BOB AKIN

By H.A. Branham

The bright-red Coca-Cola Porsche 962, that’s the lasting image so many sports fans carry in their memories, when it comes to the career and legacy of Bob Akin. There were other, production-based Porsche 935s carrying the Coke livery, but the 962, that was the ticket. It battled far more successful prototypes in IMSA’ GTP class, winning many fans in lieu of races.

Didn’t matter. People loved the Coke Porsche. And they loved Bob Akin.

Another image: Akin as the consummate gentlemen racer, a Columbia University graduate and the perfect competitor to have his name affixed on the award presented to the top Bronze-rated driver in the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class each year. The Bob Akin Award winner also receives an invitation to the following year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Akin was no ordinary gentleman racer, though. He twice co-drove to victory in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (1979, ’86), had two runner-up finishes in the Rolex 24 At Daytona (1981-82) and entered Le Mans six times with a best finish of fourth in 1984.

Akin – who tried his hand at both boat racing and drag racing in the late 1950s – retired from professional competition in 1991, but he had other gigs, mainly in motorsports. He raced vintage and historic cars, instructed at driving schools, wrote magazine articles about racing and became an on-air television personality. While competing he always kept his “day job” at Hudson Wire Company in Ossining, New York, a family-owned company dating to 1901. Akin finally retired from Hudson in 1995. And there was an entity, Bob Akin Motorsports, that had to be close to his heart. It specializes, still, in restoring historic race cars under the name Hudson Historics.

All deaths are tragic when you come right down to it; the circumstances around Akin’s were especially so. After spending much of his life supporting historic and vintage racing, Akin suffered fatal injuries in April 2002 while testing a 1988 Nissan GTO ZX-Turbo at Road Atlanta, for the Walter Mitty Challenge. Akin died four days after the incident, at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He was 66, far too young for a man who still had so much to give to his sport.

In line with his commitment was his service as longtime member and former president of the prestigious Road Racing Drivers Club. After Akin’s death, the RRDC Bob Akin Award was created to honor amateur, vintage, historic or semi-pro drivers.