John Barnes

Website:  http://www.pantherracing.com

Bio Information

The career of Panther Racing Managing Partner and CEO John Barnes has come full circle over 40 years after it began. The IndyCar veteran, who started out as a parts-chaser in the late 1960s, was inspired to follow the sport when the best man in his father’s wedding, a soldier in the National Guard, brought him along as he visited nearby racetracks during off weekends. Those trips cultivated a love of the sport and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway within Barnes at a young age, and now as he enters one of the most anticipated seasons in his team’s history, he is again dependent upon soldiers of the National Guard – over 367,000 of them - to keep his racing career, and the team he so loves, on the right track.

Barnes, fellow team owners Mike Griffin and Jim Harbaugh, along with several other partners who have since moved on, formed Panther Racing late in 1997, and made their debut in the IndyCar Series with driver Scott Goodyear the following season. Race victories and championships were soon to follow, but through both success and heartbreak, Barnes has remained humble and true to his roots. The team’s race shop stands just miles from his boyhood home, and the local community he supports is the same one in which he and his wife Jane were raised.

Barnes may not be the most well-known team owner in the IndyCar Series paddock, but he is one of its most respected. From his first job in the business, as a gofer at Vatis Racing, all the way through the last 40 years in which he held just about every position in the business – mechanic, engineer, car builder, team manager, CEO and now team owner – Barnes is renowned for his work ethic, keen business sense, and a tough-love approach to the sport. He is a man of few words, but those who know him well, know that few people involved in motorsports have a bigger heart.

His passion for the sport was instantaneous, and since the first time he made the trip to Indy’s historic 2.5-mile oval, IndyCar racing has been his passion. Family members would joke that if someone were to crack open little John’s head, racecars would come out. Barnes was a dominant high school athlete, but turned down multiple college football scholarship offers to pursue his ultimate dream – winning the Indianapolis 500. That passion was rewarded in May of 2007, when he received the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Louis Meyer Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor, given in the name of the former three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, is the highest honor given during the annual Hall of Fame Banquet.

He has worked with some of the sport’s best drivers, including Mario Andretti, Al Unser, Tim Richmond, Roberto Guerrero, Pancho Carter, Scott Goodyear and two recent Indy 500 champions that Barnes hand-picked for stardom – Sam Hornish Jr. and Dan Wheldon. In addition to his open-wheel exploits, Barnes spent several years working in NASCAR, beginning in 1993 when he went to work for stock car legend Richard Petty’s Petty Enterprises and for then-driver Wally Dallenbach. In 1997 John worked with NASCAR legend Ricky Rudd and helped the savvy veteran drive all the way to Victory Lane in the Brickyard 400, a first for both Barnes and Rudd.

Barnes supports Fisher House, the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, the Wounded Warrior Project and Helping Hands for Freedom. He remains a board member with the IRL Ministry, Decatur Central Athletic Foundation, Indiana Youth ChalleNGe and Best Buddies of Indiana – a charity Panther Racing has supported since the team’s inception in 1997.

John and his wife Jane have two daughters, Samantha and Lizette, and one grandson, Alexander Jett Perry.