This article first appeared in the February, 2016 edition of SportsCar Magazine. SCCA members can read the current and past editions of SportCar digitally here after logging into their account; To become an SCCA member and get SportsCar mailed to your home address monthly in addition to the digital editions, click here.

With a plethora of Solo National Championships, the Berry Family Racing secret to speed is probably not what you’d expect

What is the best thing parents can pass on to their children? Intelligence? Strength? What about community? Tom and Theresa Berry have certainly passed on a knack for Solo to their three daughters – Christine, Heather, and Lisa – but what they’ve really gifted their offspring with is the Solo community.

What started out with Tom taking part in his local autocross, grew to Theresa joining him, then Christine, then Heather and Lisa, and even the son-in-laws have joined Berry Family Racing. It may have stopped with Tom and Theresa though, had SCCA not selected Cal Club Region to test out the then-experimental Junior Karting program.

“Howard Duncan approached my dad and said, ‘Can you guys be a starter Region for this new program and give us some lessons learned that we can give to the other Regions to help them grow the program so it can be more family friendly?’” recalls Christine. “I thought it was really neat because it gave me something to do. We didn’t have a choice of whether we were going to an event or not, so it gave me the ability to participate and not just sit in a parking lot and play with toys.”

Christine was one of three girls in the area who took part in that first year of the Junior Karting program. Even though she didn’t win a single event, she was hooked.

“The Junior Karting program has been excellent,” Tom states. “For years, when the girls were very young they would come and hang out, and it’d be fun, but it was more like ‘Dad’s sport’. However, when they started the Junior Karting program, it became more of a family sport. Everybody was involved and interested first hand in what was going on.”

Theresa was equally thrilled to have her daughters taking part in the program and, to this day, has the issue of SportsCar featuring her daughter and the girls who founded the Junior Karting program. It was even Theresa who gave the go-kart its first test-drive in a local parking lot. She had a little too much fun and bent the axle. Mom was not allowed in the go-kart after that.

Just like parents keep tabs on their child’s close friends long after graduation, Theresa has kept her eye on the kids who used to compete against her daughters, which is easy since now Theresa has to race against them.

“These kids Christine’s age, they’re getting married now,” Theresa says. “The moms, we used to trade off who was watching the kids, because we were all driving. Even now, to watch Matt Ellam [2015 B Modified Solo National Champion] or Nicole Wong [2015 STSL Solo National Champion] win at National events it’s like we’re all a part of that. We all grew up together.”

In 2011, Christine married Marshall Grice, whom she met through the Formula SAE program at CalPoly Pomona. It wasn’t long after Marshall’s introduction to the family that he was behind the wheel of Tom’s Corvette. It was not a graceful debut.

“Sometimes in the L.A. area, we do fun runs at the end of the day,” Christine explains. “I asked my dad, ‘Can Marshall from the Formula team drive our car,’ which at the time was a 1996 Corvette. It was a BSP car. It had a really difficult-to-operate clutch. Marshall hopped in and immediately stalled it three times before he even got up to the start line.”

Marshall fit in easily with the Berrys as he was a natural gear head and an enthusiastic Solo up-and-comer. Marshall’s engineering prowess has been a big help to Berry Family Racing. Even though both of the family’s cars are kept at Tom’s and Theresa’s house, you’ll often find Marshall in their garage.

“When we first started, I ran my ideas past him, got his approval, and we’d go work in his garage,” Marshall says. “As time went on, he said, ‘You don’t have to keep asking me for permission; if you think it will make it faster, you can do it.’ It transitioned from questions into notifications, like, ‘Hey, I’m going to be working on your car this weekend.’”

Tom heaps praise on Marshall’s engineering ability and for bringing data acquisition to Berry Family Racing. More often than not, if you approach Tom for setup tips, he’ll direct you to his son-in-law.

“When it comes to setting up our primary racecar – the Mitsubishi Evo – he is, in my opinion, nothing short of brilliant,” Tom declares.

It is interesting to note, however, that Tom never mentions Marshall using data acquisition to expose his speed secret to the rest of the family. The moment resulted in a term known as ‘Tom flat.’

“Data acquisition has been really nice because I specifically remember riding with Dad and not being able to figure out what he was doing, but him telling me, ‘I was going flat through that section,’” Christine explains. “Then I’d try, and go flying off the edge of the course and wonder how he did that.

“Once Marshall helped figure out what kind of data acquisition would be good for our normal autocross cars, we started looking at the data and it turns out a lot of places where Dad was saying, ‘I went through that flat,’ he wasn’t actually going through it flat, which is why it wouldn’t work. We call it ‘Tom flat,’ because he’ll tell us he went through something flat and we’ll say, ‘Are you sure it was flat, or was it Tom flat?’”

With everyone participating, doesn’t the competition and rivalry pull the family apart? No way, they all say, and that’s where the community comes in. When one of them wins, they all win. When someone needs help, everyone pitches in. When your daughter is trying to beat the top time that you’ve set, you cheer her on.

“Heather came back a couple years ago to run in a local event,” Theresa recalls. “It was a car she’d never driven, and she beat me! As the mom, I had to suck in my pride quite a bit. You want your kids to excel, but you want to win, too. It doesn’t matter if I win, though, because someone in my family is probably winning, so I’m always a winner.”

Dad also needs to suck up his pride when his daughter is faster than him. It isn’t too difficult when he’s beaming with pride. A good sense of humor helps, too.

“At the ProSolo Finale last year, I think it was, I had beaten his time,” Christine says. “He won his class, but I had a better time than him on course, so he wore a skirt at the banquet when I received my award and went up on stage and informed all the guys he raced against: ‘Don’t forget you all got skirted’.”

Berry Family Racing has grown to include non-blood-related members. The extended family was invited to join the team not by being the fastest drivers in the paddock, but because they are fun, helpful, hard-working people.

“When we go to a race, there’s the five or six family members plus three or five other people who hang out with us and race our second car,” Tom explains. “That’s really a lot of the fun of it. We all go out to dinner afterward and do silly things like the ceremonial removal of the wristband and pile them up on the table for the server to clean up. It’s a great, fun, family-type atmosphere that’s not actually limited to just our family.”

The family extends to the greater Solo community at large when you consider the lengths everyone goes to, to support the sport. Tom, Christine, Lisa, and Marshall have all taken up roles in course design. Tom has spent more than a decade as the ProSolo chairman when it comes to the L.A. area, Marshall is involved in the Modified Advisory Committee, and Tom and Theresa help out with the awards banquet.

“We’re involved,” Tom says. “We don’t just show up, race, and go home. Our whole group contributes to the organization.”

Yes, Tom and Theresa Berry have three fast daughters who all pursued science degrees and are successful away from Solo, but they’ve also raised three kids who have learned the value of community and the lessons of selflessness and giving back. They’ve introduced their family to a sport that keeps everyone close-knit, even when the kids move away. If your local sports leagues aren’t doing the same, maybe it’s time you checked out a Solo event.

Words by Erin Cechal

Images by Sean Rice