Andy Lee does it all in search of sports car success
The pickup truck pulling the trailer containing Andy Lee’s race car came through the gates Wednesday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Nothing unusual about that; Lee is competing this weekend in a Pirelli World Challenge race at the renowned California road course.
What’s unusual about it is that Lee was driving the truck. In fact, he’s driven it from Phoenix to every race since May, shortly after the team with which he started the season ran into financial trouble and downsized.
More unusual than that? Lee and his small, underfunded team have found some measure of success late in the season. Heading into the PWC season finale at Laguna Seca (Sunday, 1:30 p.m. ET), Lee is ninth in the series’ GTS standings, thanks to a victory Aug. 29 at Sonoma Raceway and three top-six finishes recently at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Miller Motorsports Park.
For the team’s leader, promoter, publicist, truckie, part-time mechanic and full-time racer, the success has been gratifying.
“I’ve got a hand in everything, but I also have some really good people who help me out," Lee told Paste BN Sports. "I’ve got a pretty good circle of friends and connections that have allowed me to bridge the gap funding-wise. We’re certainly not well-funded, by any means, but we keep finding ways to continue. That’s a huge part of it.”
In a sport that begins during childhood for most, Lee, 32, was a late arrival. The son of a single mother who drove a school bus in Colorado Springs, Lee’s interest in cars led him to a job as a mechanic at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving at age 20.
His mom, Charlotte Sprague, eventually sold the family home to help Lee buy his first race car, and Lee turned success in karting and entry-level sports car racing into a position as an instructor at the school. From there, he set his sights on climbing the sports car ladder.
“Racing just wasn’t an option when I was younger,” Lee said. “A lot of these guys that we race against have been karting since they were 5 or 6 years old. You can’t hold that against them. If I had had the means, I would’ve been doing the same exact thing. There are a lot of things you gain by experience and that are learned in those early years that I didn’t really get a chance to take part in. But what saved me and helped me catch up was working at the school.”
Still an instructor at Bondurant, based at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Ariz., Lee has scrapped and clawed through various levels of racing. When his team owner, Harry Curtin, founder of BestIT, was forced to downsize earlier this season, he let Lee continue to drive the No. 20 Chevrolet Camaro. A sponsor came through with the pickup truck and single-car trailer, and Lee and his teammates — girlfriend Megan Hoovler, engineer Chris Harrison, mechanics Lyndon Slade and David Stevens and photographer Morgan Rhodes — continued racing.
The first trip was a 3,500-mile odyssey from Phoenix to Canadian Tire Motorsports Park near Toronto. Lee’s persistence hasn’t been lost on his competitors, including 67-year-old sports car legend Jack Baldwin, who was been known to help out Lee’s small crew, even feeding them at times.
“Andy does what it takes to race,” Baldwin said. “He drives the truck, works on the race car and he makes it happen. If he doesn’t make it happen, then nobody will. In this racing business, you are going to have to ride that roller coaster. Andy has a done a good job of displaying all of the characteristics – determination, tenacity and the willingness to fight the fight — and he has proven to be a winner.”
While Michael Cooper has all but clinched the championship in Lee’s GTS class — he is 107 points ahead of second place — the battle for the championship in the series’ top division, GT, remains alive and diverse. Johnny O’Connell, who has won the last three GT championships, pilots his Cadillac ATS V.R into a showdown with Olivier Beretta’s Ferrari 458 Italia GT3. The final races are Sunday.
Meanwhile, Indy Lights shares the championship weekend at Laguna Seca with a season-ending doubleheader that offers a $1 million IndyCar scholarship and three guaranteed IndyCar races in 2016 — including the 100th Indianapolis 500 — to the champion.
Jack Harvey, a 22-year-old from Bassingham, England, leads Spencer Pigot, a 21-year-old from Orlando, by just six points, but Ed Jones and Max Chilton are within striking distance.
But for Lee, the journey is just beginning. After Sunday’s race, he’ll climb into the pickup and start the journey back to Arizona. Then he’ll return to working the phone and email to find sponsors and financial backers for 2016, and, of course, go back to teaching other people to drive race cars.
All while continuing to quietly impress the racing world.
“Andy is kind of a throwback in today’s racing world,” Baldwin said. “Not many people do it the way he is now. I did it that way 20 or 25 years ago. I’ve towed a race car non-stop all night to a track, and with no money. I totally appreciate what Andy is doing.”
Follow Olson on Twitter @jeffolson77