On Netflix now, it was produced and co-directed by racing fan, comedian, and filmmaker Adam Carolla. It’s a compelling look at Ribbs’ career, and the challenges he faced on the way to becoming, in 1991, the first African American to drive in the Indianapolis 500.
I didn’t start following Champ Cars until several years later, so I only knew him as a back marker of no particular distinction other than his skin color. I knew nothing of his history.
This film showed me not only his incredible talent, but the strength of character he needed to overcome the racism he confronted from fans, other drivers, sponsors, and sometimes even his own teammates. He had to walk away from his first Indy 500 qualifying attempt because his race engineer refused to communicate with him at all, and Ribbs was worried that the car he was given could have killed him. Literally.
This is the fourth documentary about racing that Carolla has produced, and I have found all of them very well done and informative. I think any racing fans who aren’t flat-out racists will enjoy *Uppity. *
Furthermore, I also believe that people who aren’t racing fans, but are interested in a little-known perspective on racism in late 20th-century America, will find this a powerful and inspiring story.
What I’d like to know is whether anyone is working on a Hollywood biopic on Ribbs. This seems like the perfect time for it. A few years after Carolla’s The 24 Hour War came out, Hollywood made Ford v Ferarri about the same rivalry. So why not Ribbs’ life story?
Thanks for bringing this to my attention; I love good documentaries. I’ll post after I watch it, too.
Until they make a feature, tho, I’ll just go ahead and Double Bill it with an old favorite about another African American race car driver, Wendell Scott: 1977’s Greased Lightning.
Fucking amazing film. Willy T. Ribbs totally fucking rocks! Seriously, I’d really like to meet him; he seems like a great guy. Astonishing story and achievements. Much respect and love for his total commitment to his goals.
Thank you again, commasense! As a stock car fan, I might have let this slip thru the cracks without your prompting.
ETA: I posted this as a review on IMDB and found that of the 9 previous reviews, like 7 were 10/10 and 2 were 9/10; this film is being very well-received. And yeah, it got really dusty or something in my house near the end.
While reading the Wikipedia entry on Willy, I found the page on Wendell Scott, about whom I knew nothing at all. A generation before Ribbs, as an aspiring stock car racer, Scott was also confronted by racism, and was prevented from joining NASCAR at first, simply because he was black. I found it interesting that, after he found a cooperative (white) NASCAR official who gave him a racing license, and started running and winning races, he earned grudging respect from many white fans and racers, in part because of his skills, but also because he took the subservient attitude that was expected of “colored people” in the '50s and early '60s.
[Emphasis mine.]
This was exactly the attitude that Ribbs, 20+ years later, refused to take. If he had been less confrontational, he might not have gained as many enemies, and probably would have been more successful in his racing career. But it would have been at the cost of perpetuating the racing world’s pervasive racism instead of facing and fighting it.
What’s disheartening is how few people of color have succeeded him in North American racing. This page lists 22 African-American racing drivers, but less than half of them followed Ribbs, some of them in other forms of racing, like dragsters and moto-cross. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the fact that, in most forms of racing, drivers need to bring sponsorships to the table, and POC generally aren’t as well connected to the kinds of major companies that sponsor racing.
Without a doubt, the most successful racer of African descent is Fomula One champion Lewis Hamilton, a Briton. It’s no coincidence that Ribbs started his career, won his first races, and came to the attention of the racing world, in England.
So who will we cast as Willy in the biopic? If we could go back in time, there would be one obvious choice: Greg Morris, of Mission: Impossible (the TV series) fame, who was a virtual doppelganger of Ribbs.
Who would be good among today’s up and coming actors?
I would disagree with this characterization; Mr. Scott was not subservient, he was non-confrontational.
I don’t disagree with you, but you have to take into account the changing times. Wendell Scott was FAR more likely to have been beaten or killed than Willy Ribbs ever was. Like, orders of magnitude more likely. It doesn’t surprise me that each took the attitude that they did.
Yeah, but that’s pretty much Jackie Robinson, too. And to just use baseball (though you could use any sport, really, even ones with a non-white majority), white fans love black players who don’t “show boat” but any black players with any personality are labelled as having attitude problems or whatever. And “hard working” white guys are scrappy role models but all black (most Caribbean now) players are just naturally gifted guys who “don’t respect the game.” Could say the same thing to an extent about gay athletes and entertainers - if they are closeted and/or discrete, then they are all about the team and doing things the right way, etc. Being open like anyone else is a “distraction” and so on. Of course, i’m talking about modern times, not the '90s or '50s. Also, as a child of a mixed race family (though white myself), racism in the 1990s was my daily life.
And women have the same issues, too, obviously. Male behavior that’s considered forceful or assertive is labelled as “bossy” or even “bitchy” when a woman does it. Double standards abound.
However, I’m hopeful we’re moving in the right direction, even if we sometimes seem to take one step backward after every two steps forward.
Thanks for the heads up. I remember him well from his SCCA/IMSA career. He was great, and I’ve often kind of wondered why he left the sports car circuit. Turns out, that wasn’t where his heart was. But damn, that was a sweet era for sports car racing in the US, and he was part of why it was so good. I bet he would have been amazing if he could have made his way into endurance racing and prototypes. Hell, screw Indy, he raced sports cars for Gurney. If you do that, you’ve won as a racer. Everything else is gravy
I remember him fighting on track with Pruett, but I somehow missed the coverage of the impromptu almost off-track fight and Ribbs’ suspension. It was kind of great that they got Jenner’s perspective on it, I had actually forgotten that she had raced for Roush an age ago.
Would Ribbs have been more successful in racing if he had more of a “get along” attitude? Hmm, that’s really hard to say. Like it or not, when you are a race car driver, you’re an entertainer, even when you win. Getting along is usually how you get successful in the entertainment business. Getting along wouldn’t have necessarily fixed his lack of financial support, though. His brother noted that he didn’t feel any press was bad press. Ehh, the incident with Pruett probably didn’t help. Large sponsors might hang on after you’ve already won with their name on your hood, but it’s not something new sponsors are going to overlook easily unless you’ve already won multiple championships in an arena larger than sports car racing (or say, Le Mans if you’re going to remain in sports cars). Even if they were selling liquor and cigarettes, they did worry about their image when they were associating it with what was still often seen as a blood sport at the time. They knew (as we all do), that aspect does sell motorsports to a certain percentage of the population*, but they don’t want to seem too close too it if they can.
Either way, the greatest lesson from the doc is: Do not get into a race car hired by Don King. If it’s the Blonde Don King, run away as well. That ends no better.
*Hell, as a competitive driver, if there was absolutely no danger, there’d be less of an attraction as a participant. However, that doesn’t mean that I’d do it without appropriate safety equipment. Living through your screw up rules.
