Racing is a lifetime obsession for me, from birth to death, that will be my passion above all other things... The first race I ever attended was Saturday April 8th, 1989
at Maryland International Raceway. I was born two days before that,
and quickly introduced into the family business; racing. Freshly
welcomed into to the world I was immediately at the drag strip watching
my father and uncle race their top alcohol dragster in our hometown
of Mechanicsville, Maryland. I may not have known it at the time,
since is was only 48 hours old, but this would be where I would spend
at very large portion of my life, the race track!
I fell in love with racing at a
very young age. There was nothing better than watching my dad work on
his blown alcohol dragster in our garage during the week and
absolutely dominating on the weekend at the track. With my father tuning the
dragster and my uncle behind the wheel, they made one of the best
blown alcohol teams around, winning tons of races and even a few local
championships, all while I watched in awe of the amazing things they
did. In my eyes, Parlett Brothers Racing was the epitome of greatness
and my mind was set, when I grew up I wanted to race. Introduced to
ridiculous speeds of over 200 mph in 6 seconds, at such a young age
made me destined for a lifetime passion of speed.
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| Parlett Racing Blown Alcohol Dragster in the Winners Circle (1998) |
Not only was racing on the weekends a family staple but my father also made it a family business. With his love for the cerebral aspect of racing he began creating weather analysis and data acquisition products that would help them be more consistent with the tune and setup on the dragster. With much success it slowly morphed into one of the leading motorsports electronics companies in the world today, Computech. Founded just before my birth, Computech has been a family run company for over 20 years, even up to today with my two brothers currently running it.
With racing so entrenched in my
life from birth, it was inevitable that someday I would end up
racing, and I looked forward to it. In kindergarten when the teacher
went around the room and asked what we wanted to be when we grew up I
knew it was one of two things, a race car driver or some sort of
artist. Fast forward to today and somehow iv'e managed to pull both
of those off, running my own graphic design company, Apex Design, and
am Chief of Branding for SOHO Motorsports along with racing for them
as well.
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| My brothers and I on the starting line next to a Nitro Funny Car |
In 1997, at the age of 8, we closed the Parlett Brothers racing venture due to unfortunate family health issues and my fathers political endeavors. This sadly be the end of racing for the Parlett family for many years. When we sold the dragster it was a sad day especially for me because I was just getting to the age where I was allowed to help on the car and really start to get a basic understanding of the mechanics of a racecar. With my weekends open for the first time in my life and no racing to attend, I quickly stumbled across an alternative source for my love of speed and racing competition; radio controlled racing.
That's right, from the age of 9 to 16 I was absolutely entrenched in professional level radio control racing, from indoor electric touring cars on carpet road courses to outdoor off-road nitro trucks on dirt tracks with huge jumps. I started out at my local hobby shop and quickly learned some basics of road racing. With the RC cars being modern scaled versions of essentially real race cars, I quickly learned a ton about car setup and got to see first hand how it affected the handling as well on track. Everything from toe, camber, shock dampening, spring rates, engine tuning, electrical components, engine tuning and even aerodynamics. I may not have known it at the time but nearly everything I know today was from my experience racing at a high level with scale models, it may sound silly to some, but a ton of it correlates to real cars. Along with learning vehicle dynamics I also learned a ton about sportsmanship and the unique ebbs and flows of a race season. After years of racing at the local points series and winning multiple season championships, I began racing at the professional level and did very well. Many of the races were against great drivers and most of them were very long mains usually upward of 45 minutes for final races. With this I learned a ton about proper racing lines, changing conditions, racing etiquette, the ups and downs of a racing season, how to to deal with pressure and competition and a ton of other valuable lessons that I wouldn’t realize I absorbed until much later in life. I don’t mean to elaborate so much on the RC stuff but it truly was a huge part of where I am today and also a large reason why my love of racing transferred from drag racing to road racing. But all of that was about to change because I was about to be 16 and get my license to drive real cars.
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| 1980 Camaro Rally Sport 383 Stroker EFI Drag Car |
Inheriting my brothers '99 Chevy Cavalier Z24 the first thing I did after receiving my license was took it to the local dragstrips' Friday "Midnight Madness" race for street cars. Finally I was back at the dragstrip and racing for real, myself... unfortunately it was in a 15 second piece of junk haha, but she was my baby. After dozens of successful bracket drag races with the Cavalier my father took note and helped my brother and I build a street / strip 1980 Camaro Rally Sport. Just as with RC racing, the long tedious build process of my first real racecar was unbelievably informative, and I soaked it all in. A few years before this build my father and I restored a 1953 Farmall Cub Tractor for my grandfather, having learned a ton from that experience I was obviously excited to begin building my first car, let alone one we would race. We spent nearly a full year tearing the car down, restoring and repairing the body, building the engine and then rebuilding to new. There wasn’t a single inch of the car we didn’t fix, from the underside to the interior to building the block and installing all of the suspension. Thanks to my father, that year was a crash course on the complex inter workings of a high performance car, and to this day I still draw on what I learned during that time. After years of blood sweat and tears, the Camaro was finally done and my brother and I were trading off turns racing it each weekend. I loved racing that street legal 11 second Camaro and was also pretty darn successful on Friday nights and Saturdays foot brake bracket racing series. I fell in love with real racing and RC fell to the wayside nearly immediately, my need for speed went from watching to doing, and I was hooked for life.
Sharing the Camaro with my
brother meant every other weekend he was in the driver seat and I
sadly was not, and with an eager throttle foot I wanted another
outlet. With my insatiable need to race every weekend and my newly
purchased Subaru WRX being a great platform, I slowly began to get
into another style of racing, autox. After installing all of the
necessary bolt-ons and basic suspension mods I could afford with my small
budget I began to pursue the points championship at my local SCCA
autocross club based in the Washington DC Region. After a decent
first two seasons, the car was unfortunately in an accident on the
street which sadly resulted in the built WRX burning to the ground.
With my dreams temporarily crushed, the search for a new car quickly
began for the next race season. After much thought and research I
took the insurance money from the WRX and invested it into what would
be the penultimate platform for me for next few years, a 2005
Infiniti G35.
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| 2004 Subaru WRX (RIP) |
After a few months of enjoying the new RWD platform I had already won my first SCCA DC Region autox in the F Stock class. Loving the balance and handling difference between the AWD WRX I had once raced and the RWD G35, I began to instantly love the new VQ platform. After the first season of leaving the G stock for the rules of the FS class, I ended up winning the regional points championship by a slim 8 points and was exhilarated by the small feat I had accomplished. After completing that season I ended up moving from Maryland to Charlotte, NC. Charlotte was a great place not only for my graphic design career but also because it is considered by many to be the capital of American motorsports, with all sorts of race teams from ALMS to NASCAR to FD calling Charlotte home, and also home of the NASCAR Hall Of Fame, which happens to be across the street from where I live. Upon arrival I quickly went to the first local autox with the G slightly more modified and in the STX class. I realized immediately that I was going to love living in Charlotte, as it is centrally located between dozens of high quality race tracks, had tons of great car clubs and racing groups, and a local car scene that was second to none. Charlotte, NC is a great place for anyone who loves motorpsorts as much as me, but back to the racing. The first year in Charlotte in 2009 I ran the G35 in the Central Carolina Region and the South Carolina Region SCCA autocross clubs, running in both FS and STX. Racing in nearly 20+ autocrosses that season I won all but a few of them and was the point champ in CCR and NCAC.
In completion of the 2009 season
I was introduced to the Sohoritis brothers by a mutual friend, Brian
Phillips, who was running the local Formula Drift Pro Am in the
region, Streetwise Drift. After meeting the brothers we worked out a
sponsorship deal with their up and coming shop, SOHO Motorsports.
Immediately the decision was made to build the G35 capable of competing at the highest levels of Time Attack racing in America. With the
insanely high speeds, high technology, over-designed chassis,
excessive aerodynamics and everything else needed to be at the top of
the Time Attack charts, we knew we would be doing something no one on
earth had done with the Nissan VQ platform. And to make our journey
even harder we decided to do everything we could to keep the Infiniti
as close to its factory trim as possible such as; limiting the body
modifications, leaving the stock dash trim for rule regulations,
stock transmission and more importantly using the Nissan VQ35DE Revup engine
that came with the car, built up by SOHO of course. When we decided to build
the car we made a decision along with our sponsors to use the best
quality parts and do everything to the highest standard, in an effort
to not only make the fastest car on track but one of the highest
quality and most beautiful cars on track or at any show. To see all of the parts
used on the car check out the build list here.
We began the build process in the beginning of 2010 and we first track tested the #44 G35 in late summer of that year, debuting it at Z-Con in Savannah, GA. This blog has documented literally every moment of the process from the first day the G pulled into the SOHO Motorsports shop to our endeavors at Global Time Attack in 2012 to me updating this biography right now at the beginning of 2013. The best way to see what we have been up to since the beginning of our Time Attack quest of supremacy is by checking this blog regularly. For more info on our past endeavors check out the archived posts organized by date on the side bar to the right above. We have photos and articles on nearly every part we use on the car, articles from every race we go to, every sponsor who has helped us, every magazine feature, every victory, every loss, every problem, every wreck and all of the ups and downs that come with a new race team and a car that no one has ever built before. It has been an interesting journey up until this moment and I am sure there is nothing but more good things in store for me and the #44 SOHO Motorsports Time Attack Infiniti G35 in the future! Please look around the blog for up to date videos, photos, schedules, sponsors, build list and absolutely everything else that has to do with the team and car! Thanks for looking and see you at the track!
