A Home-Town Race Car Story by Pete Petersen - City News Group, Inc.
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A Home-Town Race Car Story

By Pete Petersen, Community Writer
February 3, 2015 at 07:12pm. Views: 47

When Tom Engelsman, owner/operator of Auto Diagnostic Repair in Grand Terrace, was a 17-year-old student at Eisenhower High School, he was working with the pit crew of a formula Ford Racing Team at Riverside International Raceway. Engelsman got his early experience working on Ford cars and trucks as a service technician for L. J. Snow Ford in Colton. Later he and his family formed Auto-Truck Diagnostics in San Bernardino. "When I was 9 years old, I started racing performance go-karts and by the time I was 18, I had competed in CA, NV, Utah, AZ, Iowa, TX, OK. In 1995 we earned third place in International go-kart racing at Charlotte, N. Carolina," said Albert, Engelsman's son. When one of the nation’s largest aftermarket manufactures and suppliers of automotive parts and electronics asked Engelsman to leave his auto repair business and work for them as a bilingual technical and diagnostic trainer, he took the opportunity. He traveled to Texas, Alaska and Hawaii for work. After 10 years he left that position to open Auto Diagnostic in Riverside away from his training van, his brief case, wireless mic, and packed technical seminar class rooms, and back to his racing blood and dealing one-on-one with his customers. Formula race driver Larry Mason said, "I met Tom in 1984 when I was a starving student racing my heart out with a Ford Pinto. At Carlsbad Race Track when I came in last, Tom said, 'It looks like you can use some technical support.' With Tom’s guidance and support, at the last race of the year, I qualified on pole (first) position and set a new track record with our Pinto. We won many races together with that Pinto, and two championships. In 1990 I had moved up to a faster class called Sports 2000 when my suspension failed on the race car at the Dallas Grand Prix resulting in both broken legs and ankles. Racing with Tom stopped for many years. In 2014, we teamed up again to compete for the entire season in the Formula Mazda. The results? Seven pole positions, nine wins, three track records and two championships capped off a dream season." Mason continued, "Our 2015 season started Saturday, Jan. 16 at AAA Raceway, Fontana where we earned 1st place and Jan. 17 when we came in 2nd. We are now leading the points championship for 2015."

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