Documentary tells story of auto racing pioneer Willy T. Ribbs, who broke sport's color barrier

Throughout a trailblazing career, Willy T. Ribbs met animosity head-on. As the first African-American to test a Formula One car and compete in the Indy 500, that meant throwing his share of punches.

Ribbs faced more opposition than he even realized. That was the biggest revelation Ribbs, now 65 and living in Driftwood, had during the making of the new documentary “Uppity: The Willy T. Ribbs Story,” directed by Adam Carolla and Nate Adams.

From racist taunts to sneering rivals, crooked engineers and institutional prejudice, the film follows the fascinating path Ribbs traveled during the late-1970s through the early ‘90s as he clashed with a sport and a culture that had never seen anything like him.

“I haven’t forgotten it,” he said. “I’m not going to lay down and cry about it, but I certainly haven’t forgotten it.”

Ribbs never took much interest in convincing his haters to rethink their positions, an attitude that both fueled his success and at times stoked the flames of hatred. The hard lessons learned from his no-nonsense grandfather, plumbing contractor Henry Ribbs, combined with a pinch of brashness borrowed from hero and mentor Muhammad Ali made up a personality that was unmistakably Willy T.

“If you want to provoke me with the N-word and your hostility, I’m gonna give it to you right back,” he said. “That’s how I was raised.”

Interviews with characters like Paul Newman, Bernie Ecclestone, Caitlyn Jenner and the Unser family give the film flavor, but Ribbs outshines them all. In excerpts from 16 hours of interviews recorded over two days in 2017, he’s still every bit the fiery figure friends and rivals describe.

And if there’s a secondary star, it’s Ribbs’ depiction of his stoic grandfather.

“He wasn’t a doting man,” Willy said. “He demanded of you. He was real tough about it. You didn’t get praise from him. You got, ‘Good, what could you have done better?’”

Born in Louisiana in 1899 to a white German-American father and an African-American mother, Henry Ribbs set out for Hawaii but settled in San Jose, California in the early 1920s. Wealth accumulated from his plumbing business allowed son William Theodore Ribbs Sr. to pick up racing as a hobby, and afforded his teenage grandson to move to England in 1975 to pursue a Formula One dream.

Ribbs credits British announcer Anthony Marsh as the first to call him “Willy T.” The name stuck, but Ribbs ran out of funds before he could capitalize on Formula Ford success. Back in the U.S., he found the motorsports landscape — with its roots in the deep South — to be much more hostile than Europe.

Ribbs enjoyed success in the Trans-Am Series, where he won 17 races. But for every Jim Trueman — the Red Roof Inn founder was a major backer — there seemed to be many more powerful figures blocking Ribbs from the more popular NASCAR and Indy series.

In 1986, he had a successful F1 test in Portugal with Ecclestone’s Brabham team, though the mogul never offered a contract.

In 1991, he realized his dream of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 while driving a car funded by comedian Bill Cosby, and in 1993 Ribbs became the first African-American to finish the Indy 500. Still, he never had the same resources as his competitors at the sport’s upper levels.

“There was no doubt that me being in a team like Penske, I would have won Indy without a doubt,” Ribbs said. “I don’t know about Formula One because it’s really political and you have to be at the right place at the right time. To be world champion was always my goal, but I knew that would’ve been the toughest one. But no question, winning Indy would’ve been a done deal with Roger Penske. When I came into Indy cars, I was a winning driver. I don’t know why Penske didn’t sign me.”

Ribbs and his wife have lived in Central Texas for nearly 15 years, making for easy travel to the annual F1 U.S. Grand Prix that has been held at Circuit of the Americas since 2012. He’s been a guest of six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton for several of them.

During one of those Austin weekends, Anthony Hamilton pulled Ribbs aside.

“I want you to know that you’re one of the reasons I wanted Lewis to be a race driver,” Ribbs recalls the elder Hamilton saying.

Ribbs’ legacy is not lost on the most decorated driver in modern racing. “Uppity” delivers a fitting ode as well as, sadly, an introduction for far too many to Willy T. Ribbs. The film is available to stream, or can be purchased as a DVD or Blu-Ray, at Chassy.com.