Racing Champion in Our Midst

By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo

Jonathan Goring after winning at Daytona on September 25.

One should never question a parent’s intuition about their child. Keith Goring, who has run Alfas Unlimited, Inc. on Greenwoods Road for 40 years, knew that his son was meant to be a race car driver long before the kid even had a license.

Jonathan Goring started driving a golf cart around his parents’ property on Winchester Road when he was eight years old. Two years later, he had moved on to go-karts. He was a nine-time karting champion by the time he attended the three-day racing school at Lime Rock Park at the age of 14.

Driving runs in the blood. Keith Goring raced from the late 1970’s to the early 1990’s, but defers all accolades to his only child. “It was so clear early on that Jonathan just had a natural feel for driving,” says Goring. “When I saw him racing go-karts as a kid, I realized he had more talent in his little finger than I ever had. He took to it immediately.”

Jonathan Goring’s skills didn’t go unnoticed at Lime Rock, where he is now an instructor at the Lime Rock Driver’s Club and the Skip Barber Racing School. He got his first job at the historic track as a gofer when he was 14, and made an immediate impression. His dad recalls, “I remember standing there watching Jonathan drive with Bruce MacInnes [who’s helped train two generations of Andrettis] and MacInnes said, ‘This kid’s really got something.’”

Indeed. Goring won the Skip Barber National when he was 16. Two years later, he won another national championship, the IMSA-Lites, and then the great recession of 2008 hit. “Nobody was putting any money into racing from 2009 until 2012,” Keith Goring explains. “My son had come so far, so fast, but the timing was awful.”

Not one to admit defeat, Jonathan Goring used those years to sharpen his teaching skills. He took a job at Skip Barber Racing School, and exhibited an incredible calm and patience on the track that soon earned him a solid reputation as a teacher.

This past year, Goring got back out on the circuit and won his third national championship at the end of September. Now 25, he had a memorable night at the Spec Miata National Championship, a Sports Club Car of America (SCCA) runoff race that was held at Daytona International Speedway on September 25.

The SCCA hadn’t had a national championship race at Daytona since 1969. As if that wasn’t exciting enough for the 62 drivers that qualified, this race was under the lights, another rare occurrence. It was a dramatic night. The stress level was high in the minutes before the race began, as a steady rain began falling half an hour before race time.

The rain wasn’t supposed to last for long, so drivers were scrambling, trying to decide what tires to put on their vehicles. Goring’s team put on “the wets,” but then switched back to the dry-condition tires minutes before the race began, ultimately putting faith in the fact that the rain would taper off quickly and the track would dry up as the race wore on.

Their gamble paid off. In the sixth turn of lap 14 (the final lap), Goring suddenly shot to the front of the pack and maintained the lead until the checkered flag fell. For the last three laps, Goring averaged a speed four seconds faster than the previous leaders.

“It was crazy. I didn’t even know I had won,” Goring says. The commentators got it wrong, misidentifying the lead car as belonging to another driver, and Goring was having trouble with his radio, so he couldn’t hear the response when he asked where he was. When they flagged him into the victory circle after his cool-down lap, he couldn’t believe it. The expression on his face getting out of the car was priceless (a live broadcast of the race is available at www.SCCA.com).

Goring’s car, a Mazda Miata, was purchased for $2,000, and the father and son team spent about a year putting $30,000 into it. “The fact that we built the car together, as a team, and came into the Daytona race as underdogs … it’s just a great feeling.” says Goring.

The hardest part about racing is that drivers have to chase sponsorships. In NASCAR, drivers get the big corporate sponsors, generally companies that sell household products, but in the sports car racing world it’s all personally funded, or drivers find small companies to sponsor them. And racing isn’t cheap. It costs $100,000 to compete for one year in the SCCA circuit, plus the cost of the car. Goring’s current goal is to secure a sponsorship soon so he can compete for another year in the Spec Miata Series, or possibly move up to the MX-5 Cup Series.

Goring is the antithesis of the stereotypical race car driver: humble, earnest and exceedingly polite. The tagline on his business card reads, “Creating safer, faster and more consistent drivers.” One look at those bright green eyes and you know the intensity there can only lead to one thing—great success.

To find out more about Jonathan Goring, or to inquire about sponsorship, visit www.jonathangoringmotorsports.com.
Photos courtesy of Jonathan Goring.