Bob Schroeder, the only Arkansas-born driver to ever participate in a World Championship Formula One event—the 1962 U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen—passed away in a Dallas hospital on December 3, 2011, at the age of 85. Born Robert Edward Schroeder in El Dorado, Arkansas, on May 11, 1926, Bob served in the U.S. Marine Corps during WW2, then moved to Houston, where he worked in the then booming air-conditioning industry. By 1952 the sports car bug had bitten him.
Schroeder bought his first sports car, a new 1952 Jaguar XK-120, from Big Jim Hall of Houston and promptly entered it at Caddo Mills, east of Dallas, in January 1953. The race was won by Carroll Shelby in an Allard-Cadillac, but Schroeder acquitted himself well. He soon became the Activities Chairman of the Houston-based San Jacinto Region of the SCCA, organizing race events at Mansfield, Louisiana, and by 1957, at Galveston’s Scholes Field. Additional rides came in Big Jim Hall’s Allard/Chrysler in 1953 and Warren Layne’s cycle-winged Alfa Romeo Special in 1955, but by 1956 Schroeder built a new sports car for himself, helped by Dale Burt, a Houston midget driver. It was based on a Kurtis chassis with a 6.2-liter Buick engine and equipped with disc brakes. Unfortunately, the Goodyear aircraft calipers never worked as intended, although a number of BM class wins were scored during the 1957 season.
Early in 1958 Schroeder moved from Houston to Dallas, starting work at the Shelby/Hall dealership. Active racing depended on what mount was available, since his employer, Young Jim Hall (not related to Big Jim), had first choice. Whenever Hall was not available, Schroeder raced the agency’s Chevy-engined Ferrari Monza and Lister/Chevy in 1958 and 1959. He was also invited to drive Ebb Rose’s Maserati 300S at Pomona in 1959.
By 1960 the dealership’s founder, Dick Hall, took over the running of the older of the two Birdcage Maseratis on the premises. Schroeder drove it frequently and took it to victories in the Carrera del Alamo preliminary at Hondo and the Louisiana Grand Prix at Hammond, both in 1961.
When Dick Hall pulled out of competition, Schroeder joined the new stable of Houston wildcatter John Mecom in 1962, first racing a production Corvette, then later a 1.3-liter Alfa Romeo-engined de Tomaso Formula Senior that he took to overall wins in the Sunburn Races at Green Valley near Fort Worth, and in the Louisiana Grand Prix at Hammond that year.
Deciding to enter the 1962 USGP, Mecom leased a Lotus 24 with V8 Climax engine from Rob Walker. Walker mechanic Alf Francis prepared the car, but the engine vibrated excessively and magneto problems slowed it down on the straights. Schroeder qualified 17th and finished 10th. The engine was sent back to England, but showed no improvement during that November’s Mexican Grand Prix, a non-Championship event. Qualifying 11th fastest, Schroeder finished 6th in spite of the car’s lower left wishbone disintegrating in the final laps, a malady that may well have been the cause of Ricardo Rodriguez’s fatal accident in another Rob Walker Lotus/Climax that weekend.
Mexico proved to be Schroeder’s final race. Earlier in the year Dick Hall had helped him secure the Goodyear tire dealership for seven states around the Southwest. Sharing his Dallas premises with master mechanic John Miller, Schroeder continued to follow the racing scene with his tire business for the next couple of decades until retiring from the business a few years ago.
By Willem Oosthoek
