Robert Barkhimer (March 2, 1916 – June 17, 2006), nicknamed "Barky", was a promoter on the West Coast of the United States. He was born in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. His career started as a

midget car Midget cars, also speedcars in Australia, is a class of racing cars. The cars are very small with a very high power-to-weight ratio and typically use four cylinder engines. They originated in the United States in the 1930s and are raced on m ...

racer and ended as a senior vice president at

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

Racing career

Barkhimer was a 21-year-old newlywed when he went with his wife to car races at

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 ...

. It was his first time attending

races, and the third time he attended a racing event. He was puzzled what circus

midget Midget (from ''midge'', a tiny biting insect) is a term for a person of unusually short stature that is considered by some to be pejorative due to its etymology. While not a medical term like "dwarfism", a medical condition with a number of ca ...

s had to do with racing.Lap #1 How Barky Got Started RACING
, Davis Motorsports, reminiscence by Bob Barkhimer, former race driver and Business Manager for BCRA (Bay Cities Racing Association) and NASCAR co-founder He was hooked and he wanted to race a midget racecar. He was unable to obtain a car. He found a racecar owner named Delucci who was not paid for a car he had sold. Barkhimer could run the midget car if he would repossess the car. Barkhimer located the car dismantled in boxes. Barkhimer loaded up the car and took it the car home. Barkhimer was not a

mechanic A mechanic is an artisan, skilled tradesperson, or technician who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially cars. Duties Most mechanics specialize in a particular field, such as auto body mechanics, air conditioning an ...

, but he found a local racer named Jimmy Aiten to help assemble the midget car if Aiten could drive it. That Tuesday night Aiten raced the car at Neptune Beach Speedway. The car ran well in the heat race for two laps before it slowed. The same thing happened in the semi-feature. They determined that they were using the wrong spark plugs. At the races the following week, the engine threw a connecting rod out of the side of the

engine block In an internal combustion engine, the engine block is the structure which contains the cylinders and other components. In an early automotive engine, the engine block consisted of just the cylinder block, to which a separate crankcase was attac ...

, wrecking the engine. They gave the car back to Delucci. Barkhimer and Aiten purchased a midget car. After Aiten raced the car one night, he accepted an offer to race a different car on the day of the second race. Barkhimer was forced to race his racecar even though he had never raced before. He borrowed a

football helmet The football helmet is a piece of protective equipment used mainly in gridiron football, although a structural variation has occasional use in Australian rules football. It consists of a hard plastic shell with thick padding on the inside, a ...

and sat in the car on the inside front row. He quickly fell from the first starting position to last place. His racing skills developed to the point that he became the Bay City Racing Association (BCRA) champion in 1945. He won six events that season. He won ten events in 1946, and four in 1947 before he got injured.

Promoter

In 1948 Barkhimer quit racing to become the Business Manager for BCRA. In 1949 Barkhimer took over San Jose Speedway. San Jose was losing fans. Barkhimer saw that midgets were losing their appeal, so he ended the midget class in favor of a hardtop late model

stock car Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks and road courses measuring approximately . It originally used production-model cars, hence the name "stock car", but is now run using cars specifically built for racing. It ori ...

division.Biography
at the

West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame The West Coast Stock Car Hall Of Fame is a Hall of Fame for people associated with late-model stock car racing on the West Coast of the United States. Many NASCAR Grand National Division, West Series champions are inducted in the Hall of Fame. The ...

, dated 2002, Retrieved December 16, 2007 They were a hit and the crowds returned. Also in 1949, Barkhimer and Jerry Piper started their own association called California Stock Car Racing Association (CSCRA).Robert Barkhimer -- brought NASCAR to West
Marshall Wilson,

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

, June 25, 2006, Retrieved December 17, 2007 He eventually promoted 21 or 22 racetracks on the West Coast. In 1954 Bill France Jr., son of NASCAR found

Bill France, Sr. William Henry Getty France (September 26, 1909 – June 7, 1992), also known as Bill France Sr. or Big Bill, was an American businessman and racing driver. He is best known for founding and managing NASCAR, a sanctioning body of US-based stock ca ...

, was stationed on the West Coast while serving in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. He was stationed at the northern California Navy Air Base known as

Moffett Field Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10 ...

. The elder France had his son talk with Barkhimer. Barkhimer, his partner Margo Burke, and the younger France went to races together and hung out on weekends. The friendship led to Barkhimer going to Daytona Beach, Florida to meet with the elder France and to watch a race at the Daytona Beach Road Course. France and Barkhimer discussed uniform rules and guaranteed payout for drivers. That meeting resulted in ten of Barkhimer's tracks becoming NASCAR sanctioned. The first track was Stockton 99, and tracks in Oakland,

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

, San Jose and Hughes Stadium in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

soon followed.Pioneer honored
Stockton 99 Speedway; July 1, 2006; Retrieved December 16, 2007 Barkhimer became a Senior Vice President in NASCAR. During his career, he had also promoted

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

, car shows, roller derbies, and

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

.Robert "Barky" Barkhimer
; historicracing.com; Retrieved December 16, 2007 He retired after his first wife died in 1976. He had promoted 3000 races in his career. Barkhimer and Burke sold out to Ken Clapp. After retiring, he traveled and wrote stories about the early years of racing.

Personal life

He married the former Mary Cecil Slattery of Alameda in 1936.Robert Barkhimer -- brought NASCAR to West
Marshall Wilson,

; June 25, 2006; Retrieved December 16, 2007 After she died, he married Jean Hightower in 1980. She died in 2005. Barkhimer had a son, Bill, and three daughters, Shirley, Bonnie, and Judy.

Awards

He was inducted in the

in its first class in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barkhimer, Bob NASCAR people 1916 births 2006 deaths Sportspeople from Berkeley, California