Publisher, engineer

Bond and wife Elaine bought Road & Track in 1949 when the two-year-old publication was on the brink of collapse. They envisioned a magazine that combined the technically astute road tests of leading British glossies like Autocar and The Motor with the sensibility of the New Yorker. Over the next 23 years, they turned R&T into one of the most successful “buff books” and one that played a key role in promoting motorsports in the U.S. throughout the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s — particularly Formula 1 and sports car racing. Thanks to Bond, R&T featured regular race reports by the likes of F1 entrant Rob Walker and Henry Manney IV and racing features by American world champion and 1989 inductee Phil Hill. Bond graduated from the GM Institute in Flint, MI, with an engineering degree, then worked for Studebaker, White Truck and Harley-Davidson. It was while serving as a design engineer for 1999 inductee Frank Kurtis’ race shop that the Indianan began writing articles for the magazine that would become his legacy.