ELLIOTT FORBES-ROBINSON

By H.A. Branham

One on-line account of Elliott Forbes-Robinson’s career opens with this:

Elliott Forbes-Robinson is a road racing race car driver.

Nailed it.

Well, sort of.

The man known by one of motorsports most enduring acronyms – “EFR” – has a legacy that is built on his sports car success, but also extends far beyond. How many “road course ringers” who raced in NASCAR also rocked and rolled on the high-banked tri-ovals of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway? EFR did, a total of 10 times. He even worked in an appearance at the world’s largest cereal bowl – the half-mile of mayhem at Bristol Motor Speedway. And not too many people who have raced at Bristol have also won the Formula Super Vee championship. EFR did, in 1974 after winning seven of the season’s 14 races in a seriously outdated car.

Granted, this has nothing to do with EFR being a 2025 inductee into the IMSA Hall of Fame. But it sure is just wonderful window dressing in a career that spanned five decades of unparalleled versatility but was most noted for sports car expertise. The guy could do it all. He just did sports cars a bit better.

Forbes-Robinson is in the HOF because of that overarching qualifier and specifically because of his 18 IMSA race victories, a list topped by triumphs in the Rolex 24 At Daytona in 1997 and ’99 with Dyson Racing. In IMSA, EFR drove production-based GTO cars, exotic GTPs and Daytona Prototypes.

It speaks volumes of “EFR’s” enduring legacy over decades that his strong results had no time limit. As an example, he won the six hours at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in 1974, in a Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0 in IMSA GTO with inaugural Class of 2023 IMSA Hall of Fame inductee Al Holbert. More than 40 years later, he was still winning race. Alongside his old Dyson Racing teammate Butch Leitzinger, EFR won in a Howard-Boss Motorsports Pontiac Crawford Daytona Prototype in the 400-kilometer GRAND-AM Rolex Series race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2005 during his last full-time season. 

The ’97 Rolex 24 win for “EFR” came as part of Dyson Racing’s incredible – and unusual – running of seven drivers in one of its Riley & Scott Mk III Ford prototypes as Rob Dyson rotated drivers from both cars through its No. 20 entry after its sister car had mechanical issues. To think that one car featured “EFR,” Dyson, Leitzinger, Andy Wallace, James Weaver, John Paul Jr. and John Schneider is to note an absolute bedrock of talent. 

The list of manufacturers he drove for reads like a who’s who of all-star brands. In just the 1970s, it was Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren, Datsun, Lola, Spyder and Chevrolet Corvette. As noted above, versatility was one of “EFR’s” keys to success over his decades-long career. 

Beyond his IMSA career, his sports car success stretched through other series. He won three class titles in the SCCA National Championship Runoffs from 1976-78, he raced Can-Am from 1977-80, where he finished second in the ’79 standings, and was the Trans-Am champion in 1982. In ’99, he and Butch Leitzinger teamed to win the inaugural American Le Mans Series championship. The ALMS premiered with its first race, the 1998 Motul Petit Le Mans, the fall of the previous year before the championship commenced its first full season. 

In retrospect, it makes sense EFR would gravitate to sports car racing. In a 1976 Los Angeles Times interview – the then-32-year-old Californian was starting to attract media attention – he cited the influence of his American father and Australian mother, who both raced sports cars.

“I guess it just depends on what you grow up around,” EFR said. “After school, I couldn’t wait to take a sports car up on mountain roads to drive as fast as I could.”

Forbes-Robinson developed into the coolest and classiest of characters off the track. On-track, his measured style reflected his demeanor. 

“Being fast should be easy,” he told the folks at the Hooked on Driving school. “If you’re working, thrashing, tossing, clenching and sweating, you’re not going as fast as you can.” 

Since retiring from driving, “EFR” brought his years of experience to race control where he utilized his expertise to aid race management. 

But he’ll always be a racer, first.