Remembering John Campion (1963-2020)
John Naylor, President of Motorsport Ireland: “John Campion led an extraordinary life marked with achievement and was a true champion of Irish Motorsport. It is hard to sum up the enormity of John’s contribution to our sport. He was incredibly well liked, respected by everyone, and will be sorely missed by all of us in the Motorsport Ireland community.”
John developed ways to provide power for these concerts, a skill that ultimately led to his highly successful business career. In 1987, John founded Sharepower Inc., a California-based company that provided portable generators, before going on to establish APR Energy, which in 2014 was valued at $1.2 billion dollars.
John was incredibly passionate about motorsport from a young age, and one of his childhood heroes was fellow Corkman and rally driver, Billy Coleman.
Motorsport Ireland approached John Campion in 2015 with a proposal to become ambassador for the Team Ireland Foundation. John thankfully accepted this invitation and remained the programme ambassador up until the time of his passing.
John’s involvement in the Team Ireland Foundation was a tremendous success. John helped the programme return the first ever FIA title won by an Irish racing driver, a US F3 series race win, two FIA European Rally Championship podiums, two Irish International Driver of the Year Awards, two Junior British Rally Championship titles, two Motorsport Ireland Young Race Drivers of the Year and three Billy Coleman Award Winners.
In recent years, the Team Ireland network expanded to include the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy, while John also founded CJJ Motorsports to further support Irish drivers and sporting initiatives outside the Team Ireland framework.
John had built a sizeable motorsport collection over the last decade, including the famous Lancia Martini cars. In recent years, his collection had started to take on a more Irish twist as his involvement in Irish Motorsport grew with the addition of Billy Coleman’s 1980 Mark 2 Ford Escort, Derek Daly’s March 811 Formula 1 car from 1981 as well as a pair of Jordan Grand Prix cars.
John is survived by his wife Suzanne and stepdaughters, Lilah, Cate, and Emma Celentano.