a Chevron B42. Fred Opert Racing School Opert established one of the USA's first motor racing schools in 1971. The school was at Bridgehampton and the first instructor was New Zealand racing driver Bert Hawthorne. An advertorial for the school appeared in the New York Magazine on 10 April 1972, four days before Hawthorne was killed racing at Hockenheim. Mexican Freddy van Beuren took over after Hawthorne's death. The school moved to Pocono in 1973 when the Bridgehampton track was sold to property developers. After the school moved an advertorial appeared in the June 1973 edition of Popular Mechanics. When van Beuren returned to Mexico, Swedish driver Bertil Roos became the chief instructor and eventually took over the school and rebranded it under his own name. Formula 1 With the demise of Chevron racing cars after the 1978 death of its founder Derek Bennett, Opert gave up running his own teams and took on the role of Team Manager with the ATS Formula 1 team, a "notorious" job - according to Motor Sport magazine - with "the highest turnover in motorsport". Opert soon became one of many casualties at ATS, resigning after the 1979 French Grand Prix following team owner Günter Schmid's decision to pull the ATS car from the race. Return to team ownership Opert returned briefly and tragically to team ownership in 1983 when he put together a Formula Atlantic team for his friend Olivier Chandon de Brailles. Chandon was killed when he was testing an Opert Ralt Formula Atlantic car at Moroso Motorsports Park (now Palm Beach International Raceway) in Florida, preparing for the WCAR Formula Atlantic (Mondial) Championship that would start in April. Later years Opert turned his back on motorsport after the 1983 death of Chandon in one of his cars. Later in his life he took an active interest in Nico Rosberg's career, attending F1 races to follow Rosberg's fortunes. He died not long after attending the Hungarian Grand Prix then visiting Germany but missing 2016 German Grand Prix, because he was too ill. Later that year Nico Rosberg won the World Championship title. References External links 1939 births 2016 deaths American racing drivers 12 Hours of Sebring drivers 24 Hours of Daytona drivers American automobile salespeople Formula Ford drivers Formula One managers Motorsport team owners People from Worcester, Massachusetts