Who’s fault is all this anyway?

My name is Pedro Guimaraes, I was born in Aryton Senna’s home country of Brazil.Specifically the hometown of many of Brazil’s driving legends like Nelson Piquet and others, the city of Brasilia (capitol of brazil). The city was designed by famed architect Oscar Nieymer in the 60’s and it almost doesn’t have any square corners! The whole city is roundabouts and many sweeping corners and long straightaways. Since it is the capitol it is also the home to nice cars and rich kids that spend all night racing like in many towns around the world.

I’m also the son of a Brazilian diplomat and quickly moved after my birth to Australia where my dad’s love for motorcycles began. Some years later we moved to New York and those are my first memories of watching Formula 1 on TV with my dad and cheering for a Brazilian driver! Later as we moved back to Brasilia I spent many nights watching the late night illegal street races around my hometown. Sundays in Brazil consisted of waking up early to watch Senna make us proud in front of the whole world then going to eat bar-b-que that our parents were making and playing soccer the rest of the day. Growing up in Brazil during Senna’s era was crucial in shaping my motorsport dreams. The day of his death was a deep blow to the people of my country so great it’s hard to explain, he was much more than just a race car driver and will be forever be remembered by those who considered him a part of their family.

At 15 we moved back to USA (Los Angeles, CA), as a high school student and motorcycle rider I was introduced to motorcycle road racing by a Brazilian friend and that was the end of any kind of financial savings I would have for the rest of my life! I ended up road racing motorcycles for 3 years thruought my high school years. I raced 600cc bikes and then 125cc GP bikes for the last year. I quickly found out that speed costs money and that I don’t have any! I enjoyed some success and had the privilege to grid up and race against a 12yr old John Hopkins (Famous MotoGP racer) and Rodger Hayden and gained a lust and love for motorsport competition that has never left me. A combination of factors forced me to abandon my GP racer dreams and start college. A few years later I found myself in a .com working in IT as a systems administrator. Since now I made ALL this money I decided it wise to “invest” it in car. Right! I bought a 1988 BMW M3 like the one I remember seeing rally racing when I was a kid (ProDrive Rothmans M3). I slowly modified it and started attending driving schools and track days. I also started racing it in BMW Club Auto-X’s otherwise known to some as Solo2 competition. I soon started having dreams of being a race car driver like my boyhood idols…….great.

Well that M3 led me to the 1602 we see here on this site. This became my “affordable” entry to the world of auto motorsports. I no longer have any dreams of being a famous racecar driver. But I do hope to live out some of my racing fantasies. My hopes are to build an affordable racer that will allow me to compete in SCCA Solo2, Time Trial events, BMW Club racing and eventually Vintage racing. My larger goal and dream is to ship my car to germany and do some laps on the infamous nurburgring. Who knows maybe even do a "youngtimer throphy" race.....

If you feel like my website has inspired you and you would like to help me achive my dream of Vintage racing ......Feel free to make me a donation.

Currently since I for some reason feel the need to drain my finances even more I also race Supermoto here in SoCal in the supermoto lites class. Check my Supermoto page for more info. http://moto.lostbrazilian.com

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