What's up guys? Never posted to this board before but I'm a long time lurker. Some of you may have heard that the Skip Barber Racing school had declared bankruptcy. The company has since been bought, for less than a million US mind you, and is to be liquidated. I know this because I held a lead mechanic position at the time of the bankruptcy and the since collapse of the company. Anyone have any thoughts or questions about the school? Has anyone here ever attended the school?
Just wondering if people care about this at all. The school meant a lot to me and I said that I would see it to the end, and she's gone.
That sucks. I never went but wanted to. I used to go to the 12 Hours of Sebring 2003-2007 and would always see their shop there.
Xavier Ross
I wouldn't skip going to the barber just to go to racing school. I mean it's important to know how to drive well but you should also keep your hair clean and cut so you don't look like a hobo
Dominic Campbell
That shop was the second to the last to go. There was alot of crazy historic stuff in there up until they were evicted. Was my favorite track that we ran apart from laguna. It was ran by 1 guy for like 5 years when there were no programs happening at that track. The local bars knew our crew well and references can be found in the decorations of some of those places, the Blue Lagoon comes to mind.
Easton Martin
Kiwi did. He races formula continental in the northwest now.
That sucks, i always wanted to check that shit out.
Landon Evans
Yeah thats pretty much the bible. I worked with a few of those guys in that video even recently. It was a pretty tight family, alot of different drivers from alot of walks of life. Unfortunately the owner made alot of mistakes, and burned just about every bridge he could.
Matthew Diaz
I'm not too familiar with the area, we drove up from the southeast coast. Never got to do Sebring either, just watched the races, but Laguna is an awesome track!
Dylan Cooper
The cars were pretty run down in the end, but still safe, that was our main thing. The engines were pretty clapped but the cars were light so they still went at a good pace. The formula cars that is. Thats where most of my time was spent, working on those. The spec mx5s were pretty fun to, and were well sorted, but we lost all the sponsorship and we just couldnt keep them rolling.
Jeremiah Rogers
Laguna is pretty crazy, even just the landscape that surrounds that area is really one of a kind. The back access road there is a low key hill climb, and we often raced the cars as we unloaded them at the bottom of the hill while taking them to pit lane. The Skip Barber shop that was on that property was actually condemned, due to water and code violations.
Luke Diaz
Why did they go broke, OP?
Nathan Wilson
Yea, I used to go ride out there on bikes, if you go to the light after the left turn into that hill climb, there are some nice roads out that way if you take a right.
Aaron Perry
Racing is a dying sport.
Benjamin Sullivan
So thats a long story, but the basic things were; insanely high overhead and up front costs, high turnover rate for mechanics due to HORRIBLE working conditions and weeks of past due pallroll, and an owner that shouldve never had gotten into the industry. He had alot of problems besides the failure of the school that ultimately contributed to the collapse of the thing. He was know to be hiding money for tax reasons and this created alot of issues.
I really cant even get started on the guy. A very common enemy there.
Alexander Morales
I wont really deny that. But theres enough left that people like myself can cling on.
Christian Bennett
Lemme guess. The guy who built up the business retired or died and it got bought out or passed on to this guy? And then he proceeded to run it all into the ground? How long did it take him to kill the business? 5 years?
Aaron Walker
Well the guy who built it up was Skip Barber, he was a actual dude. So he hold it in the late 90s to the current owner, and hes responsible for losing the sponsorships and such. The dude owned a few companies, and if you look into it, its really ridiculous that he was ever allowed to be in such a position. The name was purchased along with the assets, so we might see the name come around again, but it will never be the same thing.
Also it was about 10 years, the company started off quite huge before it failed.
Parker Diaz
Nice blog post, faggot.
Enjoy your stupid memories about your shitty job and fuck off.
Again, the name of the school comes from a MAN named SKIP BARBER. This is him telling everyone that its the school thats bankrupt, not him. He hasnt owned the name in a long long time.
