Jeff Lyon

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Category: About
Published on Tuesday, 01 November 2011 17:09
Written by Super User
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Jeff, at the prompting of his friend Dave Regis, did his first track day in June of 2000 at Thunderhill on a 105 degree day in his 1991 BMW 735iL and he was hooked.  He did one more event in that car at Laguna Seca then purchased an 1974 BMW 2002 to turn into a track car.  After doing one track day in it he decided it was too far away so his next car was a built 1989 BMW 325i. 

He attended race school at Willows Springs with Driving Concepts in early 2003 and raced that season with the BMWCCA and finished out that season by putting a team together and running in the inaugural 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

Also in 2003 Doug Gale started TrackMasters Racing and asked Jeff to come on board as the Chief Driving Instructor. 

Jeff sold the BMW 325i in 2004 and started building a Spec Miata since a number of is friends were now competing in the super popular series.  Jeff completed the car at the end of 2004 and started racing in SCCA Spec Miata series in 2005.  Jeff quickly moved from the middle of the pack towards the top quarter of the field but had trouble breaking into the Top 10.  Then he started doing his own setups and in 2007 he had a break through and had several Top 10 qualifying efforts and several Top 10 fiinishing positions running Top 10 in points most of the season. 

Some of Jeff's other accomplishments are:

  • SCCA Sealed Spec Miata Qualifying Lap Record at Infineon set April 2007 and still stands - 1:56.474
  • Wins in BMWCCA and NASA Spec Miata including several podiums
  • National Porsche Club of America Instructor Certification
  • Jeff built the engine that Dan McKeever used to win the NASA National Championship in 2010 at Miller Motorsports Park and set a new track record.
  • Competed in 3 - 25 Hours of Thunderhill events with a best finish of 3rd in class. Jeff qualified the car in 3rd and drove 9 of the 25 hours.

 Jeff has been working on cars as long as he can remember.  Thanks to his father's insistence, Jeff would be by his side when working on an old '61 Chrysler Newport just about every weekend to keep it running.  Ever since then Jeff has been drawn toward anything with two or more wheels and an engine.  Jeff always loved auto mechanics, especially when they were related to improving performance.  By the time Jeff was in High School he was rebuilding engines in shop class and his teacher suggested he try for scholarship at one of the Automotive Institutes to pursue a career in auto mechanics but Jeff knew even then that if he had to wrench on cars for a living he would grow to hate it.

Jeff worked as a mechanic at a golf course in Tahoe City where he maintained everything from golf karts and lawn mowers to a John Deere diesel backhoe tractor.  He also worked for two years as a boat mechanic at Sierra Boat Company, the largest restorer of old wooden boats in the world, where he worked on everything from old wooden boats from the 30's and 40's to high performance Donzi's.