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The Early Days of FF

Skip Barber earned his invitation to the Runoffs in 1969 by sweeping the Northeast Division’s Formula Ford championship with this Caldwell D9. Photo: PHOTOS COURTESY SKIP BARBER

My first exposure to Formula Ford came as a lot of us began hearing about how neat it was in Britain, and certainly in 1968 I was aware of all the car importers and the future American manufacturers getting started in the class. By 1968, my career racing sports cars had effectively stopped, so I took what I considered a step backward into Formula Ford.

That turned out to be a good move, and I ended up being paid to race Formula Fords. All the little American formula car manufacturers saw the class as their salvation in terms of production, and all kinds of people built cars for 1969. Everyone looked at Formula Ford as a growing market into which they could sell both cars and parts, and that only fueled its growth.

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