An Interview with Terry Borcheller

An Interview with Terry Borcheller

“I had a guy walk up to me at Le Mans this year; he walks up to me and hands me a picture of the very first car that I ever drove in my very first pro race in 1991.(for an autograph)”

Terry Borcheller is a great driver and man. He is married and a father of four. He lives his life in a very Christian way. God found him in 1987 and has worked with him ever sense. I still find it baffling how a busy family man is able to juggle being a great husband, father, and still travel the world racing. When we talked he had just gotten back from a meeting in Daytona and was tired. You could hear some of the exhaustion in his voice, but no worries to him, as he seems very used to it. He was very great to talk to and is obviously very comfortable with where he is in his life.

Terry, like many professional racing drivers, has had a long career leading up to where he is now. His father was a budding racer in the 50’s and wanted to race sports cars, up until he had started a family and had to give it up to open up his own business to support his family. It is very apparent that the racer/hard working man gene was transferred to Terry. He started racing motorcycles when he was five, but was forced to give it up by his mother who wasn’t very keen with the idea of him racing bikes. His father agreed and at age 12 bought him his first go-kart.

He started racing in karts in 1979 in the junior division and from there progressed up. It was expensive at $10,000-$12,000 a year. This back in the late 70’s was a lot of money. So he and his dad used to work together in their shed at home to fix the go-kart back up, “Instead of rebuilding our engine after every race, we would go through and do our own rings and bearings to try and save money. We drove the rig ourselves.” This all paid off in 1983 when Terry won the National Karting Championship. 1983 was his first season in the senior division. He was doing something right.

Following a three and a half month Christian Mission to Ecuador, helping to build churches and minister to the local people, Terry Borcheller came back to America with no money. He had left racing by this time, around 1989-1990, and was sure that God was calling him to a life in the ministry service “When I got back I legitimately figured I was going to go into ministry full time. I was gonna start doing something regarding ministry work.” Talking to his college and career pastor and confidant, he came to the realization that there were no doors being opened for him in the ministry field, but it was bizarre that there was one opportunity that was being dangled right in front of him, an instructor spot with the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving.

Terry, a few years earlier, went to the school to receive some extra driving instructions. This was the only formal training that Mr. Borcheller ever had, and he had a great time. He worked up a great relationship with his instructor Chris Cook. At the time that Terry was looking for a job, Chris had become the chief instructor for Bondurant. Terry recalls the phone call “Chris said, man your timing is pretty good, because we’re moving from northern California to Phoenix, and half the guys don’t want to go. I remember your talent, and I’ll put you through every course that we offer, that’s how we train our guys, and let you see the system inside and out and then let you start to instruct.” “I was like, you gotta be kidding me? I packed up everything that I owned, at the time in my diesel Rabbit, and drove to Phoenix from Florida.” He started instructing in early 1990. That is where it started all over again for him.

While instructing, Terry was listening to some of the great drivers that were also instructing alongside him talk about their trials and tribulations over finding a ride. He was listening to them and taking notes on what to do and what not to do. He believed in his heart that God was going to help him no matter what. The other guys just laughed it off, since he was talking like every other racer out there, except he was depending on God to open doors.

Terry believes that with the help of God and through his own personal motivation he was able to obtain a good level of success racing in Skip Barber Fords in 1990-91. He was the championship runner-up. He was progressing well and was having a great time teaching. He has helped coach the likes of Mario and Michael Andretti, Tim Allen, Donnie Osmond, Tony Stewart, Bill Elliott and Danica Patrick, just to name a few. He helped to train Danica Patrick for a possible seat in a sports car. He said that she was so talented and was incredibly humble. She took to it quick, he said.

Terry Borcheller’s big break finally came in 1997, and in 1998 in the IMSA Speedvision Cup with the GS Class, he won his first championship with a BMW M3. He also won that same year in the SCCA SPEED World challenge in the T-1 class with a Saleen Mustang. It didn’t stop either. Terry has six total professional championships in, 2000 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series with a Saleen Mustang in the GTO class, 2001 ALMS GTS class with the Saleen S7R, 2002 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car with a Lola B2K-Nissan in the SRP II class and in 2003 in the Daytona Prototype class of Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car series with a Chevrolet-Doran. He was also runner up in 2003 in the GS class of the championship with another BMW M3 and in 2004 in the GS class, again, with a Cadillac CTS-V/Porsche 997. That is a pretty remarkable record.

Terry is only the 26^th racing driver, ever, to win two championships in the same year, and in 1998 had 11 different race wins in 4 different racing series’. He has also won two races on the same weekend 8 times! He is a specialist in endurance racing, having two wins at the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona, a class win at the 12 hours of Sebring, a podium finish in 2001 at Le Mans, his first LMS race, and a 6^th overall, 3^rd in GT1 finish at Petit Le Mans, beating the factory Aston Martin’s and Corvette’s.

You can read the full interview at AutoSportBlog.com.

-Josh

“Happy Motoring!”