http://ccc.pca.org/ The Pozo Run & Grub New Member BBQ

January Member Profile
Joe
Korpiel
by Milt Worthy
The CCCR
Board for
2012 has three
new members:
Joe Korpiel, Andy
Winterbottom,
and Key Finney.
Joe Korpiel joins
returning Board
Member Jon
Milledge and new
member Andy
Winterbottom as
part of the club’s
competitive track
racing contingent.
Together, these
three hot shoes
Joe Korpiel at Laguna Seca have over 100
years of competition
experience. In this first Coastalaire of 2012 we
feature Joe Korpiel, his Porsches, and his Porsche racing
career.
Joe became a serious, competitive driver when he
bought a race prepared 356 Super 90 in the early
1960’s; later, he moved to faster cars, driving racing versions
of the Porsche 914-6 and 911’s. In the late 1970’s
he retired from racing after witnessing crashes that resulted
in several deaths of his racing colleagues. Thirtyfive
years later Joe has taken up racing again in a serious
way. In 2009 he obtained his NASA racing license and
he is driving fast cars again. This time piloting 911 GT
Spec cars for TRG racing at age 75. Joe’s story begins in
Europe just before the outbreak of WWII.
California Central Coast Porsche Club Of America January 2012
Joseph Korpiel was born in Belgium in 1936. On
May 10, 1940 the Germans invaded Belgium for the
second time in twenty-five years. His family, along with
thousands of others, desperately scrambled to find ways
to escape the chaos of their occupied country. Shocked
at the rapidity with which the German army was overrunning
Western Europe, the 16 members of his immediate
family split up into smaller groups and made their
separate ways to neutral countries and to the south of
France. For five years, the Korpiels avoided capture and
waited for liberation. That day came in June of 1944;
Germany surrendered in 1945 and soon after, the pieces
of the Korpiel family were re-united in Belgium. Almost
immediately Mr. Korpiel, Senior, (who didn’t want to
wait for another army to march through the Belgium
forests) began his quest for visas and permits in order
to emigrate from Europe. After five years of visits to
bureaus and officials they got the precious papers and
joined relatives in New York City.
In the Big Apple, Joe grew up, learned the language,
and quickly became an American teenager. In the
1950’s that was cars, girls, and gangs. But war again
interrupted Joe’s young life. The invasion of South
Korea meant that girls and cars had to wait: in 1953 Joe
joined the US Army for a three year hitch; he served in
Korea with an engineering battalion. A few years later
the Korpiels moved even further west and settled in the
San Francisco bay area. Joe graduated from San Mateo
College, then went on to San Francisco State University
where he studied Pre-law. He changed to a business
356 Super 90 and tow vehicle, Portland, 1963
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