WAMPURN, Pa. - The mountaintop above this small, rural town is awash in activity. It is here, at Beaver Run Motor-sports Park, about 250 miles west of Baltimore, that Maryland sports car driver Chuck Goldsborough has come to test his Lexus IS300 race cars.
As his three cars are being unloaded, Goldsborough, looking like a driver out of a Hollywood movie - sun-bleached blond hair falling over his forehead, stylish sunglasses shielding his eyes and dressed in his driver's suit - tells the tale of family and success.
Descended from the family of Maryland Continental Congress delegate Robert Goldsborough and of Charles Goldsborough, governor of Maryland in 1819, the Baltimore native has overcome rocky years to gain the attention of a major car manufacturer and build a championship race team from scratch.
"Twenty years ago, my family would have preferred a more traditional line of work," said Goldsborough, recalling that his family's ancestors were prominent land owners, lawyers and politicians in Colonial America.
"Choosing to be a race car driver 20 years ago was like going to Hollywood and trying to become an actor. Only a handful make it. I don't know how it happened for me other than the fact that I've just stuck with it."
Goldsborough's team, consisting of an all-volunteer crew from Baltimore and which operates as Team Lexus, was the 2002 Grand Am Cup champion in the Sport Touring I Class, finishing the season first in both team and drivers points.
This season, Team Lexus is learning all about how much NASCAR, the sanctioning body for the Grand Am Series, as well as the Winston Cup stock car series, loves parity.
Making it tougher
At the start of this season, Goldsborough's cars were given a 50-pound handicap that has since been raised to 100. And just before the midseason break that began after the June 29 race in Mid-Ohio, the team was told it could no longer use its performance cams and clutches.
"Telling us we have to use stock cams and clutches, it can slow us down a little bit," said Mark McKay, who has been a volunteer Team Lexus mechanic for four years and also drives the team rig.
"Stock parts are more reliable," said Blake Osmond, who also has volunteered for four years. "But the after-market parts are more performance- oriented."
