Thirty years ago, Rob Dyson raced a 1983 Firebird in his first professional race at the IMSA Coca-Cola Three Hours of Lime Rock. He had been racing in the SCCA since 1974 but moved into professional racing on that Memorial Day. Of the thirty-seven cars entered that day, only one team still racing today: Dyson Racing.

The team will be officially commemorating its thirtieth anniversary at the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park this weekend.

Many of the team’s milestones over the past thirty years have occurred at Lime Rock Park, their home track with their shop less than an hour away. Two years after first running the 1983 Firebird (pictured right), Rob Dyson moved up to an IMSA GTP Porsche 962 and debuted the car at Lime Rock in May of 1985 and won the first time out.

The following year, the Lime Rock GTP race was the first professional pole for the team. The team also gave Mazda its first P2 victory at Lime Rock in 2009. And Lime Rock is special for Chris Dyson as he began his racing career here at the age of seventeen in the Skip Barber Racing School and scored his earliest SCCA victories.

Recent years have seen the continuation of the team’s winning ways at Lime Rock. Chris Dyson won the P1 pole in 2011, and Guy Smith set fastest lap on the way to a dominant win, the pair leading 165 laps of the 187 lap race. Last year, Guy Smith set a pole record and Chris and Guy finished second and the team won the Michelin Green X challenge.

The history of Dyson Racing provides a comprehensive overview of sports car racing in North America for the past thirty years. The team has won championships and races in the American Le Mans Series, International Motor Sports Association, Grand-Am, World Sports Car, the United States Road Racing Championship, and World Sports Car. All told: nineteen championships, seventy victories, sixty-eight poles and two hundred and eight podiums. Past drivers include James Weaver, Butch Leitzinger, Andy Wallace, Marino Franchitti, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Bobby Rahal, Price Cobb, Drake Olson, Johnny Dumfries, Oliver Gavin, Jan Lammers, John Paul, Jr., Scott Pruett, Dorsey Schroeder, Vern Schuppan, Max Papis, Andy Lally, Hurley Haywood, Ron Fellows, and Scott Sharp.

“I remember when it was just me and Pat Smith. We would leave at 5:00 in the afternoon and drive all night to Nelson Ledges or Summit Point,” Rod Dyson said.

“We would sleep in the truck since we were too late for a hotel. I smile when I think about how much we did not know and how much we were learning every weekend.

“Every chapter of our team’s history has been different, but at all times, there has always been that one constant spark of emotion of absolutely wanting to compete with passion and to win.”