Members Rides - Pictures

Car: 1969

About John and Debbie:

John and Debra moved to the Santa Maria area in June 2008. There are many stories we could go into but thought we would start from the beginning and move on to our travels together. John was born in Jacksonville North Carolina when his father was in the Marine Corp. From there John, Mom, and Dad moved to Louisville Kentucky after his father got out of the Marines following the Korean War. He lived in Jacksonville FL twice and Fernandina Beach FL. He considers home Daytona Beach FL where he spent his teenage years until he joined the Air Force in 1977.

His first assignment was RAF Upper Heyford, England and worked many a twelve hour shift, but always found time to see car events which included the English Grand Prix at Silverstone Raceway. After two years in England he moved to La Junta Colorado and stayed there for five years. While stationed there he worked interesting places like Little America Wyoming, Epps Louisiana, Big Lake Texas, Bethany Missouri, Greenriver Utah, and Forsythe Montana. In between all this travel his boss left him in La Junta long enough to buy his first Corvette; a 78 model, and meet one of the local girls named Debra Broce.

Debra was born in Rocky Ford CO and grew up in La Junta. She joined John with a few car related activities including working flagging and communication for SCCA. Deb stated she really did not enjoy standing out in the wind, snow, and rain when it was 36 degrees and watching racecars go by!! She put up with John anyway, and they got married in La Junta and less than a year later moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. While in Las Vegas we autocrossed the 78 Corvette, but it was quite evident with 1969 and 1978 Vettes in the same class we needed to move to strictly an autocross car. There was a local dealer that took a Triumph in on trade that did not run, but it was a car John had back in high school. The Triumph GT-6 was purchased and work started on developing a competitive autocross car. After limited resources and numerous repairs the GT-6 did quite well on a local level.

Deb could regularly beat John in an autocross because she was smooth and just made the car work. The once or twice a month autocrosses were fun, but we got the bug to see how the pros did it. The Vette became the tow car and we flat towed the GT-6 to Nationals and Pro Solos and had fun even though John got used to finishing last with the pros. We even put on a Pro Solo in Las Vegas at Sam’s Town Casino. It was a great event with the help of Marvin Maize we set up one heck of a mirror course. All good things in the car world have to come to an end.

We were transferred to Fort Walton Beach FL and the closest autocross was 45 miles away. It just was not the same, so eventually we sold the Triumph and traded the 78 Vette. We did without a Vette for quite some time and moved to Wichita Falls TX. On the move from Florida to Texas we had recently purchased a Ford Taurus SHO and experienced our first breakdown on the side of the highway with the fuel pump that quit working at 17K miles. It would not be the first such occurrence! While in Wichita Falls, John retired from the military and went back to work for the Air Force as a civilian.

After settling in on the job he decided he needed to start autocrossing again and we purchased a 1998 Neon ACR. With autocrosses in Norman OK, Dallas, and Mineral Wells, TX there was an autocross almost every weekend. After many hot weekends and lots of travel we decided autocrossing had worn us out and the Neon was traded in on another Vette and we purchased a 2000 hardtop. It was a lot of fun and we did our best to put a lot of miles on it. Two trips to Florida and trips back and forth to Colorado were fun in the Vette. Without racing though it just did not seem the same and we traded the Vette on a Chevy Pickup and got the Honda Accord.

John started working corners again for SCCA at Texas Motor Speedway. That was fun for the weekends but we really needed another Vette in the garage. A nice 69 Vette was found in Dallas and it became the weekend driver for shows and whatever on the weekends. We got involved with the Wichita Falls Red River Vette Group and sometimes the 69 went and sometimes on the longer cruises the Honda followed the Corvette group from the rear. We had a lot of fun!!

About this point John was offered a job at Vandenberg Air Force Base and we picked up everything and moved to California. With the Honda and the Chevrolet Pickup towing the 69 on a trailer we arrived in California with our two cats. We purchased a home in Santa Maria. On the weekends we do our best to attend something auto related in the 69 Vette. If the trip is a long one the Honda does just fine getting us to a special event such as Yosemite, Las Vegas, or Monterey Historic Races. There is one thing we have discovered being here in California, if you don’t know where to go just ask a car person and there are at least three or four things going on, on any given weekend.

Whether it is car shows, working corners at Buttonwillow Raceway Park, or attending the Rolex Historic Races there is always a big event to attend. What do we recommend to fill in the weekends when we are too tired to go to a car show? We will probably tell you to go visit the Pismo Derelicts on Saturday morning or go for a hike on the beach. The beaches around Santa Barbara are a nice enjoyable hike and pick up a few pieces of sea glass along the way. If the Plovers have not closed the beaches, a long hike on Vandenberg is fun too. If this has not entertained you by now then maybe we will see you at the next car event and John will talk your ear off about the rest of the story or something else. We really enjoy the VTV events and people. We also appreciate the club bringing autocrossing back to the Central Coast.

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