This article first appeared in the March, 2015 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.

MICHAEL PETTIFORD
PRESIDENT, PETTIFORD’S GO 4 IT RACING SCHOOLS
COLORADO REGION
FIRST JOINED SCCA: 1988

“I have always had a passion for going fast as far back as I can remember. The excitement of taking a vehicle to the limit has always been one of my greatest pleasures! Growing up in Indiana, we used to do some pretty silly things with vehicles for fun; I feel lucky to have come through that era alive and unscathed. It didn’t take long to figure out in Colorado that racing on the track would be a positive way to display my passion, rather than it being a negative on the street.

Even though I had done autocross and drag racing before, the road-racing era for me started with motorcycles in 1981. I thought, ‘This is fast, exciting, challenging, reasonably priced, reliable, wheel-to-wheel, drag-your-knee racing!’ Even though I was having lots of fun, I have always liked both cars and motorcycles, so in 1988 I expanded back into cars.

I started racing with SCCA and, when they started to pay contingencies, I found out that if I won two classes a day with the right car and sponsors I could make money racing! After that, it was a quest to see how many championships I could win. I’ve competed in multiple classes at the National Championship Runoffs and claimed a record 36 Divisional Championships, winning three titles in the same year, five times. Finishing on the box in SCCA Pro Racing’s Pirelli World Challenge multiple times has been great fun.

In 1985, I started GO 4 IT Services, Inc., because I was not satisfied with the level of driver training available to the public. I love helping people improve their technique for safety, or getting them their road-racing license so they can start racing and win a championship.

SCCA has been and will be a positive activity in my life, and I can’t wait to see what 2015 will bring. So GO 4 IT, and I will see you at the races!”