Bob Tullius

Tullius placed second in the TR4 in its first race at Lime Rock, but on its next outing at Lake Garnett, the car was totaled.

He would soon become the principal driver for Triumph's North American Competition Director Kas Kastner.

In 1965 Tullius established his own racing team, named Group 44 Incorporated, to pursue his chosen vocation while supporting his family.

Co-founders included mechanic Brian Fuerstenau and New York advertising executive Dick Gilmartin, both of whom were also racing drivers.

Tullius originally asked the SCCA for permission to use the number 1 on his cars because it could be applied with a single line of tape, but was denied.

Group 44 is exclusively associated with vehicles from British Leyland, initially fielding Triumph TRs and Spitfires and later campaigning models from MG and Jaguar.

Tullius personally raced cars from a wide range of manufacturers, including Alpine, AMC, Chevrolet, Dodge, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Plymouth, Porsche, Ferrari, and Ford.

At the inaugural Trans-Am Sedan Championship race on March 25, 1966 at Sebring, Tullius finished second overall and first in the Over 2.0 Litre class in a Dodge Dart.

In the final years of Trans-Am Tullius drove Herb Adams' Gray Ghost Pontiac Tempest.

[14] Three times he was on the pole of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he also won the 1985 GTP class with a 13th-place finish.

He became a World War II airplane enthusiast, and participated in several Warbird Air Shows.

[16] Among them were a North American T-6 Texan, a Fairchild PT-26A, a Waco ZPF-6 biplane and a Beechcraft King Air twin in which he had logged several thousand hours of pilot-in-command time.