Since race season has ended and I find myself NOT working in the shop for a day with my kids daycare closed, I decided to take a moment and say hello to everyone here on the board. Some of you may recognize the user name from Pelican Parts, or even the old "Porsche fans" bbs... yea, I’ve been doing this a while now Of course, I spend most of my time in or under racecars & when I’m not doing that I’m spending time with my 2 children which doesn’t leave a lot of time for forum posting, so I figured I should put a little something out here…

First off I would like to thank and compliment all the Midwest 944 guys for a great season of racing! Without these guys (especially Eric & Ray) I would have never been suckered, ugh… brought into this NASA racing group. And what a season it was! Late nights at the track welding Miata & BMW cages (not built by us) to pass tech, swapping BMW wheel hubs, right down to installing an entire 944 engine on Friday night at Blackhawk… There was never a dull moment!

A little background on the shop: We are located in Lafayette, Indiana just off I-65 and operate a 7000+ sqft facility that I opened in 2007. Before that, I had a small 2 bay shop where I had been working on Porsche, BMW, Lotus, Mercedes, etc… off and on for 13 years prior. Over the last 2-3 years our focus has changed from general service and restoration to being primarily a full race shop. On average we build between 2-4 full 944 Spec race cars a year. The process starts with obtaining a street car, full tear down, custom cage fabrication and installation (tig welded), engine and transmission rebuilds, suspension and brake alteration, corner balancing & aligning, installation of our custom lightweight wiring harness and dashboard, custom paint…. And all within 2-3 months…. Usually

In 2009 we started providing trackside support for the Midwest 944 Spec crew out of the back end of a Chevy Tahoe… by the 2nd race of that season, we upgraded to a 28’ trailer carrying the #82 Rental car and a small mobile shop and spares inventory. In December of 2009 some of the drivers decided to run in the Santa’s Toy Run Enduro in Atlanta which necessitated carrying 2 cars in the trailer. At that point we decided to upgrade our tow vehicle to a 16’ turbo diesel box truck to house a full mobile shop and extensive spare parts inventory including rebuilt transmission & cylinder head. For the 2010 race season the trailer again carried the #82 rental car, but was now transportation for the #84 arrive and drive car of Neal Agran as well. The 2011 race season will witness the addition of yet another rig decorated with the BENMS logo as we will now be providing arrive and drive services for three drivers, the #82 rental car, and more trackside support technicians to maintain our dedicated level of service to the rest of the drivers.

We are also working out details to offer trackside support deals for Nationals as in addition to our normal inventory we will have an additional 2-3 rebuilt transmissions, 2 rebuilt cylinder heads and a rebuilt engine on hand as spares.

Everyone at Bennington Motorsports looks forward to a great, safe 2011 season!
Thanks for taking the time to read this and get to know us a little.
If we may be of any service, please don’t hesitate to get ahold of us, or check out our website for more information: www.benms.com

Nick Miller
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We like to refer to Nick as the "MacGyver of Mechanics" His & his crew's ability to get Spec cars up and running is legendary.

A few highlights from this last year.

A rebuilt motor shipped from Nick's shop falls off the shipper's truck, cracking the block. In less than a weeks time before the race, Nick builds another motor, brings it to the track, and swaps motors for our racer in his trailer on Friday night!

Neal Agran has a rear wheel bearing go bad. Between sessions, Nick presses out the old bearing,and presses in a new one. For those of you whove attempted this, rear bearings are a serious job on a 944, with 300 lb/ft. torque specs

My codriver has a blowout on the warmup lap of a 3 hour enduro, Nick's crew does a Nascar level pit stop, and get Ray back out before he goes a lap down. We end up winning that enduro overall, and eventually with further help from Nick's pit crew, we win the 2010 endurance championship in the MW.

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Best of all this is done at Spec-friendly prices that are a small fraction of last sponsor. No bling (costs too much ), but efficient, professional service

Nick's a great resource, and extremely creative in his ability to accompish what we need. His support at Nationals in 2010 will help make that event great! He'll have his " complete 944 in a box" comprehensive level of spares, and then some.

Sounds like you guys are VERY lucky to have him and his operation supporting your series.

Best wishes for the 2011 season.

Now, a shameless plug for those of us out west.

WE RACE ALL WINTER LONG. We don't know what it means to have an "end of the season" other than resetting championship points back to zero and continuing to do what we do.

So you are all invited to bring your cars out here. We can find places for you to store them. Then fly out for race weekends and have fun all winter long. (I just love to rub this in during our winter race season. )

Big Dog

Any of you guys married out there?

Out here we have race season, and suck up to the wife season...

Everyone here has a big set of junk.

That is why we race all year long.

Big Dog

Wow, now I have heard it all...
First off, thanks for the input Eric.
Second off, in the midwest we dont worry about "big junk", we have quality "enduro equipment"

Ok, back to professional mode....
-Nick