In 1983, the DeAtley Motorsports team of Chevrolet Camaro unveiled their new team.
Their approach was to take widely available parts and turn it into an unbeatable program. Neil DeAtley was known as a very nice guy, not someone who would go out and beat up on all the other teams.
He hired John Dick to be team manager and oversee veteran driver David Hobbs and rookie Willy T. Ribbs with a third car driven by John Paul Jr. for his undefeated 1-0 record in Trans-Am in his rookie appearance. Jerry Brassfield also drove for the team in the third car.
David Hobbs says his season with DeAtely came rather out of the blue but worked out well, getting his first win for the team at Summit Point. That put him in the points lead that he held for the rest of the season.
At Sears Point, David again got the lead early and kept it till the end. Hobbs won again at Road America, and in between Willy won Round 4, Round 6, and Round 8 as well.
Round 9 went to John Paul Jr., and then at Sears Point Willy won again. At Riverside, David won the race, which locked up the championship for the team. David says the 1983 Riverside race was the last significant race he ever won.
David Hobbs won the championship at age 44, with his prior championship being Formula 5000 in 1971.
DeAtley enjoyed sponsorship from Budweiser, Fischer Engineering, and Goodyear Tires.
Willy T. Ribbs won 1983 Rookie of the Year.
The DeAtley Motorsports
Team
The DeAtley Budweiser Camaros were raced hard, all through 1983.
The #29 car, driven by David Hobbs, won the Trans-Am Championship.
The # 30 car was driven by John Paul Jr. and several other drivers during the year.
In subsequent years, the two cars were raced by a number of hard-charging drivers. The cars were tired.
The new owners, Steve Link (#29) and Cary Eisenlohr #30), made a committment to automotive history and delivered the cars to David Ward for a complete restoratation.
After months of hard work (documented on the RESTORATION pages) the "new" cars were debuted at the 2019 Long Beach Grand Prix.
T/A 83 003 John Paul Jr. # 30
The Headline reads "Paul Jr. wins first ever Trans-Am."
It would be his only T/A win. John Paul Jr. followed his father John Paul Sr., who won a T/A at Trois Rivieres in 1979, one to remember as he cruised to victory in the Trans-Am portion of the Labatts Grand Prix in Round 9 on September 5th.
He was teamed with Willy T. Ribbs since Hobbs had to race at SPA that weekend. Qualifying 7th, he wasted little time moving through the pack. He was up to 2nd after 1st lap incidents.
John Paul Jr. took the lead on lap 8 and continued to build a lead. Tom Gloy in his Mercury Capri stayed within striking distance until lap 29 out of 35. He pitted for a right front wheel issue. At the end, local favorite Richard Spenard took 2nd and EFR defending series champion took 3rd.
The car went really well all day, said Paul. The brakes went away about 8 laps from the end and second gear was pretty much gone, too. But the DeAtley/Budweiser crew did a superb job all weekend.
