Baileyrock

I was actually born in the back of a speeding Chevy trying to make it to the hospital, so my first sensation was a speeding car and I guess it never let go of me. 

Just always been a gear head, mostly because my next older brother(of 5 siblings) Andy was one and even before that my two oldest brothers were constantly rebuilding our 1929 Model A engine because they were always pushing it's limits and kept blowing it up!   Thank god for JC Whitney, they sold motor parts for the Model A back then and we bought a bunch. Those two brothers moved out and Andy and I started riding and modifying mini-bikes/go-carts, etc.trying to make them go as fast as possible. My first car was a 59 VW Bug and I swapped it for a 100 hp 63 Bug that I built a 100 hp motor for. I could smoke about anything for 1 block, racing light to light in downtown Denver. The V-8 cars were too busy spinning tires as I hooked up and left them. If we would have run two blocks they would have come screaming by.  Gotta know what your strengths are. 

I guess my first two wheel experience (other then a mini bike) was a Vespa someone gave us. We tried to kill that thing, jumping ditches, flying though the air and crashing to the ground. Never could blow it up, I think we finally broke the frame after a year or so jumping two up. That started my 25 years on dirt bikes.

First trail riding in the CO front range, Awesome. Then a friend said I should try moto-cross, I did and won my very first race. The hook was set, I raced everything I could on a dirt bike. 7 years of moto-cross, throw in a few Super-Cross races,Cross-Country, Enduro's and two times racing up Pikes Peak resulting in a 1st & 2nd. 

I was a straighline  on street bikes, couldn't corner for the life of me and almost was a few times. I loved bikes and thought I would switch to Road Racing them, I was 30+ at the time. I got a late start racing! I went to watch my first Road Racing event and watched a guy endow going 100 plus braking into the turn at the end of along straight where I waited to cross the track to get infield. I thought I don't Think so. Dirt was hard, but asphalt!  

I thought better of that type of racing, but in hind sight I wish I would have tried it then instead of waiting another 20 years.

After watching that guy crash I rethought my motorcycle racing career and put it on hold. My neighbor Bill who lived on the other end of my ally was always trying to get me to start car racing. He raced Club Ford/Formula Ford in SCCA road racing. He came over one day and made me a deal I couldn't refuse, he said come up with a grand and make payments when I could on a Lola 540. Andy and I went through it and Andy freshened up the 1600 cc Ford Cortina motor and a month or so later I signed up for my first race weekend. I had to do a school Saturday and the instructors had to sign off on me to be able to race in my first regional race on Sunday, they did and I did. 

The guy pitted next to me Mark Velcheck was an Ace and would go on too win the championship that year, but I didn't know that or him. I asked him what the best piece of advice he could give me. He said" Just don't screw up the start", get through the first turn and you've got a chance. so we practiced, qualified and lined up for my first ever road race. It's a mixed class of Formula Fords & Club Fords, I'm in a club ford which is just an older Formula Ford so I'm mid pack somewhere. These races are rolling starts, we get the green flag and off we go into turn One. That is where I see my new friend Mark spin off in turn one, remember his advice! 

I ride around, pass a few cars and take the checkered flag with multiple cars in front of me. As I'm running down the pit lane heading back to my pits I see a course Marshall waiving me to pull over. I'm thinking I must have done something wrong out there and That I was about to get my ass chewed, but to my amazement he hands me a checkered flag, I won my class!!!  

I can't believe it, and would have jumped right out of the car if I could have moved in that 5 point harness. I did my Victory lap waving the flag with total surprise and elation! 

I'm pretty sure I only won because Mark spun off in turn one as he went on to win 10 of the next 13 races claiming the championship. I won the other 3 races and finished 2nd in the championship and I also won Rookie Driver of the Year for our region of SCCA 1987. It was a blast and I thought there's nothing to this racing stuff and decided I needed to step it up to the national Level and jump up to Formula Continental or F2. These were the first level formula cars with front & rear wings, they ran a Ford 2 liter overhead cam engine.

I didn't know a thing about these cars and was looking through the SCCA classifieds when I spotted someone in Toronto Canada saying they had access to many F2's so I give the gent a call. His name was Tony Tracy which didn't mean a thing to me at the time and he had a son who also raced named Paul. 

I ended up flying up there and stayed with Tony for a few days as he showed me all the F2 cars available in the area. We looked at several Renards and a few older VanDiemans, nothing real exciting yet so he says he has a connection with the VanDieman Factory team in Canada. Seems like his son had won the Canadian National Championship for them. I think big deal, it's not American racing! This is 1988 and he takes me to look at a 1987 VanDieman F2 that was the factory car raced by Duckworth, I guess they were the team that ran national campaigns for VanDieman, woopdido!.I didn't know shitz about these things, but thought here was a one year old factory race car and Tony said he could get a great deal on it for me. He did and I bought that car, he also offered to have his son Paul show me some driving tips. I declined as I was already a Hotshoe US driver(in my mind) and who the hell was Paul anyway!!!

Well Paul was none other then Paul Tracy who ended up winning the Indy car championship a few year later, oh well c'est la bie.   There's another decision I wish I had back! Another note, when I was looking at this car I asked if it was SCCA legal or homoligated and he pointed to the SCCA tech sticker on the roll cage and showed me the Log Book with 2 US races stamped in it and said YES it's good to go in the US.  Remember this!

So I send payment for the car and Tony gets one of the Indy car teams to bring the car down in their team hauler into the States, this is about a month later and I meet them somewhere with an open trailer, loaded up and drive back to Denver with my new super car.

Again my brother and I go through it getting ready for the first National race on the schedule. All excited we arrive at the first National event, unload the car and roll up to Tech. 

This is where things first turn sour with this car. The Head Of Tech takes one look at the cars and states" that car will never race in the US"!  I'm like WTF, he says yeah they brought this thing down two times and we let them race it twice with an exception as US roll bar specs required the main roll hoop to be continuous from the bottom frame rail all the way up and back. Seems like the Brits just added a upper loop on top of a lower main loop and that was NOT Legal in the US!!!

I'm in shock as we load the car back up and head home.

After a few days I end up calling Tony asking for help. He actually call the VanDieman factory in England and they agree to ship me a US roll bar kit at no charge, very cool, but I'm still missing the first month or two of the season. In the mean time we strip the car and cut out the main roll hoop and wait for the kit from England. I think it took a month or so, but we eventually get the work done and head back to the track to see if we can pass Tech. We were working on the car right up to the last minute and end up missing practice by the time we get the car through tech, so the first time I actually get to run the car was in qualifying. Somehow I qualify my new car on the Pole with a new track record(this was on my fav track)! Sweet, many CA teams had showed up to try and snag some easy points at this event, but I had other ideas. I ended up winning my very first National race! Awesome!  After missing many early races because of the Tech issues I roll on to finish second in the Championship to Curtis Farley, a national engine builder and decent driver.

The following year I ended up winning all but one race on my way to winning the championship. In the mean time I learned that VanDieman didn't even build a 1988 F2 car because the 87 car(mine) just didn't work as they hopped and they wanted to do a complete redesign before releasing a new chassis.  Phuct it, I made it work for me! 

The SCCA had 7 national divisions if I remember correctly and crowned champions in each class of each division. They then held the Valvoline Runoffs each year and at the time it was held at Road Atlanta. This pitted the top drivers of each national division and North America against each other to crown a true National Champion for each class.

It was at this level where I realized that in fact my VanDieman was not up to task against the new Renards and especially the new Swift chassis. Road Atlanta was also a HP track with long high speed straights, unlike the tight tracks I was used to where I could attempt to out-drive someone instead of out HP them. I was loosing 20 lengths to most cars on the long straight, I ended up borrowing a spare Head from another competitor from OK which brought me up to only loosing 5-6 cars lengths on the straight.

I ended up finishing 9th, the top finishing VanDieman and the top Firestone shod car,  Goodyears were a good second a lap quicker that year.

I spent a LARGE amount of money sponsoring myself. I was hoping that by winning races I could score a sponsor, that never happened. I didn't know shitz about motorsports marketing. 

I shot my wad racing cars and in 1991 i stopped car racing. 8 years later I starting riding bikes again, this was 1999.

More to come!

BR