Hands-On Race Car Engineer

Born and educated in the United Kingdom, John Glimmerveen has been involved with motor sports for more than 30 years. This involvement started with motorcycles, where he competed in trials, motor cross, and eventually road racing-both on solo and side- cars. With the exception of motorcycle trials riding, he has raced at all levels up to international in a successful career that spanned 18 years of racing. When he retired from riding, he worked for several international race teams, both in Europe and the United States, culminating in a period working as a race technician for Keith Huewen in Motor Cycle Grand Prix. Mr. Glimmerveen’s involvement in international sidecar racing first brought him into contact with race cars when he designed and built an aluminum honeycombed chassis example with the assistance of the Theodore Formula 1 team and its chassis builders, Henshall Bonded Assemblies. Subsequently, he has been employed within racing in the United States in most capacities, including mechanic, technician, race engineer, crew chief, and team manager, and a period as production manager at Elan Motorsports Technologies (part of the Panoz group). Mr. Glimmerveen’s engineering knowledge was gained working within the U.K. engineering industry, which helped to finance his early racing activities. He completed a formal four-year apprenticeship in the United Kingdom as a fabricator/welder, and he obtained his City and Guilds in both fabrication engineering and motor cycle engineering at the Crewe College of further education. He lives with his wife, Grace Flerning-Glimmerveen, near Atlanta, Georgia, where he teaches race car fabrication and race car vehicle dynamics at Lanier Technical College.