RRDC president Bobby Rahal made the presentation at the annual RRDC members’ dinner on Jan. 24 prior to the running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the season opener of the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
The Phil Hill Award has been presented annually since 1993 to the person who the RRDC feels has rendered outstanding service to road racing. The recipient may be a driver, entrant or outstanding member of a sanctioning body.
It is named in honor of America’s first Formula 1 World Champion in 1961 and is not only a tribute to his masterful accomplishments on the race track, it also recognizes his contributions as a great ambassador for the sport. Hill passed away in 2008.
Hobbs, born in Leamington Spa, U.K., in 1939, started racing in his mother’s Morris Oxford in 1959, then extended his driving career to the U.S. FastMasters Championship in 1993.
His racing accomplishments include winning the SCCA Trans-Am championship with five victories in 1983, 11 victories in IMSA Camel GT competition, three third-place finishes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and 22 race wins in a seven-year Formula 5000 career. He’s second on the all-time Formula 5000 win list, winning the 1971 championship. in his Formula 1 debut in Syracuse, Sicily, in 1966, he finished third. He also set a British closed-course speed record of 167.5 mph driving the then-secret Jaguar XJ13 in 1967, a record that lasted for 19 years.
Hobbs, who now lives in Florida with wife Margaret, also competed in four Indy 500 races, finishing fifth in 1974.
As a popular television analyst and color commentator since 1976, Hobbs has appeared on 17 consecutive Daytona 500 broadcasts on CBS, including the 1979 Daytona 500, the first live, flag-to-flag telecast of a NASCAR Winston Cup race. This race and the large audience rating it received became a benchmark in the television coverage of auto racing in the U.S.
He also co-hosted live coverage of Formula 1 racing on the Speed Channel network and also provided commentary on Le Mans, Pro Sports Car and SCCA events. In 1987 he joined ESPN to provide coverage of Formula 1, Le Mans and several U.S. racing series.
Most recently, the affable broadcaster co-hosted live coverage of the Formula 1 races from 2013-2017 on NBCSports, alongside Leigh Diffey and Steve Matchett.
Source : speedsport.com