John Fitch

John Cooper Fitch (4 August 1917 - 31 October 2012): American racing driver from Indianapolis, Indiana, a descendant of John Fitch, the inventor of the steamboat, whose step-father was an executive with the Stutz car company. Fitch witnessed auto racing at an early age, attending the Indianapolis 500 race in the passenger seat of a Stutz Bearcat. He was a decorated World War II fighter and bomber pilot and ex-POW before he started racing after World War II. He was the Sports Car Club of America's first national champion in 1951.

In the course of a driving career spanning 18 years, Fitch won such notable sports car races as the Gran Premio de Eva Duarte Perón - Sport, 1953 12 Hours of Sebring, 1955 Mille Miglia (production car class), and the 1955 RAC Tourist Trophy. In 1955 Fitch raced for the Mercedes-Benz sports car team along with Juan Manuel Fangio, Karl Kling, and Stirling Moss, arguably the most formidable racing team ever. That year Fitch won the production class at the Mille Miglia in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, coming in fifth overall behind his teammates Moss and Fangio. He competed in two World Championship Grands Prix, entering the Italian Grand Prix in 1953 and 1955, retiring in his first attempt and finishing 9th in his second.

When Mercedes-Benz left racing in 1955 after the tragedy at Le Mans, Fitch was picked by GM to manage the then-new Chevrolet Corvette racing team and drive for the team right through the 1960 season. After the 1955 Le Mans disaster (which he was an eyewitness to), Fitch became a safety advocate and founded the driver safety company Impact Attenuation Inc. Most notably is the Fitch Barrier system, a type of impact attenuator consisting of a sand- or water-filled plastic barrel, now ubiquitous on American highways. Fitch continued to race in Corvette, Jaguar, Maserati, Porsche, Lister, and Cooper race cars right through the 1966 Sebring race, after which he chose to retire from driving.

He was the managing director for the Lime Rock Park race track for a number of years.