SCCA: Pushing forward

What follows is an excerpt from the cover feature that appeared in the October 2016 issue of SportsCar magazine, the official member magazine of the SCCA. A subscription to SportsCar magazine is one of the many benefits to joining the SCCA – the other being the ability to compete in any of the more than 2,000 competition events the SCCA sanctions year round, from autocross to professional road racing. Kick start your motorsports dream by heading to www.scca.com and joining now...

We sit in a warehouse surrounded by a racer's dream machinery. The camera flash blasts, and Josh Saurino, adorned in fire suit with helmet in hand, tries to maintain his game face while jauntily leaning near a stack of racing slicks in Quantum Racing Services' Oklahoma City-based shop. But keeping a straight face is difficult when surrounded by family and friends. Not one second after the flash, Senna, Josh's younger sister, offers "words of encouragement" in a way only siblings can. Then Josh's older brothers, Nigel and Hans, get in on the action; his parents follow suit. Before long, a cacophony of fun-loving harassment flies Josh's way and he cracks up, too. While the photo taken shows Josh's likeness, what happened after the flash revealed how close this family is.

The story that leads to this moment begins 30 years ago, six years before John and Mary Lynn Saurino had their first child, Nigel, starting a family that would culminate in four children and three Runoffs National Championships. "I started running go-karts in 1986," John says of his early racing years, "then I bought a Sports 2000." Another Sports 2000 followed, and from there an F Production Midget was built; it was that FP Midget that got the ball rolling on what has the potential to become one of the most potent Club Racing families the SCCA has ever seen.

In 1993, John's brother Jim starting campaigning the Midget, winning F Prod at the 1996 Runoffs. John, in the meantime, competed at the Runoffs from 1990-'93, mostly in GT1. In 1992, John and Mary were expecting their first child, who was quickly nicknamed Nigel after Nigel Mansell, who won the Formula 1 World Championship that year. In 1994, Hans was born, and then Josh (an adaptation of Jacques, for ease of pronunciation for the non-racing community) was welcomed in 1996. Daughter Senna was born two years later. But racing is in the Saurino blood, so it wasn't long before the kids found their way behind the wheel.

"Nigel, Hans, and Josh were getting old enough to get interested, so we bought them go-karts for Christmas in 2000, then they started racing," says John, who had stepped back into the Club Racing seat the year before. "In the garage was the shop – there were no cars in there, it was all go-karts." There were four go-karts to be precise, as Senna got in on the action as soon as she was old enough.

To say the family has a competitive nature is underselling it. When they race, they do it to win. As such, while the sons were winning in karts, John won the FP Runoffs title in the Midget in 2004, and then claimed the GT3 Runoffs title in a different car in 2005. 2006 saw a respectable Runoffs showing for John, but it was this year that marked the beginning of a new era for the Saurino family.

"When the boys got old enough, they were like, 'OK Dad, get out of the seat,'" John laughs, although he admits he couldn't be happier with the turn of events that saw him go from National Champion to the father of three children who Club race at a National Championship level.

In 2009, John added a second FP Midget to the garage, and he and longtime crew chief Mickey Schreiner (and two-time SCCA Mechanic of the Year) underwent a challenge that would transition all three boys from karts to SCCA Club Racing, and ultimately lead to Nigel capturing a National Championship at the 2014 Runoffs.

"Whenever we race, we want to be competitive," Nigel explains of that year's successful championship campaign. "And, in 2014, we realized [Mazda Raceway] Laguna Seca would be a good shot at a National Championship."
That year, Nigel also ran GT-Lite alongside Josh, both in the Midgets, but despite turning times good enough for a podium finish in the class at the Runoffs, both drivers were sidelined before the checker.

The family left the 2014 Runoffs planning for the three sons to continue campaigning the Midgets, but a call in late 2014 changed that. "We didn't know we were going to go formula racing until a month after Laguna," Nigel explains of the serendipitous phone call he received from Quantum's owner, Wendell Miller. "We had torn the Midget apart so we could go racing again, and then we decided to change the plan."

To continue reading this story, join the SCCA (if you haven't already), log into www.scca.com, and download the October 2016 issue of SportsCar magazine. The most recent print version of SportsCar will appear in your mailbox soon thereafter.