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Out In The Passing Lane
Dave Weber
When did you first become interested in cars
or, more specifically, when did you start
driving on a racetrack, and why? I thought about
those questions a bit as I rode with my four-yearold
grandson Sam, up and down our driveway
on the little scooter Susana and I use at the track.
Sam stood on the scooter ringing the little bell,
while I held on to him and steered. He had the
biggest grin on his face all the while, and as soon
as we finished one circuit he was ready for another
trip. After we ran down the scooter’s battery
we switched to our lawn tractor and, of course,
Sam grinned all the while we mowed the lawn.
Will this turn out to be the seminal moment
when his love of driving and speed first bloomed?
Who knows? Several years will have to pass, of
course, and by the time he’s ready to drive on the
highway who knows what we’ll be driving?
I think I can trace my initial interest in driving
and speed back to probably age 11 or 12 when
a younger brother won a “Corvette” go-cart in a
grocery store giveaway. He was, of course, much
Somehow that go-kart survived for probably
another ten years, increasingly used by my
two younger brothers.
engines wound up at the start of the race.
The Mid-Ohio race course was close to Columbus
(and still is!), and the Trans Am and Can Am
race series were hugely popular around the time
Susana and I met and shortly thereafter married.
We made several trips to the track to watch those
races, taking advantage of the press credentials
Susana was able to acquire through the television
station for which she worked. We photographed
all the famous drivers of the era, including Dennis
Hulme, Peter Revson, Jo Siffert and Mark
Donohue, and watched the evolution of the
Porsche 917 Cam Am car.
By then we’d acquired a limited production Boss
302 Mustang and were thoroughly hooked on
speed and racing. The Trans Am races at that time
featured the famous orange colored Boss 302
Mustangs raced by Parnelli Jones. It was about
then that I started thinking that I could drive a
car quickly on a race track, not really having any
sense of how different that would be from driving
quickly on the street.
A 914 Porsche came along shortly
thereafter, but it wouldn’t be until
1983 when we acquired a Porsche
944 that we would find ourselves on
continued on page 40
too young to drive (4 or 5 years old at the time),
so my next younger brother and I commandeered
the go-cart, racing up and down the street until
we wore out the fiberglass body. At that time we
stripped the go-kart down to its bare essentials,
fashioned a little pull-cord so we could override
the governor on the engine, and began timed
competitive runs on various courses we set up.
Somehow that go-kart survived for probably
another ten years, increasingly used by my two
youngest brothers. The motor eventually expired
in flames one day while it was being raced around
a church parking lot. I understand though that
the chassis survived to be used by some friend of
my brothers for several more years.
It was in those years that I first started following
racing, particularly the Indy 500. I’d camp out
next to a radio every Memorial Day weekend,
listening to the race. A friend invited me to go
along with his father to a couple of races, further
heightening my interest in racing. I still get goose
bumps when I recall the sound of thirty-three
Sam Weber checks out the driver’s seat in a GT3 Cup Car
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