VSRG Drivers
- Charles Christ
- Steve Church
- Stefan Vapaa
- Mary Anne Fieux
- Randy Cook
- Ed Diehl
- George Vapaa
- Jon Ewing
- William Harding
- Chris Moberg
- 1960 93F
- 1973 97 Sonett III
- 1968 97 Sonett V4
- 1964 Quantum Formula SAAB
- 1967 Brand'X' Sports Racer
- Racecar Group Photos
Crews
- Tom Cox
- Chip Lamb
- Sune Nilsson
- Laura Briggs
- Don Wollum
Last Updated: Mar 26, 2006
Charles Christ
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Chuck is a second generation race car driver -- he’s taken up vintage racing decades after his father ended his competitive programs.
He got involved in motorsports over twenty years ago, eventually winning the SCCA Blue Mountain Region’s 1980 D/Prepared autocross (Solo II) championship. Back then he was also involved with the construction of the 1979 national championship-winning G Production "Gutekunst Fabricators" Spridget driven by Bob Griffith (of BHP Development).
Today, Chuck is the owner of Speed Research and Restoration, a highly respected firm specializing in the restoration and preparation of vintage sports cars and vintage race cars. He’s an Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) National Judge and an AACA Class 24B Certification Committee member (Class 24B: road race, hill climb, and gymkhana cars). Chuck’s also the National President of the H-Modified/Vintage D Sports Racer Group, an organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of these small-bore race cars.
He’s been a member of the SCCA’s Philadelphia Region since 1996 as a licensed Solo I driver, and has been actively participating in Pennsylvania Hillclimb Association (PHA) events in both the vintage and historic classes. He’s also a licensed driver with the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA), competing on tracks all along the eastern U.S. - - from Sebring, Florida to Watkins Glen, New York.
Chuck presently owns several distinctive and notable vintage racing vehicles:
- 1960 Saab Model 93F sedan (ex-Rex Harrison car, of Salt Lake, Utah)
- 1959 Austin Healey H-Production Bugeye Sprite race car (ex-David and Susan Roethel car, SCCA Washington, D.C. Region, 1961-1964)
- 1967 H-Modified Sports Racer "Brand X" (ex-Joe Christ (father) sports racing special based on a copy of an Elva MK6 chassis with Saab 750GT power (and to date the only car listed with the international Elva registry as a period copy chassis not manufactured by Elva)
“Having grown up at historic venues such as Watkins Glen, Marlboro, Vineland, and numerous other tracks, I’ve returned to my roots and am both competing in vintage events and preserving (to some degree, serving as historian) the rich history that I was a part of throughout most of my youth.”
Contact Chuck at this link (textually modified here to evade website mining): cfchrist[at]earthlink.net
Steve Church
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Steve grew up in the rural, wooded hills of northwestern Connecticut, and had almost nothing to do with cars. He graduated from Norwich University (The Military College of Vermont) in 1983 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, but still had nothing much to do with cars. He then served four years as an active duty Air Force officer ... and showed a little bit of interest in motorsports by finishing a few SCCA TSD amateur road rallies.
But in 1993, when he was working in northern Virginia consulting for the Department of Defense, he heard about something called “autocrossing” and took a look into it. Then everything changed for him concerning motorsports. His 1986 Saab 900 Turbo progressed steadily through many improvements over the next three years, and it became increasingly more competitive in the Solo II Stock and Street Prepared categories. Steve was regularly finishing fifth, fourth, and even third place against well-established cars and drivers when he realized his high mileage ‘daily driver’ shouldn’t be subjected to the punishment he was putting it through.
So, he took the 1997 autocrossing season off and focused on building the 1973 Saab Sonett III that he races today. Spurred on by major successes autocrossing his Sonett, he graduated from the Panoz Road Racing School in mid-2002 and obtained an SCCA Regional Racing License. Now he’s pursuing historic road racing success with his distinctive Saab.
Contact Steve at this link (textually modified here to evade web site mining): stevesaab[at]comcast.net
Stefan Vapaa
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Having grown up in a family dedicated to SAABs, and motorsports in general, Stefan naturally fell victim to all aspects of the car bug, but most had a specific SAAB bent. He started restoring them at the ripe young age of 10 when he helped his dad George Vapaa (also a member of VSRG) restore a '68 SAAB Sonett V4.
Stefan's first competition experience was in autocrossing. Driving the very same 1968 SAAB Sonett V4 he helped to restore when he was 10 years old he gained considerable autocrossing experience from 1996 to 2002. 1997 was only his second year of autocrossing, but he earned his first class win and a class season championship while competing with the Brandywine Motorsports Club (Delaware). Also, he won overall honors at the autocross event of the 1997 North American SAAB Owners’ Convention, claiming the bragging rights for that year against such stiff competition as his own mentor (his dad) and fellow VSRG member Steve Church. He returned to the SAAB Owners’ Convention in 2000 and won his class again, but had to relinquish the overall honors to Steve.
Stefan began autocrossing with the SCCA in 1999. The 2002 season saw him gain such honors as Fastest Street Legal Car at one event, and overall Fastest Time of the Day at another. Stefan feels that this FTD is his greatest autocrossing achievement because it was achieved against extremely talented competition and in difficult conditions -- it was pouring rain and he was driving the only car at the event without a roof!
Living in Wilmington, Delaware as a boy meant that Stefan had access to quite a lot of vintage SAAB history and expertise. Working for the father and son team of John "Jake" Jacobson and Bill Jacobson at Sports Car Service, Inc. (their independent SAAB repair shop) and the "Old Spokes Home" (their vintage car race shop), Stefan gained valuable mechanical experience that enables him to sympathize with the mechanical nature of the cars he's come to love. Jake had been a SAAB dealer in the 60's and 70's, and he built and raced a number of SAAB 2-stroke and V4 "specials."
In 2003, driving Jake's 1958 Morgan +4 Stefan obtained his competition license with the Vintage Sports Car Club of America (VSCCA). Since then he's run a variety of cars at a number of tracks on the vintage racing schedule. The tracks and events include Lime Rock Park, Pocono International Raceway, Virginia International Raceway, Summit Point Raceway, Beaver Run Motorsports Complex, and the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. The cars Stefan has raced over the last few years have been as varied as the tracks; a 1930 Miller Ford dirt track sprint car, the aforementioned 1958 Morgan +4, the one and only Quantum One SAAB and his usual race-mount, a 1964 Quantum Formula SAAB.
For 2005, Stefan has joined the Vintage Racer Group (VRG) which increases the number of events and venues in his annual racing calendar. New Hampshire International Raceway and Mont Tremblant in Canada are among the tracks Stefan is looking forward to visiting. To compliment the expanded schedule, Stefan and his father George will be reintroducing their '68 SAAB Sonett V4 to competition.
Mary Anne Fieux
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Being the daughter of a father who was a cocky Air Force fighter pilot during the 40's and early 50's (and subsequently a commercial airlines pilot), and of a mother who liked to "peel-out" in cars and wanted to try sky diving (no coincidence her wedding dress was made out of my father's silk parachute!) before her death, certainly has bearing on my gene pool and my desire to walk the path less traveled .. especially by women!
Growing up in the 60's, watching Mario Andretti and that era of racecar drivers, also fueled the combustion to drive competitively. During the 1980's I was introduced to autocrossing (driving a Toyota Corolla), hillclimb, and road racing, and ‘the bug’ hit hard. Corner working was OK in the beginning, but then during the late-80’s, friends of mine -- Sue Salsburg and David Arron, who were co-driving a race-prepared 1956 MGA -- offered me their street MGB to drive at a Weatherly Hillclimb. That was it! No more corner working for me! Certainly, how could one watch cars pass by while fulfilling the task of safety worker, as important as it might it be, after having driven the hill?!?
After a period away from racing, due to my brother and mother's deaths, I was asked in 2003 by my MGA friends, "Do you want to go to a hillclimb?" So, once again I was safety-working a corner on a hill. The smells and sounds of cars made me feel like I was at home. Let's not forget the camaraderie amongst drivers, too!
During 2004, I started co-driving Chuck Christ Sr.'s SAAB 93F, and I learned exactly what internal combustion was like .. 2 stroke style! Keeping the proper balance of fuel and oxygen, along with proper rev's .. was certainly an experience I'll never forget. By the end of the season, after having driven the Spring Weatherly, Giant’s Despair, Rose Valley, and Duryea hillclimbs, I felt like I was driving a living beast, for whom I had to listen for its "heartbeat,” after it accepted an offering of fuel and oxygen. In turn, its "heart" would present to me that ring-a-ding-ding!
I learned to drive on a 1963 Dodge Dart ("3-on-a-tree"), mind you, so the stick-thing of the 93F was easy, except for not knowing where reverse was my first time up Weatherly Hillclimb. Yes, you must turnaround and go DOWN the hill, too! Talk about embarrassment, when all the other drivers had to go around me, and they had to send Chuck up the hill to show me where reverse was! Despite that, I became an officially licensed SCCA Solo I driver after the Rose Valley event.