Page 6 - On the Prowl: The Definitive History of the Walkinshaw Jaguar Sports Car Team

ON THE PROWL
1957-1982: Jaguar on the Brink
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In 1973, the H Production class championship of the Sports Car Club
of America (SCCA) was won with an Austin-Healey Sprite, driven by an
ex-pat Brit named Mike Dale. He had arrived in the US in the mid-sixties,
posted there by the BMC to manage sales for the MG line. Dale’s calm
and understated demeanor was ideally suited to selling British cars in
America, and by 1970 the former RAF pilot was VP of Sales and Marketing
for MG and Jaguar in the USA.
Truly passionate about cars, Dale enjoyed motorsport immensely and
realized he could generate some decent publicity for one of his brands
(and possibly drive more sales) by getting Jaguar onto the race tracks of
the United States. He turned to a man named Bob Tullius, whose Group 44
team had raced British cars against Dale in the SCCA, initially Triumphs.
Tullius was also a military man, stern but reasonable, ex-Air Force.
Below his curly blond hair was a round, friendly face that seemed to say,
“I’m 90 percent polite and calm — don’t push me to the other 10 percent.”
After building his career as a salesman for Kodak and taking his wife’s
unloved Triumph TR3 to the track, he got hooked on racing cars and soon
discovered that there might be a business in it. His employers, fed up with
his divided attention, told him to either abandon racing or quit Kodak, so in
1965 Tullius took the leap into professional race team ownership. Unlike his
contemporaries, who saw racing as something that lived on the “expense”
side of the balance sheet, Bob saw an opportunity to make some money,
and built three income streams: first, he built cars for customers; second,
he raced Group 44’s own cars, as a shop window for his team’s services
and to make some prize money; third, he was one of the first team owners
to identify the power of sponsorship and marketing activation for brands
and helped build sponsorship deals. One of his first successes in that
third area was with the Quaker State oil company, and its corporate green
colors adorned all of Group 44’s cars from that point on.
Bob Tullius’ drive for professionalism was evident everywhere. “Part
of the Group 44 image was wearing proper uniforms and looking dapper,”
Bob stated. “Sometimes the drivers didn’t like it, so I told them ‘Tough shit.’
If I couldn’t do it first class, I didn’t want to do it at all.”
According to Road & Track’s Peter Egan, who witnessed the Group 44
Part of the Group 44 image was
wearing proper uniforms and looking
dapper. Sometimes the drivers didn’t
like it, so I told them ‘Tough shit.’
If I couldn’t do it first class,
I didn’t want to do it at all.
–Bob Tullius
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