03/17/2026
We thought he'd live forever. Farewell, champion.
"Robert Charles "Bob" Tullius, December 7, 1930, Rochester, New York, passed away peacefully at his home in Port Orange, Florida on March 16, 2026, at 4:40 a.m. He was 95 years old.
After graduating high school, Tullius served in the United States Air Force, where he quarterbacked the Chanute Air Force Base football team until a leg injury ended his playing career. He later took a position in sales with Kodak, first in Rochester & then in Alexandria, Virginia, where he promptly won Salesman of the Year.
His path to motorsport began almost by accident. In 1960, Tullius bought a Triumph TR3 for his wife, who rarely drove it. He took the car to a racing school himself & won the graduation race.
He never looked back. In 1961 his racing career began in earnest & he quickly made a name for himself. In 1963, Bobโs supervisor at Kodak forced him to choose between his day job & racing, Tullius chose racing.
In 1965, Tullius established Group 44 Inc. in Falls Church, VA with co-founders Brian Fuerstenau, a gifted mechanic & Dick Gilmartin, a New York advertising executive.
What they built over the next 25 years was the model for modern motorsports marketing, the first to see the race team as a brand: securing corporate sponsorships like Quaker State, generating press, involving local dealers, & presenting his cars, transporters, & crew in the now iconic white & green livery with an immaculate standard of professionalism, setting a benchmark for others to strive towards for generations.
Over Group 44's 25 year run, the team accumulated more than 300 victories across SCCA Club Racing, IMSA GTP endurance events, & the Trans-Am series, along with 14 national championships & three Trans-Am titles. Tullius himself drove competitively throughout, appearing in 252 races & posting his final win in the Jaguar XJR-7 at the 1986 3 Hours of Daytona.
His range behind the wheel extended well beyond British machinery: he won the Over 2 Liter class at the first-ever Trans-Am race at Sebring in 1966 in a Dodge Dart, drove the turbine powered Howmet cars at Le Mans, piloted a NART Ferrari 512 BB at Daytona, & ran a Javelin in the NASCAR Grand American series. After the long & celebrated Jaguar partnership concluded, Tullius & Group 44 teamed with Audi, capturing another Trans-Am title with Hurley Haywood in 1988.
Tullius, along with Group 44, brought Jaguar back to Le Mans for the first time in 27 years, campaigning the XJR-5 prototype, a car which Tullius was instrumental in developing. They faced dominant factory Porsches of the eraโwinning the GTP class at Le Mans in 1985. In 1981, Jaguar's founder Sir William Lyons personally presented Tullius with the Sir William Lyons Award in recognition of his contributions to the marque.
Beyond racing, Tullius was a devoted aviator. He boasted a collection of unique aircraft housed first in his Sebring hangar & later in Edgewater, Florida: A North American T-6 Texan, a Fairchild PT-26A, a Waco biplane, a Stearman, a North American T-28 Trojan, & a Beechcraft King Air, in which he had logged several thousand hours of pilot in command time.
He also owned a P-51D Mustang with "Donald Duck," livery painted in the styling of Captain Donald Emerson, a 21-year-old American ace with the 4th Fighter Group who was killed on Christmas Day 1944. Tullius logged more than 1,600 hours in the Mustang & flew it in over 140 airshows before donating it to the Royal Air Force Museum in London in 2003, in memory of Emerson & all his brothers in arms.
His legacy in motorsport was formally recognized many times over. Tullius was inducted into the Sebring Hall of Fame in 2014, the SCCA Hall of Fame in 2015, the British Sports Car Hall of Fame in 2017, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2018, & the IMSA Hall of Fame in 2025. He also served on the SCCA Board of Directors. The definitive account of the team's history, Group 44: Bob Tullius & the Rise of Professional Sports Car Racing in America, was published by Dalton Watson Fine Books.
Bob was a fun loving, charismatic thrill seeker. He had a zeal for life which all who knew him admired and envied. He loved kitties, consistently making generous contributions to local and national humane societies throughout his life & personally fostering over 20 cats himself. He was a beloved friend, mentor, brother, son, father, grandfather & great grandfather. He is survived by his daughter, his daughter in law, his 8 grandchildren, & 3 great grandchildren. Bob was preceded in death by his son, Russel, who passed away on November 4, 2021 at the age of 62.
A celebration of life will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial donations be made to the Humane Society in Bob's name.
For inquiries or to share a memory, please contact the family at [email protected]."
https://www.news-journalonline.com/obituaries/psar1434725?fbclid=IwY2xjawQmrFpleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFLSjROSnE5WElaMng1eUpZc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsEBRGUrEBHuPzSO4iMbjf8y3E3mpGfo0SlQ-HRXh62svrwps8OdG0B2SOo5_aem_ANLcEiB7WkwRZ0SMKgdJ0A
Robert Charles "Bob" Tullius, born December 7, 1930, in Rochester, New York, passed away peacefully at his home in Port Orange, Florida on March...
