FasterSkunk Racing

07/16/2026

It's funny how one conversation can change the direction of your life.

Years ago, I showed up to my very first Track Night in America.

Jon was there.

He encouraged me to give SCCA Time Trials a shot. Later, he coached me toward my road racing license. When it came time to sign my novice permit, it was Jon's signature on the paperwork.

At the time, neither of us had any idea where that little piece of paper would eventually lead.

Since then, Jon has become far more than a coach or mentor. He's become a friend.

The thing about Jon is that he has gotten more knowledge about motorsports than most of us will ever know. Professional driver. Crew chief. Full-time SCCA staff member. The kind of person you listen to when he speaks because his experience has already answered the question you're about to ask.

And yet, despite all of that, he still makes time for people learning the sport.

He made time for me.

A few weeks ago, Jon and Meagan made the trip to Pikes Peak, camera in hand, documenting moments I'll treasure for the rest of my life.

Somewhere between my first novice laps and the summit of America's Mountain, I realized something.

The guy who signed my novice permit was standing there watching me take the green flag at Pikes Peak.

That hit me harder than I expected.

We spend so much time chasing the next event that we rarely stop to appreciate how far we've actually come. Having Jon there wasn't just another crew member on the mountain.

It felt like the story had come full circle.

Jon, thank you for believing in a brand-new driver all those years ago. Thank you for every piece of advice, every correction, every signature, every conversation, and every bit of encouragement along the way.

I hope I made that novice permit worth signing.

📸: Guess Work Photography

07/15/2026

Seems fitting (haha see what I did there) to show off the new garage with a post!

Got a wing on your car? Show it off!

07/14/2026

Every race car has a builder.

Some builders assemble parts.

Some builders create possibilities.

Dan Meyer is the second kind.

Murphy doesn't exist in her current form without Dan. Thousands of hours, countless late nights, endless problem solving, and more "well... let's see if this works" moments than either of us could ever count.

The funny thing is, people tend to think race week is where the work happens.

It isn't.

Race week is where you find out if the work happened.

Every bolt that stayed tight, every system that worked, every mile Murphy climbed toward the summit had Dan's fingerprints on it long before we ever left North Carolina.

Of course, race cars don't really care how many hours you've invested.

They break anyway.

One afternoon during race week, after chasing yet another problem, Mark looked at the two of us and asked, "Why do we still do this?"

Without missing a beat, I answered:

"Because it's great. It's horribly frustrating... and occasionally it lets us win."

Dan just nodded.

No explanation needed.

That's our relationship with race cars in one sentence.

One of my favorite things about Dan is that no problem is ever the end of the story. It's just the next engineering challenge. He doesn't panic. He doesn't complain. He just starts figuring out Version 2.

Which is fortunate... because I have an incredible talent for taking perfectly good race cars and discovering their next area for improvement.

Sorry about that.

Thank you for believing in an idea that started as "what if?" and somehow turned into taking the green flag at Pikes Peak. Thank you for every late night, every impossible deadline, every crazy fabrication project, and every time you quietly turned another impossible idea into something that actually worked.

I drove Murphy to the summit.

You built the car that gave me the chance.

For that, I'll always be grateful.

📸: Guess Work Photography

07/10/2026

We've marked the calendar and planning is already started! 🏁

Anyone else as excited as we are to go back?!

The date is set 🗓️

Mark you calendar for the 105th Race to the Clouds - JUNE 27, 2027 🏁

Tickets to go on sale this December!

07/09/2026

I met Mark Beech through Dan Meyer.

Dan knows how to make Murphy go fast.

Mark knows how Murphy was supposed to work when Audi built it.

Thankfully, he's perfectly okay with the fact that those are now two very different conversations.

Mark is an Audi engineer by trade, but that's only part of the story. We'd connected over racing long before Pikes Peak. He's ridden in the Audi, we've raced against each other when I was driving the Fit, and somewhere along the way I realized he was exactly the kind of person you want in your corner when things get complicated.

Pikes Peak has a funny way of exposing people's personalities.

Some become loud.

Some become stressed.

Mark just... worked.

If there was a problem, he was already looking at it. If another team needed a hand, he was there. If something needed to be done, it quietly got done without anyone having to ask. No drama. No ego. Just an incredible attention to detail and a willingness to help everyone around him.

That's the kind of teammate you hope for.

One of my favorite memories from race week wasn't even about the car. At one point, after another long day of wrenching, Mark looked at Dan and me and asked, "Why do we still do this?"

I answered without even thinking.

"Because it's great. It's horribly frustrating... and occasionally it lets us win."

He laughed.

I think that's when he realized he had joined the right circus.

Mark, thank you for being the steady hand every team wishes they had. Thank you for helping make "Murphy" better. Thank you for cheering me on. And thank you for proving that world-class engineers can, in fact, survive an entire week fueled almost exclusively by a passionate dislike of vegetables.

The mountain may have my name on the entry list, but it took a team to get me to the start line.

📸: Guess Work Photography

07/07/2026

Some people show up when things are exciting.

Some people show up before anyone knows they're going to be exciting.

Keith falls squarely into the second category.

We've been racing together long before FasterSkunk Racing became what it is today. We've celebrated wins together, laughed through mechanical failures, loaded trailers in the dark (and rain... lots of rain), and somehow convinced ourselves that spending weekends turning money into tire dust is a perfectly reasonable hobby.

So when it came time to head to Pikes Peak, there was never really a question. Keith was going to be there.

One of the things I admire most about Keith is that he never needs the spotlight. If something needs to be unloaded, fixed, moved, cleaned, organized, or figured out, he's already halfway through doing it before anyone thinks to ask. He's steady. Dependable. The kind of teammate every driver hopes they have standing behind them.

The mountain is an individual challenge, but the days leading up to it are anything but. Long mornings, late nights, changing plans, waiting, wrenching, solving problems, and somehow finding time to laugh in between. Keith was ready for every bit of it.

People see one driver take the green flag.

I see the friends who made it possible to get there.

Thanks for believing in this crazy journey from the beginning, my friend. Here's to the next ridiculous idea.

The mountain may have my name on the entry list, but it took a team to get me to the start line.

📸: Guess Work Photography

07/04/2026

People have asked what the "secret" to a 12:19 Pikes Peak run is.

There isn't one.

In fact, almost every major component on this car has always been commercially available. The roll cage is the only truly custom piece, and even that can be built by the same incredible fabricators who built ours.

The difference has never been what we bought.

It's what we bought... tested... logged... questioned... removed... replaced... and, occasionally, bought again.

For nearly a decade we've been iterating on this platform. Plenty of good parts didn't survive. Not because they were bad, but because they weren't the right ingredient for *this* recipe.

A huge amount of that credit belongs to **529 Innovations**. Their engineering, willingness to challenge assumptions, and relentless pursuit of better is woven into this car. The ecosystem around the parts matters just as much as the parts themselves. Buying a similar component isn't the same as buying into years of testing that explain *why* it's there.

Now let's address the elephant in the room.

A 12:19 was good enough for 57th overall.

If that sounds "slow," welcome to Pikes Peak.

This isn't a race where rookies get their own mountain. Production cars, purpose-built race cars, factory efforts, seasoned veterans, first-timers, five-figure budgets and seven-figure budgets all face the same 156 corners.

We didn't build the 57th fastest car in the world.

We built a production-based Audi that climbed one of motorsport's toughest mountains in 12:19, improved from 64th in qualifying to 57th on race day, and validated nearly a decade of engineering.

The recipe isn't what stayed on the car.

It's everything we learned by taking the wrong parts back off.

We're already working on the next round of iteration. The mountain handed us another stack of homework, and we fully intend to be back.

If you'd like to follow along as we chase the next version of this recipe, we'd love to have you.

📸: Guess Work Photography
Racing for ALS
OneOf250
Lifetime Audi Parts
Jzilla Track Days
CJM Industries
NOPI
Audi Club Carolinas
Babyface Fabrication
Cars and Coffee Morrisville, Inc
Vitour Performance Tires

07/03/2026

To be included with these incredible teams and drivers is an honor that we won’t soon forget!

Also - Amy’s reel game is on point, anybody else agree?!

07/03/2026

Alrighty folks! Our first outing since returning from Pikes Peak International Hill Climb!

Who’s coming to check out the car and some of the modifications the crew needed to make to get the team to the top of the mountain?!

Good morning everybody! Below is a map of our layout for tomorrow’s event. Our theme will be American Muscle and they will be parked in THEME PARKING. Here are a few other reminders.
1) Our VIP area will have our Title Sponsor NC Driveline, Durham Rescue Mission will be accepting backpacks and school supplies, Knightdale Knights youth football team, Racing for ALS, Coastal Credit Union, and merch tent.
2) JUST A REMINDER THAT ADDITIONAL PARKING IS AVAILABLE AT THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES 1101 Slater rd, 1035 Swabia Court, and 1015 Swabia Court. PLEASE DO NOT PARK IN THE OFFICE DEPOT OR PUBLIC STORAGE PARKING LOTS ACROSS THE STREET.
3) THERE IS NOW AN AREA WE WILL BE BLOCKING OFF FOR EMPLOYEES IN THE PARKING LOT WHERE MOTORCYCLES PARK. THIS DOESN’T AFFECT THE MOTORCYCLE AREA, JUST THE OTHER SIDE WHERE KYRIA IS.
4) As always, make sure you are respectful entering/leaving and while your at our event. No excessive revving will be tolerated. Also, DO NOT STAND ON THE SIDEWALKS, IN THE ROAD, OR MEDIANS. YOU WILL BE ASKED TO MOVE BY OUR STAFF AND DURHAM PD.
5) Our event ends at 11am, so you need to leave then. LOITERING IN THE PARKING LOTS WONT BE ALLOWED AND YOU WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE
6) There is no registration or fee to come to our event. Just show up and find a parking spot. Our STAFF WILL HAVE CARS AND COFFEE MORRISVILLE VESTS AND POLOS ON, so if you have any questions they will assist you.
7) Lastly, will will have portable restrooms for people to use. They will be in the same spots as last month.

07/02/2026

When I told people I was driving to Colorado with a trailer and a race car, most assumed I'd be making the trip alone.

Instead, Justin met me in a Walmart parking lot, climbed into a 65-foot truck-and-trailer combination, and immediately became the world's most overqualified road trip companion.

Over the next two days, his responsibilities somehow included spotting trains, finding food that wasn't terrible, locating diesel stations with truck lanes, translating years of Honda knowledge into something useful on a German race car, reminding me to present my "papers" at weigh stations, and making sure we both appreciated the twenty accidental miles we spent on Route 66.

It was his first trip to Pikes Peak.

It was mine too.

By the time we got to Colorado, he wasn't just along for the ride anymore. He was turning wrenches, helping prep the Audi, asking questions, learning everything he could, and becoming part of the crew. The mountain has a way of doing that to people.

One of my favorite parts of racing isn't the trophies. It's watching people catch the same bug that got me years ago. Justin showed up to help me get to Pikes Peak. I have a feeling Pikes Peak got a hold of him, too.

Thanks for taking the adventure with me, my friend. I wouldn't trade the conversations, the miles, or the memories for anything.

The mountain may have my name on the entry list, but it took a team to get me to the start line.