Vince Porcelli Racing

2006 marks one of the best seasons ever for Vince Porcelli Racing! We began the season with a new paint job applied by my brother and his son. The paint products were supplied by Ternes Paint Supply in Dearborn. Our new motor was built by Wayne Kuchtyn and got us in the 8.80’s, a new converter and trans from Jim Paquet that put the power to the rear end and a couple of new sponsors that we hope will continue with us next year. The year started off immediately with the team scoring 2 wins, at different tracks and in 2 separate classes. With a start like that it was easy to see ourselves going downhill. That never happened!

Then we went to the Michigan Bracket Finals held in Stanton Michigan at one of the best Michigan tracks, the Mid Michigan Motorplex. This facility is not only one of the nicest in the state but the owner, Mary Jo Ledford, is such a nice person! She greeted me and Emilie with a big smile and thanked us for coming. Needless to say, we got rained out but we would have been in the race of Champions as the box Champion for Lapeer dragway.

A couple of weeks ago we ran in the Race of Champions at Lapeer and won, that qualified us to now go to Norwalk Raceway in Norwalk Ohio for the Halloween Classic held at the end of October. We will be running in the Divisional Race of Champions there.

The team has made many appearences at benefits, races, car shows, schools and conferences to bring awareness to illnesses, education and the state of the economy in Michigan. These are all subjects we hold close to our hearts and continually try to bring them to the public wherever we go. Some of the events the team has attended this season are:

• The Annual Don Nicholson’s Charity car show to benefit the Wayne Skill Center. We are on the board of directors for this show and the turn out gets better every year. All the funds go directly to the Skill Center to help the autistic, the board doesn’t get a penny! We ended up bringing in another $5100.00. Last year we renovated the skill centers area for teaching the students how to keep up their own living quarters. This year's money is slated for computers and other needs.
• Toys for Tots benefit to be held on Oct 14th is an annual event we attend and the benefit is getting larger every season.
• Ford Motor Enthusiasts car show held at Ford World Headquarters. At this event our race car is on display inside Ford World Headquarters for about 7 hours during a week day show. All of our sponsors are suppliers to Ford Motor Company and the visibility is fantastic!
• Eaton Corporation Annual Picnic held at Milan Dragway is an event that is invite only. Our team is invited every year to participate and put on a show for Eaton Corporations customers. It’s a day long event with 1000’s of people attending and all are in some way tied to the automotive supplier as a customer or supplier.

In our final race of the year for the Race of Champions we were eliminated in the 1st round, we went to fast. We did well in the Top ET class, going 4 rounds at an unfamiliar track before losing.

All in all, it was a great year. We generated funds for our number one benefit, the Wayne Skill Center, we won some, we lost some, but we have qualified as Champion for two Championship races and that is a first for the team!

Looking forward to next year, we are now updating our Transmission and Engine combination with help from our Engine and Transmission sponsors, JPT Transmission and Headwinds Inc.

The best performance for the year was an 8.79 at 153mph.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors for helping us to help others again in 2006. We would hope you will all join us again in 2007 as we take on new challenges with a new school to be announced in the upcoming days.

Vinnie Porcelli