Mark Dimore

12/10/1956

Record updated 12-Oct-06

Mark Dismore is a former driver in the Indy Racing League whose carrer nealy ended in a huge crash in qualifying for the 1991 Indy 500. He won the 1990 Formula Atlantic championship as well as the 1993 24 Hours of Daytona.

Mark Dismore was born in Greenfield, Indiana. He started racing karts when he was 8 years old. His father owned a karting business in Greenfield that he started in the late 1950s, called Comet Kart Sales.

He made the move to single seaters and proved to be very quick. He raced in Formula Atlantics in 1989 and in 1990 he won the championship in '90, taking the most wins in a single season.

His performance attracted the attention of Dan Gurney and he invited Dismore to drive one of his GTP endurance cars at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1991.

That year he also he moved up to Champ cars. He had made three starts before a huge crash in practice at the Indy 500 left him not only with his racing career in doubt but very lucky to be alive. He had just completed a personal best lap of 216.611 mph at 5:07 p.m.  At 5:09 p.m., he lost it and hit the end of the pit wall. He ended up lying upside-down with multiple leg injuries, a broken neck, and a broken wrist.

After a long rehabilitation, he found his way back to racing with Dan Gurney once again at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1992. He also made a return to the 'Brickyard' to try to qualify an outdated Lola/Buick for Concept Motorsports. He was unfortunately unsuccessful. After that it took a long time to get back in to Champ cars and it was not untill 1996 that he back with a regular ride.

Meanwhile he won the Daytona 24 hour race in 1993 driving with  P.J. Jones and Rocky Moran racing for Dan Gurney's  All American Racers in a Toyota GTP.

In 1997 he joined Kelly Racing in their second car at the Indy 500 and went on to race for them until 2001, winning at the Texas Motor Speedway in 1999 and finishing a career best third in the overall points standings. He returned to Menard for a partial season in 2002.

Dismore made 62 career IRL starts, qualifying on pole four times. He also represented the IRL in the International Race of Champions in 2000 and 2001.

He now owns and operates a Karting facility in New Castle, Indiana as well as Comet Kart Sales in Greenfield.



hr