OUR TEAM'S HISTORY

	The history of Old Fart Racing Extreme, reaches back into the early days of karting. I(John Skuja) learned how to drive in a kart at the age of 12. My brother Ivars and I raced several karts back in the 60's. A McCulloch kart powered by a stock Mac 7. Then, an Alpha Kart powered by a modified Mac 7 with twin carbs and lots of goodies inside. I was fortunate enough to have been involved in the very first races ever held a S.I.R. and Westwood B.C. for karts. These were 100 mile enduro races with the key word being endurance!! I have also been involved in SCCA racing and have worked as a VW, Porsche/Audi tech for the last 30 years.
	In the 80"s, I raced in Yamaha Heavy road race
	Joe Skillman brings to our team, experience in motorcycles, boat racing, rally racing and conference vintage cars. His experience has been very valuable to the team when we are doing planning and the execution of maintenance and "pit stop" type pressure.
	The three of us at Portland
	Bill Busacca, our team owner/driver, initially brought with him enthusiasm and a checkbook. Bill and I had a relationship that revolved around me taking care of his vehicles. From the start, I was helping him modify his VW Jetta into an SCCA SOLO1 autocross car. After many $$$$ and only marginal success, I had Bill test drive the four wheel braked Zip Bandit I was racing at that time.
	Here is the Zip Bandit that hooked Bill on Kart Racin'
	My crew chief, Ted Mundy, and I competed in Region 6 IKF Road Race. We competed in 100cc Stock, 100cc Reed, 150cc Open Sprint Sit Up
	After Bill's first kart, a used DAP, with a Yamaha reeder. Bill started to get a feel for what the machinery was saying to him, "Hurt me and I'll cost you $$$$$$$!!!". Bill soon started to get serious and we were buying new equipment.
	Our Emmick long wheelbase sprint kart with a 135cc P.C.R. reed valve engine, by anyone's yardstick, a true "hand full"
	During this, period Bill continued to improve his driving skills and we decided, as a team Bill needed a kart that did not handicap him with its treacherous handling. So we purchased a P.C.R. chassis, with bodywork from Franklin Motorsports.
	With this kart we won two Region 6 Championships. With engine work being done by legendary Bill Bayh and Joe and I doing all the prep and tuning, it was a great success.
	After several seasons of success in the Sprint 150 Open class, we decided to enter a National IKF class. After doing some research into availible equipment, we chose to purchase a Dominator chassis built by Don Bootes of S and G Enterprises. We continued to use the same engine as before, the 150cc PCR reed valve alky motor. We had immediate success in this class also, winning the 150 open roadrace class. However, the handwriting was on the wall at the end of that season. One of the people in the class had purchased Rotax 128 gearbox power, and showed his exhaust to us all.
	This machine served us very well for a season before the coming of Rotax power in our class.
	Our answer to the problem? Purchase a Rotax 130 GP from our chassis supplier Don Bootes. This was a motor that Don had raced himself and was up to the task of keeping up with others in our class The problem now was Bill"s learning curve had just become vertical. Learning to drive a gearbox kart requires a gread deal of concentration and effort. Bill had some problems solving some of the driving equations being thrown his way, but did a very respectible job of driving that season. We entered the Grand National Race in Portland that year and Bill did justice to his first year in Gearbox competition finishing in fourth place in 150 Open.
	This is the machine which propelled Bill to a 4th at the 1998 Grand Nationals
	Well, now we come to our racing program for last year and today. At the end of the 1999 season, Doug Cole, winner of the IKF 250 Unlimited "DUFFY", came to me and asked what Bill was planning for the 2000 season, I said, " We thought about getting a different chassis, because the DOMINATOR does not seem to fit Bill's driving style." We arranged to have Bill test the PVP/Rotax 256 at the end of the '99 season at SIR. Bill was so impressed with the machine that after much soul searching, we as a group, encouraged the purchase of the machine. We have not looked back since.
	2000 brought with it much joy and frustration. We were overjoyed at the fact that we had a world class machine to play with, but we found out that Rotax 256 parts can be very hard to come by. When the engine was on song we were unstoppable. Bills driving started to really come into its own and our effort as a crew began to take on a world wide scope. I was spending a lot of time on the Internet trying to find, those elusive Rotax parts and getting to know people from around the world that are doing SuperKart racing