Someone popped in this morning asking if I was related to Ian Raby. I’m not but he do know he was a racing driver in the 1950s and 1960s.
Ian Raby was born in Woolwich and became a car dealer in Brighton. He began racing in 500cc Formula 3 in the 1950s, initially with a self-built car he called ‘Puddle Jumper’ (because of its low ground-clearance), and later in Coopers.
He then switched to sportscars for a while and drove with Jack Brabham in the 1957 Le Mans 24 Hour race before returning to single-seater racing.
At the start of the 1960s, Ian Raby bought a Gilby-BRM and raced in three World Championship events in 1963. At the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, he retired with gearbox failure after 59 laps, and failed to qualify for the German and Italian races.
The following year, Raby drove a Brabham-BRM in the British and Italian Grands Prix, but crashed out of the former and did not qualify for the latter.
Ian Raby stuck with the same car for 1965 and managed to finish the British Grand Prix in 11th place, but did not qualify for the other event he entered that season: the German Grand Prix.
After that, Ian Raby raced in Formula 2, but died in November 1967 as a result of injuries sustained during an accident at the Zandvoort circuit in Holland.
