My Racing Roots Part 1
Blogger Note: I will be breaking this up into a few blogs. Do not want you to get board!
My dad likes to tell the story that I was born the day of the German Grand Prix, and he had to miss it. My first ride in a car was a 356 Porsche that my dad had. A few months later our little family was back in the states, living in a little town called East Ridge, Tennessee. I remember grow up there around a number of cars. A lot of Porsche's from 356, to 550 spiders. I can remember the cat having kittens in one of the 356 convertibles. There was also Jaguars, and Sunbeam Tigers. And there was a C Sports racer. I know at one time that my dad did gets his licence at Road Atlanta.
But racing was in my blood. I can remember getting into the family El Cameo and driving down to the drag strip in Georgia and watch from the back of the truck. Or going to a local dirt track. One of the first big events I went to was the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) Run Off's at Road Atlanta. This was huge! Camping out in turn 9 watching racing for days. And at night the would open the track up and you could walk it or ride a bike around it.
We move to the Phoenix area when I was 9. This meant a lot of new experiences. Here in Phoenix, it was the old Beeline Raceway, than the drags moved to Firebird. We had one of the best dirt tracks in the world here, Mazanita. And we had a small oval track, Phoenix International Raceway.
At 11, we saw this group running go carts around a church parking lot. We went over and talked to them and found out that is was two brother and there kids that race locally. When in the next few weeks were were out at the dirt track watching go carts race around the track. And a few weeks later we had our own carts. My dirt carting experience was cut short, after the accident the first night. But with in a few months I was back at the track, this time it was an asphalt road course. We did this for about two months, until the insurance stopped me, because of the accident a few months before. So that was the end of my go cart racing experience.
Dad went on to build more race cars. He would race and Alfa Romeo, a Fiat Spider and a Mazda RX-7. While racing the RX-7's my dad found that they were cheap to build and maintain.
Around the time of my grandma hatch's death, my brother-in-law Alex, had just started working for British Aerospace, and there he worked with a good friend and a racing buddy of my dad's Jerry England. Some how, Jerry talked Alex into getting into racing. So dad agreed to help building him a car. Well at that time I had some money, and so it turned into a two car build experience. We built Alex's car first, and got him through drivers school. The intent was to race in SCCA in the Spec RX-7 class. This class had 20 plus cars a race.
So we got Alex entered into his first race in Spec-7. Well it was not pretty. I think he came back with a few scrapes on the car. To get you competition licence you have to race 2 races. So the next race we found a class that our cars could fit into, ITA (Improved Touring A). This was a much smaller class, but not as brutal as Spec-7. Alex did great and got his regular licence. Now it was my turn.
Competition Drivers School in Arizona was held in September. If you have lived any time in Arizona, you know that the temps are still in the 100's here. This does not help, because as a driver, you have to wear a fire suit that is at least three layers thick. Being on an asphalt track adds to the temperature. School was made up of a night in the class room, the next day at Firebird East track, all day and the last day at Firebird main, all day. The track time was divided up into 1/2 hour session, for both open and closed wheeled cars. So I think we had a total of 4 sessions on the track each day.
School was pretty easy. I had been drive Alex's car on track days when I could so I knew were to turn into the corners. I did have one mishap on day one. I spun the car going into a turn and it put me into a sand trap. The spin was caused by a water line bursting, and dad having to go home and get another one.
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| My dad with Ferry Porsche circa earlier 1970's |
But racing was in my blood. I can remember getting into the family El Cameo and driving down to the drag strip in Georgia and watch from the back of the truck. Or going to a local dirt track. One of the first big events I went to was the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) Run Off's at Road Atlanta. This was huge! Camping out in turn 9 watching racing for days. And at night the would open the track up and you could walk it or ride a bike around it.
We move to the Phoenix area when I was 9. This meant a lot of new experiences. Here in Phoenix, it was the old Beeline Raceway, than the drags moved to Firebird. We had one of the best dirt tracks in the world here, Mazanita. And we had a small oval track, Phoenix International Raceway.
At 11, we saw this group running go carts around a church parking lot. We went over and talked to them and found out that is was two brother and there kids that race locally. When in the next few weeks were were out at the dirt track watching go carts race around the track. And a few weeks later we had our own carts. My dirt carting experience was cut short, after the accident the first night. But with in a few months I was back at the track, this time it was an asphalt road course. We did this for about two months, until the insurance stopped me, because of the accident a few months before. So that was the end of my go cart racing experience.
Dad went on to build more race cars. He would race and Alfa Romeo, a Fiat Spider and a Mazda RX-7. While racing the RX-7's my dad found that they were cheap to build and maintain.
Around the time of my grandma hatch's death, my brother-in-law Alex, had just started working for British Aerospace, and there he worked with a good friend and a racing buddy of my dad's Jerry England. Some how, Jerry talked Alex into getting into racing. So dad agreed to help building him a car. Well at that time I had some money, and so it turned into a two car build experience. We built Alex's car first, and got him through drivers school. The intent was to race in SCCA in the Spec RX-7 class. This class had 20 plus cars a race.
So we got Alex entered into his first race in Spec-7. Well it was not pretty. I think he came back with a few scrapes on the car. To get you competition licence you have to race 2 races. So the next race we found a class that our cars could fit into, ITA (Improved Touring A). This was a much smaller class, but not as brutal as Spec-7. Alex did great and got his regular licence. Now it was my turn.
Competition Drivers School in Arizona was held in September. If you have lived any time in Arizona, you know that the temps are still in the 100's here. This does not help, because as a driver, you have to wear a fire suit that is at least three layers thick. Being on an asphalt track adds to the temperature. School was made up of a night in the class room, the next day at Firebird East track, all day and the last day at Firebird main, all day. The track time was divided up into 1/2 hour session, for both open and closed wheeled cars. So I think we had a total of 4 sessions on the track each day.
School was pretty easy. I had been drive Alex's car on track days when I could so I knew were to turn into the corners. I did have one mishap on day one. I spun the car going into a turn and it put me into a sand trap. The spin was caused by a water line bursting, and dad having to go home and get another one.
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