The Art of Race Car Design & the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona By The Numbers - Bob Riley

1. The Art of Race Car Design is the first book by Bob Riley.

2. A comprehensive and fully illustrated book, The Art of Race Car Design has gone to a second printing, released in January of 2017 and is available at www.jingrambooks.com.

3. The Mazda RT24-P and the Riley MK XXX making their debut on Jan. 28-29 at the Rolex 24 at Daytona are the 59th and 60th race cars designed by Bob Riley of Riley Technologies. Along with the new Riley LMP3 being developed by Tony Ave, that gives Riley Technologies three new prototypes currently in the market.

4. Bob Riley is the dean of the designers at this year’s 55th Rolex 24. His first successful production racing design – the Lynx B Formula V – appeared in 1965 and went on to win four SCCA National Championships.

5. The head designers at Dallara (Luca Pignacca), ORECA (David Floury) and Onroak Automotive (Nicolas Clémençon) have a combined total of 46 years of experience – which falls five short of Bob Riley’s 51 years since the Lynx B Formula V first appeared. Including Riley Technologies, all four companies will have prototypes debuting in the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona in the new DPi era.

6. Cars designed by Bob Riley have won over-all and class victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona 18 times since the first victory by a Roush Protofab Mustang in 1985 in the GTO class. The first Riley prototype victory came in 1996, when the Riley & Scott MK III-Olds Aurora fielded by Riley & Scott Racing won.

7. There have been 52 drivers who have scored victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona in Bob Riley cars. Scott Pruett has the most with four, all in Riley Daytona Prototypes. In addition, Pruett has won five Grand-Am championships in Riley prototypes and two Trans-Am titles – in a Chevy Camaro and Merkur XR4ti, giving him seven championships in Riley cars.

8. The first car to win a 24-hour race that Bob Riley worked on was a Ford Mk. II while at Kar Kraft, a design which went on to win the Le Mans 24-hour in 1966. Riley then worked on Kar Kraft’s Ford Mk. IV, which won at Le Mans in 1967. The latter victory came eight years after Riley built his first road racing machine called the C Modified, which he drove in SCCA events.

For more on The Art of Race Car Design visit the Facebook page or www.jingrambooks.com.