John Paul Jr.: Daytona 24 Hours Winner and 1982 IMSA GT Champion

John Paul Jr. was an American racing driver who competed in IMSA sportscar racing, CART and the Indy Racing League. He is best known for winning the 1982 IMSA GT Championship and for two victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona, and his career was interrupted in the mid-1980s.

Where did John Paul Jr. start in racing?

Paul Jr. was born on 19 February 1960 and started out working for his father's team, JLP Racing, after leaving high school. He became a jack-of-all-trades within the team, and his father then sent him to the Skip Barber Racing School. His father also bought him a Van Diemen Formula Ford, and in 1979 he competed in SCCA National Formula Ford races, making the SCCA National Championship Runoffs.

The real breakthrough arrived in 1980, when he was added to JLP Racing's line-up for IMSA GT. He and his father drove a Porsche 935 to victory at the Coca-Cola 400 at Lime Rock, and he won the Road America Pabst 500 three months later.

In 1981 a fresh threat appeared in the shape of the Lola T600, a Chevrolet-powered prototype with Brian Redman at the wheel, which swiftly took over the IMSA Championship. Paul was the only driver who could challenge for race wins, so his father became team manager while he did the driving. A rain-hit race at Pocono also went his way in a Porsche 935, and he took the Daytona finale in the same car.

An IMSA title at 22, two Daytona 24 Hours wins and a Michigan 500 victory in only his fourth IndyCar start.

How did Paul win the 1982 IMSA GT title?

Paul clinched the IMSA GT Championship in 1982, at the age of 22, and became the youngest GTP champion in the series' history. His debut in the series yielded a win, and that 1980 season ended fourth in the GTP standings.

1982 began with consecutive victories at Daytona's 24-hour race and Sebring's 12-hour event. At Sebring the team overcame a gearbox failure in its Porsche 935 to beat the March 82G of Bobby Rahal. Paul's win at Road Atlanta also attracted Miller Brewing Company sponsorship for the rest of the season.

Fitzpatrick, his title rival in a Porsche 935K4, had more power, but Paul won on debut in a new JLP-4 at Brainerd. He added wins at Laguna Seca in the Lola and at Portland, and their final race together ended with a second place at Pocono.

How did Paul win at Daytona and Sebring in 1982?

The Daytona race was shared with Rolf Stommelen, the 1977 Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft champion. The Pauls' second team car also finished on the podium at Sebring, which shows how deep JLP Racing's squad was.

Sebring came only a few weeks after Daytona, and the Pauls won there as well, beating a strong March field after overcoming their gearbox failure.

How did Paul win the 1983 Michigan 500?

He took the 1983 Michigan 500 at just his fourth IndyCar outing. He drove a VDS Associates Penske PC10 and led 66 of the 250 laps before passing Rick Mears on the last lap. Mears spun and crashed behind him, and Paul took the checkered flag seconds later.

He finished second in the Caesars Palace Grand Prix in Las Vegas later that season, with a further two third-place finishes, and ended the year eighth in CART points. Another new series also brought a quick win: he won in the Trans-Am series for DeAtley Motorsports at Trois-Rivieres.

That spring Henn's Swap Shop Racing signed him for Sebring and Road America, and both events ended in retirements.

What did Paul's 1984 and 1985 seasons look like?

Second place at Le Mans in 1984 came alongside Jean Rondeau, in a Porsche 956 entered by Preston Henn. A second at the Six Hours of Watkins Glen followed with Bruce Leven in a Porsche 962.

His CART season was much harder. He contested nine of the sixteen CART rounds, split among four teams, and his top result was third at the Caesars Palace Grand Prix with Provimi Veal Racing. Partnering John Morton at Conte Racing, the pair finished only one race in the March-Chevrolet, eighth at Road America.

The 1985 season was a difficult one. He had 11 DNFs in 11 IMSA starts, and after a crash in the Indianapolis 500 he finished only one race that season, the Budweiser Cleveland Grand Prix, in 17th place.

Why did Paul's racing pause in the mid-1980s?

In May 1986 a court handed him a five-year sentence on a racketeering charge tied to his father's activities, which interrupted his career. The drug charges were dropped, and his father was later convicted of several crimes. Paul served a total of 30 months in a minimum-security prison in Alabama and was released in October 1988.

Early in 1986, before the sentence was handed down, he had finished second at Road Atlanta with Whitney Ganz in a March-Buick, which broke a long run of IMSA retirements.

How did Paul return to racing after 1988?

Paul returned to racing in 1989 and made his comeback in IMSA. In that first year back he managed fourth at San Antonio's Grand Prix for Momo/Gebhardt Racing. In 1990 Jim Busby offered him a full-time ride in a Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, and he finished second in the Grand Prix of Miami with Kevin Cogan.

He finished the 1990 season eighth in the overall standings. He found that much had changed in the four seasons he had missed, with factory-supported teams such as Tom Walkinshaw Racing, Electramotive and All American Racers now the ones to beat.

In 1991 he ran a shorter IMSA schedule of seven races, and he also made two NASCAR Winston Cup starts, with his best finish 16th at The Glen. In 1992 he won his first GTU class at Sebring, sharing a Nissan 240SX with Butch Leitzinger and David Loring.

What did Paul achieve from 1993 to 1994?

In 1993 Paul co-drove with Giampiero Moretti and Derek Bell in a Nissan NPT-90 at Daytona and Sebring. At Sebring the trio finished second, and he later took a second place at Road America in a Joest Racing Porsche 962.

In 1994 IMSA became the World Sports Cars Championship, and Paul raced only twice in the new series. He drove for Dyson Racing at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, which ended with an oil pump problem, and then partnered James Weaver to second place in the Indy Grand Prix on the two-hour road course at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

How did Paul's 1995 to 1999 seasons go?

In 1995 Paul raced for Dyson Racing in the World Sports Cars Championship and for the Prototype Technology Group in the IMSA GTS class. His two top-three finishes for Dyson came at the Moosehead Grand Prix with Butch Leitzinger and at the Texas World Grand Prix with Andy Wallace.

In 1996 he won the Mosport 500 and the Daytona IMSA finale with Leitzinger, finishing sixth overall. The same year the Indy Racing League was formed, and he drove a two-year-old car for PDM Racing at the Las Vegas 500, leading 22 laps before finishing 15th.

In 1997 he finished 15th in IndyCar points and won the Rolex 24 at Daytona as part of a seven-driver crew. He then won two more sportscar races with Leitzinger, at the Sportscar Grand Prix and the VISA Sports Car Championship race.

1998 brought his breakthrough, a win in the Lone Star 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. He finished eleventh in IRL points, his best result in that series, and his best Indianapolis 500 finish came in seventh place from seven starts. He made his last IRL start in 1999.

In 1999 he returned to Daytona for the debut of the Corvette C5-R with Corvette Racing. He shared the number 2 car with Ron Fellows and Chris Kneifel, and the trio took third in GT2, and he also raced the Sebring round in the number 3 car with the same pair.

The new millennium saw him return to sports car racing with Dyson Racing once again. He recorded four top-three finishes in that period, his top result a runner-up finish in the 250-mile U.S. Road Racing Classic at Mid-Ohio.

How did Paul's career end?

Paul retired from professional racing in 2001. While testing a Corvette GT-1, he noticed that the car's telemetry did not match his own sense of his inputs. A medical evaluation later confirmed Huntington's disease, a progressive neurological disorder.

In 2018 the racing journalist Sylvia Wilkinson wrote a book about him, 50/50, covering his career and his struggle with the illness. The end came on 29 December 2020, in Woodland Hills, California.

What is Paul's legacy?

Paul's legacy rests on his 1982 IMSA GT title, two Daytona 24 Hours victories and a Michigan 500 win in his fourth IndyCar start. He was also a driver who returned to sportscars after a long break and continued to compete at a high level into the late 1990s.

He returned to sportscar racing in 1989 and won again in 1996 and 1997, before his final IRL start in 1999.

Season by season, what did Paul's career look like?