Exclusive: Ford CEO jimfarley98 on turning pro in a race car.
It is not every day you see a 60-year-old man begin a career as a professional athlete. Nor is it every day you see the CEO of one of the most storied companies in all of history put himself into the fray, in a pro motor race. But that’s what you’ll see this weekend at the Roar Before the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the opening kickoff of the IMSA season.
Farley’s story as a driver goes back about 15 years, to when he was rising in the ranks at Toyota. He used to buy and sell Cobras to make extra cash. One day he found an FIA Cobra that had been crashed by Ken Miles at Elkhart Lake, back in the 60s. The owner thought it would be good karma if Farley brought the car back to Elkhart Lake, and raced it there again. So Farley bought the car, did some restoration work, got his competition license, and off he went.
Soon after, he went to work for Ford of Europe. “The vintage racing scene is very different over there,” he says. “Everyone’s crashing into each other. Half the field is ex-professional. I got a 2-liter car and I started racing pretty much every other weekend. We would go to Monza and Spa—all these great racetracks that I had always read about.” He went from the back of the pack, over time, to the front. “It was a great way for my family to see Europe,” he says. “And I got really competitive.
He points to all the reasons why he believes motorsport makes him better at his job. “I’m more relevant to our designers and our engineers. I’m not some disconnected CEO. All weekend, I talk about cars. It keeps me fresh, being around car people. I’m not at a country club playing golf. I’m with my people. The most intense users. That helps me with my roll. I feel like I am a better executive because I go through the same process that our professional drivers do to prepare for a race.
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