THE ROAD TO BECOMING A RACING DRIVER

I have been interested in cars since I was young. I got my driver’s license when I was 17 but did not really get into cars until I was a little older, around age 20.

I was mostly into drag racing until 1971 when I purchased a 1971 Chevrolet Corvette. This is when my interest in sports cars began. I auto-crossed a bit and did a few track day events, but nothing big or serious. Then, there was a hiatus from cars, as this was when I started running and racing on foot. I sold the Corvette, and taking part in running races on the road became the outlet for my competitive urge.

In 1991, at age 46, I bought another sports car – a 1991 Mitsubishi 300 GT – a pretty fast car. On my way home from picking the car up from the dealership, I took a turn and realized that I wasn’t as good of a driver as I remembered myself being.

After a conversation with my wife, we decided that I should go to a driving school. At the SCCA school, I purchased a used race car from one of the instructors – a 1976 BMW 2002 with 100hp. This was the beginning of my racing. As they say, the rest is history.

I started racing at the amateur level and attended many regional races – both within and outside my region. I ultimately won regional championships and set track records in this same class with different BMW 2002s.

In 2006 at the age of 61, I purchased another race car – a 2001 BMW 330. At this point, I started racing in a professional race series – the Grand America Road Racing Series- and formally created TGM Racing. After racing at different tracks for several years, I purchased a 2011 BMW from a race team in the series. 

In 2013 at age 68, I reconstituted TGM and brought on a professional race driver as my co-driver. But, unfortunately, at this moment, despite all my previous racing accomplishments, I discovered that everything I was doing was wrong.

Sure, I was fast, but nowhere near as fast as I could be. So now I need to revamp and change everything about driving race cars. Hmm??

Today, TGM is a well-recognized national race team that races in the Michelin Pilot Challenge – a professional Road Racing series with national television coverage managed by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA).

Alongside the two cars in the Michelin Pilot Series, we also run one car in the WeatherTech Series (mostly in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona).

In 2018, we won the GT4 Michelin Series Championship and had the first race win for AMG Mercedes in GT4 at Lime Rock, CT.

AMG recognized TGM for its accomplishments as the fifth-placed GT4 team in the world at the AMG Mercedes annual banquet in Stuttgart, Germany.

TGM has continued to race in the 24 Hours of Daytona for 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Personally, I have raced in the Ferrari Challenge Series and have placed second and third at Challenge Races at the World Finals in 2018 at Monza, Italy.

Now at 77 years old, I am still pursuing improvement in my driving, and with the assistance and support of my teammates – I will.