{"id":95984,"date":"2024-05-10T09:20:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T16:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=95984"},"modified":"2024-05-10T09:20:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T16:20:46","slug":"wayne-taylors-f1-dream-comes-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wayne-taylors-f1-dream-comes-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Taylor’s F1 Dream Comes True!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wayne Taylor is racing his Wolf WR4 in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix this weekend – Sidelinesportsphotography image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Of course it\u2019s every driver\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s sons, Ricky and Jordan, will be competing in the United States while dad fulfills a dream he\u2019s had since before he was a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited,\u201d Taylor stated before leaving for Monaco earlier in the week. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lifelong dream, but the dream started out of being in F1 in the \u201870s, and it just didn\u2019t happen. I couldn\u2019t get it to happen and so chose sports car racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s World Sportscar Championship in the C2 class, and moved to C1 a year later.<\/p>\n

Taylor came to the United States and drove in IMSA\u2019s Camel GT Series from 1989 through 1993, becoming one of the Intrepid RM-1 GTP program drivers. Winning IMSA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

When sports car racing had its own \u201csplit\u201d 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\u2019s Le Mans effort in 2000. While it didn\u2019t bring either Taylor or Cadillac the victories they anticipated, Cadillac discontinued the program after 2002.<\/p>\n

Taylor unsuccessfully attempted to secure funding for a privateer effort with the Cadillac LMP-02 but wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As he anticipates his laps though the streets of Monaco, Taylor has emphasized that he was \u201can avid fan of these (F1) cars and I was a big fan of Jody Scheckter, because he was from East London, South Africa,\u201d where Taylor grew up. \u201cI followed him when I was at school. Over the last 10 years or so, I started thinking, \u2018One day when I retire from this, I\u2019d like to buy a Formula 1 car of that era,\u2019 but I never thought of going to Monte Carlo or anything like that. I really didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Taylor in the Wolf WR4 formerly raced by Jody Scheckter – Sidelinesportsphotography image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a man who\u2019s had a dream for 55 years, since he was 12, \u201cNow to go to Monte Carlo is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cHe took the car, completely restored it, and I can tell you there\u2019s not one nut and bolt on the car that\u2019s not new. There\u2019s to one piece of wire that\u2019s not new,\u201d Taylor explained.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 3.56-mile road\/oval course where the Rolex 24 is annually held.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t – at first – a positive experience. \u201cMy first lap out, in truth, I was figuring out how I was going to tell everybody I\u2019m not going,\u201d Taylor admitted, \u201cuntil the car started handling properly.\u201d The culprit? Cold tires.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d have four practice sessions to learn the track and to better understand his car, Taylor has discovered he\u2019s got a 30-minute window before qualifying and the race – that\u2019s it!<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I\u2019ve really got 30 minutes to learn the track, find where the limit is, don\u2019t hit anything, don\u2019t make an idiot of yourself and get to the race,\u201d 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. \u201cReally, am I racing? No, I\u2019m really going to be part of something very special and I\u2019m going to drive to the speed that I feel comfortable with. I\u2019m not going too take stupid risks at this point in my career\u2026 it would be stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Taylor said he’ll be circumspect with his restored Wolf WR4; sons Ricky and Jordan expect his competitive juices to take over – Sidelinesportsphotography image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ricky and Jordan Taylor might disagree with their father on this last remark. \u201cOur first words to him were, just like our mom taught us, \u2018Just be careful, don\u2019t go too fast, don\u2019t take chances,\u2019\u201d Ricky said. \u201cHe says he\u2019s 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\u2019s going to get competitive! He\u2019s super excited, it\u2019s a dream come true for him and we\u2019re all excited for him. But yeah, we\u2019re stressed a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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: \u201cI watched him on track and it was so funny, thinking that was him in the car,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to picture that he was a driver, and he was a very good driver. Now he\u2019s 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

While Ricky and Jordan Taylor will be fighting for the win in Sunday\u2019s Motul Course de Monterey Powered by Hyundai N in California, Wayne\u2019s wife Shelley and a few friends are joining Wayne Taylor in Monte Carlo to share the experience. \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d Wayne Taylor said, \u201cI\u2019m gonna have to miss Laguna, but I can\u2019t give this one up!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor should he.<\/p>\n

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67-year old Taylor will hit the streets of Monaco in a vintage F1 car to fullfill a lifelong dream.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":95986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3470,3699,5029,543],"tags":[361,9530,395,10365,10362,6611,10364,10359,6638,450,10360,10363,9279,10361],"class_list":["post-95984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-other-racing","category-racing","category-sports-car-racing","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-fia-formula-one-world-championship","tag-imsa","tag-imsa-gtp","tag-jody-scheckter","tag-jordan-taylor","tag-max-angelelli","tag-monaco-historic-grand-prix","tag-ricky-taylor","tag-rolex-24-at-daytona","tag-walter-wolf-racing","tag-wayne-taylor","tag-weathertech-raceway-laguna-seca","tag-wr4"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Taylor-testing-at-Daytona1-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-oY8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96042,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95984\/revisions\/96042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}