Current Owner/Driver

My career in motorsport started back in the late 60's. Although actually competing in my own car came later, my first involvement was helping a friend, Bill Allen, prepare an NSU-TTS for competion in the Sports Car Club of America "D-Sedan" Class. This involvement led to Mr. Allen winning a D-Sedan National Championship in 1969. (http://hometown.aol.com/wca27/NSUAmerica.html)

I had always been intriqued by the little Abarths. They could do with a pushrod motor and a single Weber 36 DCD7 carburetor, what other cars could not. After all, the NSU was also 1000cc, but it was a single overhead cam, hemispherical head design with two Weber DCOE40 carburetors. More on this later.

My next venture into racing was preparing a Chevrolet Camaro for Don Smith. Don owned a localtrucking company. I had befriended him through my company, selling commerical 2-way radio systems. Don wanted to go SCCA racing and had already purchased the car, but needed some help. For the engine work I recruited a talented young engine builder by the name of Dave Randall. Dave had been building both small and large block Chevrolet engines for stock cars for some time. He knew where the horsepower was hiding. Today Dave is still building Chevroket engines, but for NASCAR competitors instead. His engines still win regularly. I was in charge of the rest of the car. For the next couple of years we competed in this car until it was eventually replaced by a NASCAR Camaro. Unfortunately Don had some medical problems and this car was eventually sold.

For a time this ended my racing involvement, although I did own some memorable cars along the way. They included a Ford Lotus Cortina, Alfa Guilia, Porsche 924, and a very fast BMW when I lived in Australia.

My Abarth involvement started in 1994 when I acquired my current car. My role also changed somewhat, as now I had to do the driving as well as the "wrenching". I still had not drifted back to racing, as the Abarth was outfitted with all period rally gear (Halda Twinmaster, Heuer Timers etc) for historic rallying in Australia. This was great fun and we gave many a much larger car a real run for their money.

1996 saw me moving to the USA to take up a new job assignment. Of course the car went along. My new job also meant that the time available for rallying or racing was very limited. We did do the Las Millas Encantadas (Enchanted 1000 Miles) in New Mexico. While a great and picturesque drive, not really a rally as we had become used to in Australia. The cost of competing in these "glamour" events also put me off. One such "rallye tour" was equivalent to a whole season of club racing.

In 1997 we came to California and I eventually entered the car in VARA historic race events. However, before this I decided to try and look up Bill Allen (remember he was the one that won a National Championship at Daytona Beach in 1969 against a horde of Abarths driven by none other than Al Cosentino, Ed Dempsey etc. NSU's came 1-2 in that year.). I found him well, and beyond belief he was just finishing a complete rebuild of his championship winning car and getting ready to enter it in VARA events as well. We competed against each other all year long, with yours truly squeezing out the class championship at the last race of the season.

The next two years saw little racing action, mainly due to business commitments. You understand, you have to make the money to spend it. In 2000 I had the opportunity to see the Coppa Mille race at Nurburgring in Germany. This took place at the picturesque track in the Moselle Valley in central Germany. To my surprize there were over 60 Abarth entered from Holland, Germany, France and Belgium. I was hooked.

My racing activities in 2001 will be limited to running 5 events in the Coppa Mille in Europe. You read correctly. I have decided to ship the monster over from the colonies back to the Europe and take part in the racing over there for a year.