Elliott Forbes-Robinson Recalls Capturing Inaugural ALMS Prototype Championship

A shining oasis rising out of the Nevada desert, Las Vegas is a city rich with history and thrilling adventure. While Sin City’s repertoire of activities is vast, some of its most exciting times happened on the road course at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. One such example took place in 1999, at the conclusion of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) season.

“The facility was amazing, a beautiful place, and the atmosphere between the track and what happens in the town of Las Vegas – it was so special,” former racing driver and current IMSA official Elliott Forbes-Robinson recalled.

Forbes-Robinson, driving a Dyson Racing Riley & Scott Mk III/Ford with co-driver James Weaver, entered the finale leading the Prototype class driver point standings by just three points.

“You have to understand the circumstances of the race,” he explained, “because it came down to a couple of us that could have won the ALMS championship that year. Don Panoz had two cars entered, and I was in one of Rob Dyson’s cars. Truth be told, it was even more than that going for the championship, very tight. It was a really important weekend for us.”

The Friday of qualifying, Forbes-Robinson and Weaver were dealt a bad hand when an ignition problem prevented them from qualifying. The pair ended up starting the race in eighth place, while David Brabham and Eric Bernard, Forbes-Robinson’s closest championship challengers, started on the pole in the mighty Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S.

The pair of Panoz prototypes dominated the early segment of the race, and Brabham and Bernard took over the top spot in points when Weaver hit the pits sooner than expected due to a potential issue with the fuel pump and Forbes-Robinson took over driving duties. The problem seemed to take care of itself for the most part, though, as he continued driving a smooth set of stints.

Drama was not so evasive for Forbes-Robinson’s championship rivals, however. Around halfway through the race, Bernard was involved in contact with a GT car and had to pit for repairs.

“As the race went on, we looked good for a while, they looked good for a while, but then they had an issue, and I thought ‘oh boy, we’re good’,” Forbes-Robinson remembered. “But then they got it fixed and got back out, and we weren’t good again. It was really a stressful day there.”

The challenging Panoz did return to the race, albeit several spots down from the Dyson. It apparently was not meant to be, though, as the charging Panoz returned to the pits with just over 15 minutes remaining in the race, this time for good.

“Their car ended up overheating, and they had to stop, so we ended up winning the championship,” said Forbes-Robinson.

Weaver brought the Riley & Scott Mk III/Ford home safely to finish in sixth, earning his co-driver the championship, while a pair of BMW V12 LMRs finished first and second overall.

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“It was one of the high points of my whole career, winning that championship,” Forbes-Robinson said – no light statement for a driver whose career spanned over six decades. “That’s partly because we really shouldn’t have won it – we had a car that was a little bit older and wasn’t as fast. We never won a race that year, but we were always up in the top so we kept getting points. When it came down to the last race, had the Panoz car not had to drop out, we likely wouldn’t have won the championship.”

While he claimed the inaugural ALMS Prototype championship that year, it was far from Forbes-Robinson’s first time racing in Sin City.

“When I started racing many, many years ago, my first race was in Las Vegas at Stardust Raceway. It’s no longer there, it’s now a housing development or something like that, but it was a very cool setting, up on that hill. I’ll always remember it.”

View the full 1999 ALMS race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway here: