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BILL KIMBERLY

'A car is a living thing'

One of the features at the Fiesta of Five Flags in Pensacola, Fla. the other day was a national Sports Car Club of America race meeting. It was the first time motor sports had been included in Pensacola's pageant, and one of the people who helped it happen was 26-year-old William Essick Kimberly. Regional Executive of the Gulf Coast region of the SCCA, Kimberly also served as race steward.

An interest in racing and organizing race meetings is something which comes easily to Bill Kimberly. The son of John R. Kimberly, president and chairman of Kimberly-Clark Corp., he is also the nephew of James (Gentleman Jim) Kimberly, racing enthusiast and former national president of the SCCA. With the encouragement of his uncle Jim, he developed an interest in sports cars and this year was a relief driver for a Ferrari team at the Sebring 12-hour endurance race. (Unhappily for Bill, his teammates, Lance Reventlow and E. D. Martin, endured to the end without relief.)

An amateur poet, Kimberly sees racing as something more than just a hobby. "To me a car is a living thing," he says. "I feel a responsibility to the designer and manufacturer to learn enough about driving so that the car can realize its full potential."

PHOTO

ROBERT FRY