Wilford Fitzsimmons:WILF FITZSIMMONS, who has died in his 98th year, was the competition manager for Irish motor sport for the Royal Irish Automobile Club (RIAC) for 17 years from 1971. He was a member of the club for more than 60 years. Born in Dublin, as a child he could remember being in the garden of Gracefields, the Fitzsimmons's home in Ballsbridge, and hearing the newsvendors calling out that the first World War was over. His mother told him to go down on his knees and give thanks.
His father and a friend had established the Educational Company of Ireland which published school books and also owned the Talbot Press. He was later joined in the business by his two sons, William and Wilf.
The young Wilf showed an early interest in cars, driving his father around Dublin when he was still too young to have a licence. He acquired a Bugatti Brescia when he was at Trinity College at the beginning of the 1930s. After Fitzsimmons, the car passed through various owners, ending up in a museum in Sweden, from where it finally returned to Ireland. Fitzsimmons and Bugatti were reunited at the Phoenix Park motor races.
In 1938, Fitzsimmons won the inaugural Hewison Memorial Trophy (the RIAC Irish autotest championship), and he won it again 10 years later. He was also a member of the team that drove for Lincoln and Nolan, the Austin importers, in the Circuit of Ireland rally, and was the navigator for Jimmy Millard in the Monte Carlo rally.When the Educational Company of Ireland was taken over by Smurfits in the 1950s, Fitzsimmons became involved in the administration of motor sport with the RIAC. During the Troubles he saw to it that the sport encompassed the whole of Ireland, North and South.
Fitzsimmons was predeceased by his first wife Doreen and by his second wife Lucy. He is survived by the twin daughters of his first marriage, Ann and Barbara.
Wilford Jason Fitzsimmons, born May 15th, 1913; died August 7th, 2010