"Club Racing" is where most road racing drivers, including me, get their start. Many "starts" actually. The Sports Car Club of America was, by far, the largest such club organization when I first started learning to race. My first "SCCA Driver's School" was held at Riverside Raceway (now a housing development in Southern California) driving a borrowed Formula Vee. This gallery starts with me getting strapped into that car. After Driver's School I had to get my own race car, and the least expensive class was "Showroom Stock" where drivers installed basic safety equipment in street legal sedans and raced them. I equipped a Datsun 510 and it became the first car I drove in an SCCA Regional race. And, I could still use it as a street legal everyday car. I had to. I couldn't afford two cars! Everybody else in the race on Saturday beat me, but I moved up a couple spots on Sunday. The 510 quickly "aged out" of the class and I couldn't afford to buy a new racer. To my surprise and delight, another driver couldn't afford to race his Opel, so he let me drive it. I earned two track records at Riverside in that car and finally won a couple races. My new friend even allowed me to take the Opel to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut where we were recognized for winning the "Four Door Class" in the Car and Driver Showroom Stock Classic. Then came a short string of three Volkswagen Sciroccos, orange, brown and silver. There were a couple more track class records and a significant number of checkered flags. I won the California Sports Car Club region of SCCA class championship in 1977. The Sciroccos and I branched out. I qualified for the class national championship at Road Atlanta the first three years the new SS class was recognized. My wife and I drove cross country to compete those three events as well as a VW sponsored race in support the US Gran Prix Formula One race at Watkins Glen, NY. After that race I had to rebuild the engine in a local racer's basement in order to race the next week at Lime Rock Park in, again, the Car and Driver annual event. SCCA started creating "Single Marque" series. Every driver in those events had to drive one specific model of one specific make of car. The idea was that if all the cars are equal, driver talent would determine winners. My first single marque series car was a Dodge Neon, then a Renault Alliance and finally in VW Rabbits. About that time I took my first full-time position in professional auto racing. See the next gallery "Racing Business".
