The following article was originally published in the April 1972 edition of SportsCar, written by Judy Stropus.
Just “one of the guys”—that’s what they call me. And, if the Women’s Libbers are listening, believe me, I’m liberated. You have to be when you go through life with a calling card like that.
But instead of using a baseball bat or a torque wrench, I wield a very delicate device, called a stopwatch and pencil. I’m better known as the Chief Timer and Scorer of the Penske Racing Team.
I use the term “Chief” rather loosely. I’m not equipped with an entourage of professional assistants, employees or even “gophers.” I don’t have an office staffed with trained personnel to help me with my job. I search for, collect and train prospective timers and scorers from all walks of life as I tour the countryside with the Penske Team.
What a gratifying experience!
This unique profession of mine poked its head into my life when I was a mere teenager, just months after I laid down my baseball bat for the last time. A boyfriend of mine and all our friends in the “neighborhood” were bombing around in their Austin-Healeys, Jaguars, Morgans, MGs, etc. We talked about racing some day, and even found our way south every March to the land of sunshine and the little town of Sebring. We stared and ogled all the superstars—Innes Ireland, Graham Hill, Stirling Moss. I’ll never forget the time I was practically grinding my nose into the tire that the very British Mr. Hill was surveying at the same moment. He grandly looked up at me and said, tipping his Kongol cap, “Hello, how are you?”
I fell backwards into the arms of my friends as I swooned in delight.
Soon I found myself a member of the Queens Sports Car Club, a “clicky” club of would-be amateur racing drivers, timers and scorers, the latter being headed by Lee Sorrentino, a prototype human computer. Lee and her husband Pat were really top notch timers for the New York Region of the SCCA. Then one day Pat handed me a watch at a Regional race at Lime Rock. She explained what was actually going on in this miniature machine in my hand, showed me how to read it and how to subtract. I thought I had learned how to subtract in school, but it was never like this. But I loved it, and one six-hour day and ten races later I was a bona fide regional timer! I had earned my stripes in stopwatchery.
Graduation day came in 1964 with a degree in timing and lap-chart keeping from the Lee Sorrentino School of Chronic Chronographers. In my quest for true devotion to something I could do fairly well, I joined the SCCA that year and became a legitimate timer and scorer.
With a wealth of Regionals, Nationals and one stint at Sebring (under Joe Lane) notched on my stopwatch case, not to mention three years of charting thousands of laps on the amateur side of SCCA, I was finally “discovered” by the pros.
I thought they’d never find me!
Ford Motor Company’s Fran Hernandez was in desperate need of timing information on his Team Cougar cars at the five-hour Trans-Am race at Marlboro, Maryland. And who should be standing there with fingers pointing at her? You guessed it.
I tried it, they liked it, Fran took the chart back to FoMoCo and both he and Bud Moore called the following week, saying, “Come on out to Denver.”
That’s how it all began.
Trans-Am became my thing. The Cougar team saw its demise at the end of the season, and I figured my pro career was finished too.
But, as good luck would have it, I was rediscovered by Jim Jeffords and the 1968 Javelin Team. At Mid-Ohio, that year, a handsome young gentleman by the name of Roger Penske walked up to me and casually asked why I wasn’t working for him. When I regained consciousness, I took the job, and by the year’s end, I was moonlighting for the Penske Team in the Can-Ams while handling the Trans-Am for the red-white-and-blues.
And now after four years and double-thick callouses, I’m considered a “permanent fixture” on the Penske Team.
Did I say gratifying? You bet it is. Just the fact that I’ve never worked anywhere for more than two years is something to marvel at.
An organization that’s so well trained, organized and equipped can only make for smoother operations. It’s done a lot for me, to be sure.
I’ve gone from sitting on an over-turned pail with clipboard and one stubby pencil in hand to a table and chair, magnetic information-displaying board, three super split-second stopwatches (one I use, and the other two for backups) my own timing stand complete with rain protector both for me, my helpers, and a separate one for my charts. We’re even experimenting with two-way radio and earphones.
You’ve come a long way, baby, as they say.
Working with a team weekend after weekend is an experience that would fill volumes of diaries, if I had only started keeping them way back in 1967.
I see Mark when he’s ecstatic, I see him when he’s sad, on the verge of quiet hysteria when things are going wrong, and full of aggressive resolve to find a remedy for trouble. I see him when he’s a practical joker, cavorting with his teammates or dousing them with water and being hosed down in return. And I see him when the car is behind and he’s got to get on the loud-pedal and fight his way back into contention.
I see Roger when he’s stern, demanding and determined. And mostly he’s right. I see him when he’s so overjoyed with a victory that he can’t stop talking and thanking every individual member on the team personally. I see him giving the old “psyche treatment” to his competitors. Particularly Bud Moore and Parnelli Jones. I see him practicing pit stops over and over “til it’s right.”
I see the guys, mechanics and gophers both, as well as those devoted followers we seem to find race after race, working into the night to put it all together, settling for two hours of shuteye and still showing up at 6:30 a.m. bright-eyed and eager to get back into things. I see the guys when they’re so tired after a win, that they collapse at the dinner table from exhaustion.
But primarily I see the team as a unit, from its famous driver down to the timer and scorer. I see a team that works together well, that laughs together, that enjoys the job, whatever it may be.
I’m just one of the guys—and I love it.
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Judy Stropus is a member of the Road Racing Drivers Club and credited with bringing the art of race timing and scoring into the 20th century. Despite changes in technology, Timing and Scoring is still a valuable art required at all SCCA competitive events. Contact your local region for more information about timing and scoring opportunities within SCCA.
