Simon Kirkby has wide ranging experience in driving race cars and coaching students of all ilks from novice to racer and all levels between.

His first foray in competition was in 1966 piloting a brand new MK 2 Lotus Cortina in the Dukerie’s Rally much of which took place on the dirt roads of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire UK. The highlight of Simon’s rally career was driving for, and winning, the overall Team prize for the Chrysler Factory Team in the Avon Motor Magazine Tour of Britain which was a three day event featuring a mix of Rally stages interspersed with races including a night race at Snetterton, Norfolk. It was open to Rally drivers and Race car drivers and featured such notables as Ari Vatanen, Roger Clark, James Hunt, Graham Hill and Jodi Scheckter.

The high cost of rallying forced a move to circuit racing, where Simon started out in showroom stock, followed by driving in Factory Teams for Alfa Romeo and Chrysler in the British Saloon Car Championship aka these days as the BTCC.

This was followed by multiple years of single seater racing in Super Vee, FF2000 and F3 in both the UK and Europe, culminating in two second place finishes in the UK Championship, and a third place in the SV UK Championship. A highlight was doing his first races in Europe on back to back weekends at Spa Francorchamps and the Nordschleife. During this period Simon was a test driver for the largest single seater race car manufacturer in the world, Adrian Reynard.

This was followed by a move to St Louis in 1981 to support Scott Livingston who was importing and selling Shrike Sports 2000 and Argo FF2000 cars. Scott also started a Racing Drivers School at Gateway International utilising the then new SCCA Spec Racers. Racing classes were conducted by Scott, Simon, Dorsey Schroeder and Steve DeBrecht, now there’s a crew! Simon won the SCCA Midwest Formula Continental Championship. After one of the owners of Gateway shot his partner, the track closed down and Simon followed Dorsey to Lakeville CT to work for Skip Barber.

After working for the Skip Barber BMW driving school for a few years where Simon conducted classes as far afield as CA, Wisconsin, FL, CT and more, Skip asked him to head up a new sales unit which was named Special Projects with the purpose of selling marketing and sales training programs to OEM’s. And for the next eighteen years Simon spent more time in Detroit and LA than he did at home. Sales were good and led to special relationships with Dodge & Michelin.

With new ownership in place Simon left SBRS in 2004 and started Lapwing Management located in Bloomfield Hills MI with partner Chip Pankow, and secured the contract to start and manage Formula BMW USA, later renamed Formula BMW Americas. The team helped to develop such notables as Graham Rahal, Alexander Rossi, Felipe Nasr, Daniel Morad, Robert Wickens, and Simona de Silvestro to name just a few.

In 2009 Skip asked Simon to take over as Director of The Lime Rock Drivers Club, since then he has been busy selling memberships in partnership with Jeanette Veitenheimer and recently Jason Bannerman alongside coaching members and visitors, mostly at LRP but also at multiple other tracks including Spa and the Nordschleife. At the same time Simon restarted his racing career and has had multiple wins in PCA Club and Vintage racing including driving for BMW NA.

Learn more about Simon here: Biography — Simon Kirkby

& Learn more about the Lime Rock Drivers Club at limerockclub.com