Driver’s Spotlight – Bill Tubbs

This edition of the Sacramento Chapter SCCA Driver’s Spotlight Bill Tubbs has agreed to share a bit about himself and his autocross career and accomplishments.

Bill Tubbs, who you may know as the man that drives the Mini Cooper S and the Fiat Abarth. For the past ten years, he has participated in AutoX with these same vehicles.

He was first introduced to this sport in 2013, by scrolling through Facebook where he saw a post about an event at Mather. He decided to give it a try, since he had just purchased his Abarth. What other reason is there? After that, he was hooked.

Bill shared that although he does not have any rituals or superstitions during race days, he will be found listening to “Good ol’ boy music. Country Rock or Classic Rock is the best!” Bill is an admirer or fine vehicles and stated that his dream car for the   me being, would be a 1955 Mercedes 300 SL Gull wing, however, he has a problem determining exactly what one would be his preferred, because no ma  er which single one he would pick, he would want a different one shortly after anyway.

Mr. Bill Tubbs is a man of various interesting hobbies and talents. While not racing, he enjoys home brewing, ham radio, photography, model railroading (he even has a real caboose in his front yard), as well as playing the bag pipes. (Ask him about how he met his lovely wife Liz and how it all started with the bagpipes).

Bill was asked “If you could have dinner with one person, living or passed on, who would it be?.” His very insightful answer was, he would like to have dinner with himself in twenty years. That way he could learn what he should have done differently. He is someone who believes life is about constantly learning. His advice that he would give to anyone that is new to the SCCA Sacramento chapter, is “Watch and learn. Ask and learn. Do and learn.” To go along with his love and passion for learning, the cars that he enjoys watching the most on race weekends, are all of them. That way, he can keep learning.

A racing accomplishment he is most proud of is that he placed in all of his AutoX events. He holds this as a memorable accomplishment because it is an attainable goal, that happens to be fun to do. He thinks the people are fun and they do not take it too seriously, so the fun parts do not get spoiled.

If he were of the K9 variety, his choice would be a Labrador. Speaking of animals, if King Kong and Godzilla were in a race, he is of the opinion that Godzilla would win because he is Japanese and would have be  er tech “know-how” over King Kong. If Bill were to have one superpower, he would choose to be mechanically capable.

Bill’s favorite memory of an autocross event weekend was when it rained heavily in Stockton, where the “li  le guys ruled.” One thing that he thinks that everyone should try at least once is auto crossing. Come out. The worst that could happen is you hit a cone and you learn what your car is capable of. (There he goes with that learning thing again!)

His favorite travel destination is Cabo where he and Liz really enjoy their time, there together. Bill shared that his dream travel destination is Europe. All of Europe.

Thank you to Bill for sharing a li  le about himself with the racing family of Sacramento Chapter SCCA.