choice for sports car fans, as the driver – most often paired with Italian Max Angelelli – won some significant races and championships. After earning the 1986 South African National Drivers Championship, Taylor took fourth pace in the 1987 24 Hours of Le Mans. He then competed in FIA’s World Sportscar Championship in the C2 class, and moved to C1 a year later.

Taylor came to the United States and drove in IMSA’s Camel GT Series from 1989 through 1993, becoming one of the Intrepid RM-1 GTP program drivers. Winning IMSA’s WSC class in 1994, Taylor repeated the following four years – 1995 through 1998 – and, along the way earned wins in the 1996 Rolex 24 at Daytona and Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, racing with [now] five-time Rolex 24 sat Daytona winner Scott Sharp and Jim Pace in a Riley & Scott Mk III Oldsmobile.

When sports car racing had its own “split” at the close of the last century, Wayne Taylor initially chose to be part of the American Le Mans Series. His gamble paid off with his being a central part of Cadillac’s Le Mans effort in 2000. While it didn’t bring either Taylor or Cadillac the victories they anticipated, Cadillac discontinued the program after 2002.

Taylor unsuccessfully attempted to secure funding for a privateer effort with the Cadillac LMP-02 but wasn’t able to get the funding. He moved to the Grand American Road Racing Association Rolex Sports Car Series with Angelelli; they were Daytona Prototype co-champions in 2005.

Taylor and Angelelli made IROC Series history by becoming the first tandem drivers to compete in one car in the superstar competition. They each competed in two races and their points were combined, much as they are in sports car racing.

Wayne Taylor Racing, born in 2007 with backing from SunTust, continued with Angelelli as co-driver. Taylor decided he needed to pay more attention to the business of racing and stepped away from full-time competition in 2008, although he had done some one-offs in endurance competition with his sons and Angelelli, but was most often seen atop a pit box.

As he anticipates his laps though the streets of Monaco, Taylor has emphasized that he was “an avid fan of these (F1) cars and I was a big fan of Jody Scheckter, because he was from East London, South Africa,” where Taylor grew up. “I followed him when I was at school. Over the last 10 years or so, I started thinking, ‘One day when I retire from this, I’d like to buy a Formula 1 car of that era,’ but I never thought of going to Monte Carlo or anything like that. I really didn’t.”

For a man who’s had a dream for 55 years, since he was 12, “Now to go to Monte Carlo is pretty cool.”

It took the team owner three years to find the Wolf WR4 that Scheckter drove in several races; the same car was later driven by another champion, Keke Rosberg and by Desire Wilson, the first and only woman (to date) to win an F1 race, which she did at Brands Hatch (UK) in the 1980 British Aurora F1 Championship.

Once he located and purchased the Wolf WR4, Taylor sent the car to Hudson Historics for complete restoration under the guidance of company owner Gordon Eggleston. “He took the car, completely restored it, and I can tell you there’s not one nut and bolt on the car that’s not new. There’s to one piece of wire that’s not new,” Taylor explained.

Taylor made the decision, last year, to apply for entry into the 2024 Monaco Historic, and while waiting word of his acceptance, performed a shakedown at Putnam Park near Indianapolis. He followed that with a full-on test in February on Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56-mile road/oval course where the Rolex 24 is annually held.

It wasn’t – at first – a positive experience. “My first lap out, in truth, I was figuring out how I was going to tell everybody I’m not going,” Taylor admitted, “until the car started handling properly.” The culprit? Cold tires.

This March Taylor received acceptance for the race, which takes place this weekend, May 9-11, just two weeks before the current Formula 1 cars have their turn in Monaco. While he thought he’d have four practice sessions to learn the track and to better understand his car, Taylor has discovered he’s got a 30-minute window before qualifying and the race – that’s it!

“So, I’ve really got 30 minutes to learn the track, find where the limit is, don’t hit anything, don’t make an idiot of yourself and get to the race,” said Taylor, who has been out of the cockpit for 10 years. His last competitive race was at the Rolex 24 in 2014, when he teamed with sons Ricky, Jordan and Angelelli to earn a second-place result. “Really, am I racing? No, I’m really going to be part of something very special and I’m going to drive to the speed that I feel comfortable with. I’m not going too take stupid risks at this point in my career… it would be stupid.”

Ricky and Jordan Taylor might disagree with their father on this last remark. “Our first words to him were, just like our mom taught us, ‘Just be careful, don’t go too fast, don’t take chances,’” Ricky said. “He says he’s going to go for the fun and the experience. We know him well enough to say that the first time somebody passes him or he sees somebody pulling away, that moderation is going to go out the window and he’s going to get competitive! He’s super excited, it’s a dream come true for him and we’re all excited for him. But yeah, we’re stressed a little bit.”

While neither Ricky nor Jordan were able to see their father perform on-track at his finest, when he was one of the most prolific sports car racers of his time, Jordan was able to watch his father put the Wolf WR4 through its paces at Daytona this February. He was impressed: “I watched him on track and it was so funny, thinking that was him in the car,” Jordan said. “It’s hard to picture that he was a driver, and he was a very good driver. Now he’s out in this insane Formula 1 car going around Daytona. I watched him on track and it was like watching any other race car driver. You never would have known it was an almost-70-year-old guy racing around Daytona in a Formula 1 car!”

While Ricky and Jordan Taylor will be fighting for the win in Sunday’s Motul Course de Monterey Powered by Hyundai N in California, Wayne’s wife Shelley and a few friends are joining Wayne Taylor in Monte Carlo to share the experience. “Unfortunately,” Wayne Taylor said, “I’m gonna have to miss Laguna, but I can’t give this one up!”

Nor should he.