Robert Clarke, 1949-2025

On Sep 23, 2025

Robert Clarke, the revered builder of Honda Performance Development (HPD), suffered heart failure on Saturday and died at the age of 75.

Creation was at the core of Clarke’s life. Excellence was the byproduct.

“A lot of Honda’s success rests on his shoulders,” said Chip Ganassi, who delivered Honda’s first IndyCar Series championship in 1996 with Jimmy Vasser and its most recent with Alex Palou in 2025. “He wasn’t somebody that made quick decisions. He thought about things and always did the right thing, and did the right thing again.”

At last count, HPD – known today at Honda Racing Corporation US – has produced 298 IndyCar wins from 544 races, 16 Indianapolis 500 victories, 15 Driver’s championships and 11 Manufacturers’ titles along with vast success in sports cars through the Acura brand with wins at all of IMSA’s major endurance races and multiple Manufacturers’, Drivers’ and Teams’ championships. All from its base of operations on a nondescript hilltop north of Los Angeles in the town of Santa Clarita.

Prior to arriving at American Honda Motor Corporation (AHM) in 1981, the Californian studied architecture at Texas Tech University, continued his education at the University of Notre Dame, and remained at the Indiana institution where he became Professor Clarke, teaching art and industrial design.

After spending five years as an educator, Clarke’s eye for detail and interest in motorized vehicles found an outlet in aftermarket motorcycle componentry design, and with his hiring at Honda, the amateur road racer spent the rest of the 1980s in motorcycle accessory and product planning roles. On the heels of Honda’s global success in Formula 1, which was facilitated from its Honda Racing factory in Japan and met its end after the 1992 season, the decision was made to bring Honda’s name back to open-wheel racing, but on the domestic stage in the CART IndyCar Series.

There was one significant problem to solve, however, as AHM lacked a factory of its own to service and support the CART program set in motion for 1994.

Enter AHM executive Tom Elliott.

“Basically, I was the direction guy and the money guy, and Robert was really the hands-on guy,” Elliott said. “He did everything. From the teams to the employees at HPD to the relationship at the time with CART and the rule-making. He was involved in everything hands-on. I was semi hands-on, but nowhere near as much as Robert. He was really the heart of HPD.”

Clarke took great pride in being HPD employee No. 1.

“Mr. (Koichi) Amemiya was the president of American Honda that time,” Elliott continued. “I had put together a concept of how open-wheel racing was going to be Honda and sports car racing was going to be Acura. We didn’t want to do racing in the U.S. the way that Honda did in Formula 1 at the time, because Honda was pretty much running their own team, but we wanted to supply engines and have multiple teams, not just one team. So we put together a budget and that’s when I started looking for somebody to run the place, which was Robert.

“I interviewed I don’t know how many people, a dozen, at least, and then, but Robert had an engineering background. He was interested in cars and racing. He wasn’t a loud guy. He was one of the quiet guys. I knew he was the right guy for the job. So he was the first employee of Honda Performance Development. And then we started looking for places to build the facility.”

Amemiya announced AHM’s CART plans in January of 1993 at the Detroit Auto Show. HPD went live in April with Elliott as its first president and Clarke as general manager and EVP.

The short timeframe facing the ambitious endeavor – Honda’s CART debut would take place 12 months later on March 20, 1994, at Surfers Paradise in Australia – meant Honda Racing in Japan would be responsible for creating its first 2.65-liter turbo V8 engines, code named the HRX.

HPD would receive and care for the motors from its West Coast facility. But first, the facility had to exist. Clarke, drawing from his education in architecture, became the architect of HPD.

“At the time, we’re talking later ‘92, because HPD opened early ’93, we looked outside of American Honda’s location in Torrance,” Elliott continued. “So we looked in Orange County, deep in Orange County, we looked in Northern California, and we looked in Northern LA at the Santa Clarita area, and their housing was affordable. They had good schools. It was growing. So we decided to locate in Santa Clarita, which is about a little over 50 miles from American Honda.

“We originally started with just a handful of employees. Japan was supplying the engines, developing the engines in Japan, and we were doing maintenance and rebuilds at the time. The long-term goal, obviously, was to develop people that we could eventually do our own engines, which we do now, and train people. And Robert was a huge part in developing all of that, getting the people, getting the right people, the building layouts, working with the city.

“I don’t think you have any idea how tough it was to get engine dynos installed in Santa Clarita… and the power grid, and selling power back to the to the city. There was just so many hassles there. And he was a trooper. He handled it all and brought HPD into what it’s known for today.”

Despite the high ambition and excitement surrounding AHM’s entry into CART IndyCar Series competition, Clarke’s exhaustive efforts to create a formidable program were not rewarded as HPD set out on its maiden campaign in 1994.

As the 2000s approached, CART was flooded with massive engine supply programs from Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota. But in 1993, only two competitive solutions were available with Ford at the top of the mountain and Chevrolet, which was leaving at the end of the year.

Honda Racing

Entering 1994, Ford’s Cosworth-built XB engine and the former Chevy powerplant, the unbadged Ilmor D, were the tickets to prosperity. Elliott’s desire to supply multiple teams with Honda’s unproven HRX engine was met with tepid interest; the only taker was 1992 CART champions Rahal-Hogan Racing, which lost its Chevy deal and sought to create something new and special with Honda. The union would be short-lived.

Overweight and underpowered, the HRX-powered Lolas failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, which caused great embarrassment for the team owned by Bobby Rahal and Carl Hogan, their sponsors, and placed immense pressure on Clarke and Elliott to pull HPD out of its year-one nosedive. California’s Comptech Racing, which won multiple IMSA touring car and GTP Lights titles for Acura, was added as a mid-season complement to Rahal-Hogan with Parker Johnstone as the driver, but the squad had a limited impact as it learned a new form of racing.

Prior to Rahal’s home race at Mid-Ohio in August of 1994, a fax was sent by the three-time IndyCar champion informing Honda and HPD of Rahal-Hogan’s intention to split with the company once the championship met its end in October.

Just over a year into the adventure, Clarke had built a nascent IndyCar program featuring a new facility, curried a significant development budget and had factory support to offer teams, but thanks to the high-profile issues at Indianapolis and the grand rejection by Rahal-Hogan, the IndyCar establishment turned its back on HPD.

On approach to 1995, Comptech was retained as a part-time effort, but there were no new takers for Honda and the HRX.

It’s here where Clarke and Elliott used a dose of creativity to solve HPD’s problem: The powerhouse Indy Lights team Tasman Motorsports, champions in 1993-’94, wanted to step up to CART with front-running Brazilian Andre Ribeiro. With no interest among the veteran IndyCar outfits, Tasman would take its formative steps in CART by picking up the baton from Rahal-Hogan and keeping Honda in the game.

Pushed by Clarke and Elliott, a replacement for the unloved HRX was in the works. The lighter and more powerful HRH would be unveiled at the Indy 500, and in the hands of Scott Goodyear in Tasman’s second entry, the Canadian led 42 laps and was capable of winning – one year after Honda failed to make the show – but passed the pace car on a restart and sunk to 14th after serving his penalty.

The late Ribeiro would finish the job Goodyear started later in the year when the HRH propelled Tasman and Honda to their first IndyCar wins at Loudon in New Hampshire, and the timing was important. Ribeiro’s victory with two races left to run fell when some of CART’s top teams were actively negotiating engine deals for 1996, and while Clarke’s phone wasn’t ringing at the same point in 1995, Chip Ganassi and Jim Hall were motivated to join the Honda family and get their hands on the HRH.

By the time the 1996 was over, Ganassi’s Jimmy Vasser was the new CART IndyCar Drivers’ champion, teammate Alex Zanardi was Rookie of the Year, and Clarke, Elliott, Honda, and HPD were feted as the new Manufacturers’ champion. Honda added Walker Racing and Team KOOL Green in 1997 where Zanardi, Walker’s Gil de Ferran, and Vasser completed a Honda 1-2-3, and it was followed by another 1-2-3 with Zanardi leading Vasser and new Team KOOL Green driver Dario Franchitti.

Juan Pablo Montoya took Zanardi’s place at Ganassi and sealed a fourth straight title in 1999 with Honda before Team Penske joined Honda’s CART roster and reeled off two consecutive championships with de Ferran in 2000 and 2001. With CART starting to fade, Honda switched to the Indy Racing League in 2003 where Team KOOL Green, rebadged as Andretti Green Racing, were the leaders of HPD’s assault.

In 2004, AGR’s Tony Kanaan won the championship as he and Franchitti and the late Dan Wheldon were responsible for taking eight victories for Honda from 16 races. The only significant race that eluded AGR was the Indy 500.

That one went to an old friend who made Honda’s first IndyCar start, became an enemy, and came back to deliver Honda’s first Indy 500 win.

“He loved Honda more than anyone and I don’t know of anyone more loyal to Honda and to Honda’s commitment to go IndyCar racing than Robert,” Bobby Rahal said. “There were times that, especially in the early years, where there were some disagreements with Robert, but he had one priority, and that was to do whatever he could to ensure that Honda was successful. That made him a popular guy at times, and that made him an unpopular guy at times. But first and foremost in his mind was what was best for Honda.

“A lot of that success that came was due to his efforts. We didn’t always get along. We didn’t always agree on the same things, but I had a lot of respect for Robert, and that to me was the most important thing. By having that respect, it allowed us to reach out to one another. In the end, whatever difficult times there may have been kind of disappeared. With Indy, it’s kind of like the phoenix rising, right?”

In 2004, with Buddy Rice behind the wheel of the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Racing GForce-Honda, the team and manufacturer captured the biggest race in the world.

“In the end, to come back and then to win Honda’s first Indy 500 I always thought was a bit poetic,” Rahal said. “And despite the ups and downs and disagreements and the agreements, and to come back and then win the race, was truly something that maybe was a little bit unbelievable to believe. Robert was supportive of that, and between ourselves and Honda to have that kind of success and to still be with Honda today, kudos to Robert and everybody at HPD, because in the end, they’re the ones who got us to victory lane. I’m really sorry to see him leave us.”

Promoted to president in 2003, Clarke spent 15 years with HPD before leaving at the end of 2007. His last major act for the company was to launch Acura’s factory program in the American Le Mans Series where former CART mainstays like Andretti Green Racing and Fernandez Racing were joined by Highcroft Racing to lead its LMP2 campaign against the Porsche RS Spyders run by Team Penske and Dyson Racing.

A dream debut was authored by AGR at the Twelve Hours of Sebring where Franchitti, Bryan Herta, and Tony Kanaan won at their first try in the Acura ARX-01a. Friendly across their years in CART and the IRL, Franchitti remembers Clarke as an exacting leader whose artistic underpinnings came forth at unexpected times.

Honda Racing

“He was just a straight shooter and a problem solver, and just a good guy to go in a battle with,” Franchitti said. “He wasn’t a man of many words, but if you got him to laugh… he had this chuckle that was just delightful to hear. His laugh is what came to my head when I learned of his passing. It’s funny, the things that you remember.

“For me, one thing that Robert was so adamant about in ’07 when I did the Acura deal with the wee P2 car – and it was quite a difficult birth, that car, but it was a weapon of a thing – but Robert was fixated on the color of the of the paint we used on our helmets beneath the Acura sticker. Every time I see that bloody helmet, I think of him and just how adamant and how stubborn he was about it needing to have the exact color blue for Acura.

“And I’m like, ‘Robert, I’ve got blue on my helmet.’ Robert’s like, ‘It’s still not the right blue…’ And to me, it was a small thing, but it’s just indicative of the attention to detail that he had about everything. And that’s why the that’s why the trophies came. That’s why the wins came.”

After retiring from open-wheel racing, de Ferran moved into an executive role with Honda’s F1 program, and once that journey was over for the brand, the next step was a return to racing in 2008 with the creation of de Ferran Motorsports’ ALMS LMP2 program for Acura. The team needed a CEO, and de Ferran had one person in mind.

“I think Robert was the first person Gil called,” said Simon Pagenaud, whose Champ Car career stalled and was asked to partner with de Ferran in the ARX-01b. “You know, I was, at first, a bit intimidated by Robert, because… you run HPD a long time… and when Gil called me to be part of the program, I was quite intimidated by Robert because he’d done so much with his career and had such a broad imprint on motorsports. I felt tiny, tiny next to him.

“But when Gil said that Robert was going to run the team and help him with all the setting it all up and recruiting the right people, I knew there was a gauge of seriousness, professionalism, so I was very excited to get to know him better.”

The Frenchman’s appreciation for Clarke would only increase as he got to know the man behind the racing icon.

“He was really involved with Honda and the environment, the ‘Earth Dream’ idea and trying to be very responsible for reducing pollution and improving the ecology,” Pagenaud said. “He was one of the smartest people I met. He became the president of the SCCA and raced himself; he loved cars and driving and he was the first person to tell me about BringATrailer.com in, like, 2008. I think maybe they sold two cars a month at this time, but he said, ‘This idea is going to be so huge in the future,’ and he was right. I swear I go there every day looking at the cars. But there was so much more to Robert than just the racing side. This is the side I really enjoyed to learn about him. He had grand vision.”

The two also developed a ritual that caused Pagenaud to burst into laughter while recounting their pre-race exchanges.

“I always will remember… obviously we got closer and closer after every races, and every action on track and at the shop, too,” he said. “I would be getting in the car, getting ready to race, and Robert would say to me, ‘Simon… whatever you do… don’t f*** it up!’ It became a bit of an inside joke between us, too, because I told him, ‘Robert, that’s the worst thing you could say to a driver…’ So he kept saying it!

“And that’s so funny, because most drivers would get scared when you hear that; you go straight to the negative. But with Robert, the way he said it, the way he did it, it actually was nice. It relieved the pressure.”