SVRA champion goes for Trans Am title

Paul Fix en route to pole at NOLA (Chris Clark photo)

Paul Fix, who won the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) Group 11 national championship in 2013, stands at the threshold of the 2015 Trans Am series title when the two groups share the stage for the fourth time this year at NOLA this weekend. Fix trails Amy Ruman, the current points leader in Trans Am's premier class, TA, by just 14 points after his rain-drenched victory at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) September 27.

Fix (LEFT, Mark Dill photo), who drives the Tony Ave Racing #4 Stopflex.com Corvette, has an unconventional career arc. He will tell you he considered himself more of a "car guy" than a racer until he fell under the spell of wife Lauren, known as "The Car Coach," a nationally recognized automotive expert and television personality. Lauren, who also races with SVRA, loves to get behind the wheel and was an avid autocross competitor before she married Paul in 1989. Their first date was a drag race.

After a visit to the Lime Rock Historics in 1989 Fix restored a 1966 Shelby GT350 and a 1966 Mustang Notchback to vintage race with SVRA in 1992. As the years passed Fix also started SCCA GT and Canadian GT Challenge Cup racing. By 2000 he launched his professional racing career in Trans Am while also dabbling in ALMS and shifter karts.

During that time Fix not only operated his own race team but also two other businesses, Fix Motorsports and Classic Tube. Fix Motorsports provides customers with restoration and race prep services. Classic Tube manufactures preformed tubing products for the automotive industry.

The challenges of operating two businesses, his own race team and parenting two teenagers, daughter Shelby – yes, named after Carroll Shelby – and Paul Fix III, forced Fix to make choices. Paul essentially took seven years off to be a dad and focus on the businesses that provided for his family.

"Running my own team was just tremendous pressure," Fix says. "I would get off the plane to go to a track and I would be thinking about the logistics of transporting the cars, the team, sponsors, their guests, even catering arrangements for hospitality. I was also thinking about my kids. It was easier when they were young but I felt I needed to be more a part of their lives during the high school years."

The nature of his work and Lauren's kept them in the motorsports community's conversation. That led to a 2013 phone call from Tony Ave asking if Paul was up for a seat fitting to drive in the Lime Rock round of that year's Trans Am championship. With his children maturing, the opportunity to race for someone else without the responsibility of managing the team was appealing. Paul resumed his racing.

The results were immediate. Paul was instantly comfortable in the well-prepared Corvette and ended up winning the race. An expected equalizer developed when the skies opened up over Connecticut and it rained. While Paul wouldn't necessarily choose a rain race if he could, he also says he is more than comfortable.

"Rain doesn't bother me at all," he says. "Lauren and I started Driving Ambitions School in the early 90's and I quickly realized that you never learn more at a high performance school than in the rain."

Paul backed up the immediate success with two more podium finishes in Trans Am as well as the national championship in SVRA Group 11 at COTA (LEFT, photo courtesy of Paul Fix). In 2014 he won again at Lime Rock and added a second victory at VIR. He continued vintage racing with SVRA in his 2000 Jaguar XKR (ABOVE, Bourne Images photo) at Road America, Watkins Glen and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's new Brickyard Invitational.

"Racing the Stopflex.com Corvette for Tony Ave and David Jans makes life so much easier," Fix says. "I come to the track, work with a great team and focus on racing. I have 40 employees at my businesses with great managers who know what they are doing. It takes the pressure off and I just race."

This year Paul is in the championship hunt for the first time. He has three wins at VIR, Road America and Lime Rock. He has turned his full attention to Trans Am leaving vintage racing for sometime later in life.

"I absolutely want to continue with vintage racing down the road," Fix adds. "I love the history of Trans Am in particular. Coming from vintage I especially appreciate the cars. It's funny; I remember recently in an SVRA race I was dicing with Travis Engen in his 2005 Audi LMP 1. I realized I had raced against the same car ten years earlier in an ALMS race."

Reflecting on his SVRA national championship win in 2013 Paul shared the difference between vintage racing and the professional ranks of Trans Am.

"At that championship race at COTA, I drove that car as hard as I would in Trans Am, but that's unusual," Fix says. "I led from flag-to-flag and it would have been different if I had been beside someone. In vintage there are many historically significant cars and you must respect that. In pro racing if you lean or rub on someone, that happens. Basically the vintage paddock is far more relaxed. It's a difference in mindset."

A lot of things are right with Paul Fix' life right now. Shelby is following in her mother's footsteps as "Car Coach 2.0," and son Paul Fix III is finishing college with a bead on a full-time job with a major automobile manufacturer. Lauren's career continues to flourish and Paul is having his best season as a professional race driver.

"We started this season with the goal of winning the championship," Paul says. "We still have three races left. We take them one at a time and do our best."

Thus far Paul Fix' best is looking pretty darn good.