The beginning

It all started around 2002 or so, when I reconnected with an old high school buddy that knew a guy who was running a MK1 Rabbit in SCCA Club Rally. We did that for a bit, and not long into that exercise I met Kirk Knestis in much the same way, the internet friends of friends and so on. Kirk wanted to build a car to run Showroom Stock, and then it morphed into IT and even Rally, the first Rally event was the end of that first car, I think we were in TN. So Kirk and I set out to build another identical yet improved 93 VW GTI this time specifically for Improved Touring B. Pablo was the name of the car, Pablo 2, actually sometimes Dos Pablos. Anyway, that started my long and twisted tale of SCCA road racing and my intro into SCCA enduros, we did a bunch of enduros with that car. You can read all about the evolution of both cars and our experience building them on Kirk’s website which he still maintains to this day. He documented nearly everything. We had great successes with that car, which turned into successes with many MK3 GTI’s in ITB, even swept the ARRC podium one year with all three ITB GTI’s all from the same camp, pretty cool.

Here are some pictures from those days, but please take a look over on Kirk’s site to see the entire history of Pablo and the beginnings of Conover Motorsports. http://www.it2.evaluand.com/gti/index.php

The very First VIR 13 hour with Pablo #1

See more of this build at http://www.it2.evaluand.com/gti/build4.php

ARRC win in a Conover prepped and supported MK3 ITB GTI driven by Tristan Herbert.

Tristan Herbert, Tom Martin, and Kirk Knestis Sweep the ITB podium at the ARRC

The drivers and crew after a 1st place finish at the 24 hour race Longest Day at Nelson Ledges in 2007.