Plenty of credentials here. Welcome JR!
----- Original Message -----
From: N197TR4@cs.com
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 3:17 PM
To: jherrera@fcc.cc.md.us; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: New Member J.R. Herrera Bio
Thanks JR and welcome aboard.
I thought the "eight year relationship with the parts girl" was particularly
significant in the bio.
Joe (A)
> Hello everybody. Here is the bio that Joe Alexander asked for.
>
> I caught the sports car sickness from my brother, 16 years older than I,
> who owned sports cars, rallied, was in a sports car club, and crewed on
> SCCA sports car road-racing teams (Triumph, Lotus) in the sixties.
>
> I wanted to be a grown-up with a sports car. I wanted to shift gears,
> double clutch, heel-and-toe, drift, rally, race, go too fast on public
> roads. I imagined myself doing all these things while I rode in the back
> seat of my father's giant mushy Buick and got carsick on curvy West
> Virginia roads.
>
> In 1977, I graduated from airplane mechanic school and was working at a
> little airport in Maryland. When I drove my 1950 Oldsmobile Futuramic to an
> SCCA race at Summit Point, I actually saw and heard what I had only dreamed
> of before. Two weeks later I had a 1970 MGB. The B was my only car. I loved
> to work on the car and had plenty of opportunities.
>
> My need for MG parts led me to the local foreign car parts store. The owner
> campaigned a 1968 BMW 2002 in SCCA club road-racing. My frequent visits for
> parts led to a place on his pit crew (and an eight-year relationship with
> the parts girl). I drove my sports car to the sports car races and was
> actually involved. My pit pass was proudly displayed as I walked through
> the paddock area, maybe carrying a tire, hot, tired, dirty, and feeling on
> top of the world.
>
> In 1979, I bought a new BMW 320i. The BMW was too civilized for me, so in
> 1980 I took a powder blue and rust TR-3A for a test drive. The engine would
> not idle, it would die. The front suspension was so far gone that it hopped
> all over the road. None of these things mattered to me - I had decided to
> buy it as soon as I saw it. I still have this car, named Old Blue.
>
> I worked on Old Blue, drove him, worked on him, drove him. In 1993 I drove
> him the entire length of the Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway through
> Virginia and North Carolina and back - 1,150 total miles of scenic two lane
> mostly curvy road.
>
> In 1985 I started spectating at Summit Point Vintage Races, always seeking
> out the Triumphs, especially the Threes. I went to Mid-Ohio and Elkhart
> Lake when Triumph was the featured marque.
>
> In 1997, I bought a tiny 200 year old cottage on two acres that included an
> ancient tumbledown shed. It wasn't so much that I wanted a house, I wanted
> a TR-3 race car and didn't have a place to keep one at my apartment. I
> immediately hired someone to fix up the shed into a kind of funky garage.
>
> One month later, I saw John Hornbostel's TR-3A advertized, borrowed a tiny
> trailer (sized for a Formula Ford), drove to Indiana, and returned to
> Maryland with the car. I have done some work to the car, some of which
> makes it look cool, but not go faster. I have shown him in some car shows.
> I have driven him in some driver's schools, but not officially recognized
> ones. Poor health and poverty prevent me from racing.
>
> I now teach people to become airplane mechanics at a Community College. I
> am single and still live in the old cottage. I have a 1950 GMC Tow Truck on
> Static Display in the yard. I plan to work on the racecar and Old Blue some
> more, do some Driver's Schools, and spectate at Vintage Races. I am
> involved in the Triumph Register of America and have become sort of the
> Funkhanameister. They don't do autocross, being more interested in
> concours.
>
> Thanks for entering me into FoT,
>
> J.R.
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