May 31, 2002

Magnaflow Vintage 2.5 Challenge

We are only a few weeks away from what will be likely be the largest vintage 2.5 event ever held.  While we do not have an exact count yet, early indications are that the Magnaflow Vintage 2.5 Challenge group should have in excess of a 30 car field, possibly even as many as 40!  The Fontana Vintage Festival (June 21-23) brings a large scale spectator event back to the Los Angeles area after a number of years without a major vintage event.  The last estimates we were privy to indicated an anticipated paid attendance of around 40,000 for the 3-day weekend.

 We understand that the cars will pitted together so that we have our own “Sedan row”.  It should be a great show, we hope to see you there.  As with all of our races it is likely that you can still enter this race although the deadline for the late fee waiver has passed. 

We have also heard from our friends at SOVREN that it looks as if it will be a full field of 2.5 cars for the Pacific Northwest Historics in July.  It look’s like a big group of Magnaflow 2.5 regulars plan to make the trip and when joined with the SOVREN regulars and some cars that are new to both groups we see another great 2.5 event in the making. 

The Pacific Northwest Historics has a well earned reputation as well organized and truly great event complete with lot’s of parties and social gatherings for the participants. 

It is likely that they will accept late entries so if you find you can make it then join us for what will be a memorable weekend in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

As we have indicated in past newsletters we are in NEED more donations to the Children’s Hospital fund.  We set a high goal and while we have made steady progress we still are in need of more donations.  As one of the VSRG founders put it; “it’s time for us to shamelessly beg”!  Please support this worthy cause as much as you can.  All of the funds (not the net but 100%) raised via the sale of VSRG goods and related merchandise goes to this cause.  We urge you to visit the site if you have not done so.  If all goes as planned we will have the merchandise available at Fontana as well as a donation jar.  We need your help.

We will NOT be putting on the VSRG hosted lunches at Fontana or Seattle as there is simply too much going on at spectator events such as these.  We hope to have a “booth” with VSRG merchandise at both events (with all of the proceeds going to the Children’s Hospital).  In addition we anticipate that we will be pretty busy answering the questions of spectators and potential racers.  We would appreciate any help any member might be able to provide in manning the booth at these events.

HSR-West and SOVREN have encouraged drivers to put up informational posters about their car and some members have asked us for an easy way to produce such a poster. 

Our research came up with a simple, but not necessarily cheap, method that most anyone can use to produce a quality poster at any Kinko’s store.  First we developed a simple one page document in Microsoft Word to include all of the photos and images desired.  We then used a program named “Kinko’s File Prep Tool” (or FPT as they call it) to prepare the file to generate the poster.  The Kinko’s program can be obtained free at any Kinko’s store or downloaded from their web site (www.kinkos.com). 

Once the FPT file was generated we simply dropped the disk at a local Kinko’s store and returned the next day to pick up the completed poster.  To save a trip you can even place the order on-line on their web site and transmit the file to them (you will need to designate a local store for pick-up).

We had our 18 x 24 poster laminated and mounted to a foam core board and the total cost was $33.  The next size up is a 24 x 36 but this would run around $100.

The aftermath of Thunderhill has a lot of us repairing our cars for the busy June/July schedule but at last word all of the cars that broke at Thunderhill (or just before) will be ready.

The Tri-Tip lunch was a real hit so look for that to appear from time-to-time at the VSRG hosted track lunches when they return in the fall.

With this newsletter we are starting a new feature of “Driver of Quarter”.  While the mantra of vintage racing has always been that the “cars are the stars” we have found that the VSRG group enjoys the company of their fellow racers as well as the cars and the racing.  So that we all might get to know each other a little better, we will provide a brief bio on one of our drivers on a regular basis.  We are starting this feature with a driver that impressed all of us at the very first Magnaflow Vintage 2.5 Challenge Race, Marissa Clay and her racing family.

Anyone that attended the inaugural Vintage 2.5 race at Willow Springs in the spring of 2001 could not help but notice the well prepared #22 BMW 2002 that moved steadily through the field to a fifth place finish.  Behind the wheel of that car was 20 year old Marissa Clay and while it was not her first race she had only been vintage racing a short period of time at that point. 

Marissa was introduced to racing at the ripe old age of 2 with a visit to Riverside in 1982 with her family. She basically grew up with Mom and Dad at the track. Her first car was a BMW 535, then 328is and she entered her first high performance driving school at 16.  She was even able to slip into a slalom event before it was discovered she was only 16 years old.

She started her vintage racing by attending the University of VARA vintage driving school in February of 2000.  With the successful completion of the school she qualified for her VARA rookie license and participated in her first race with HSR-West in March of that year.  Since then Marissa has raced with VARA, HSR-West, BMW Club and of course has competed in the Maganflow Vintage 2.5 Challenge.

Marissa leads a very busy life and has what most would consider multiple fulltime jobs.  She is a mother, a full time student and in her spare time works at the Chart House in Newport Beach as well as holding down part-time accounting position at a corrugated box manufacturer in Santa Ana!  Where does she find the time to race!

Marissa comes from a family that is very involved in racing.  Her father, Bill, competed in his first slalom in 1974 and moved to time trials with the Porsche club in 1982.  That same year Bill became a Porsche Club instructor.  Bill won the “G-Stock” championship for three years running (1983,84,85) behind the wheel of a Porsche 944. During that period he raced at such places as Riverside, Willow Springs, Laguna Seca and Holtville. Prior to his move to BMW he also campaigned a C/P 1914-6 and a D/P 1966 911.

In 1997 Bill attended Tustin Thunder and became interested in the BMW 2002 as a vintage racer.  He started looking for a racecar and found what is now his #02 car in Atlanta. The car had been written up in Grassroots Motorsports and had raced extensively since the late 70's. Bill tells us; “I made a deal to buy the car, but the seller backed out at the last minute when he decided that he was not yet time to retire from racing. Three months later the same guy called and told us he had found another car for us and we struck a deal on what is now our #22 car.  Four months after purchasing the first BMW, the guy calls us again and said he would now sell the first car to us.  That’s when we became a two-car team.”

Bill’s wife, Debb, also began with slaloms with San Diego region of PCA in 1982 and soon graduated to time trials where she became the PCA "G" stock Ladies Champ for two years running.

Just to keep us on our toes, there is another Clay family member that we are sure will begin racing one day.  Shea, Marissa’s son, was born June 10th 1999, while Grandpa was running at his first, and the last, Tustin Thunder. Shea loves cars and travels with the family to all of the events.

Bill, who is Director of Purchasing at Kent H. Landsberg Co. (a distributor of industrial packaging) and Debb who is a middle school teacher in Huntington Beach report that they don’t have much time for hobbies other racing and relaxing.

The “racing” Clay family is truly a great addition to VSRG and the Magnaflow 2.5 Vintage Challenge.

Reminder:   If you are a VSRG member and are reading this from the web site and did not receive this via e-mail, then we have a problem with your e-mail address.  Please drop us a line at jim@bsedan.com with your revised e-mail address. 

To help notify members we have also added a new page that lists missing or bad e-mail addresses of members.  The page can be accessed from the top of the "Notices" page.