McAleese Wins First Trans Am Series Race In Next Dimension 100

Jim McAleese scored his first Trans Am series win at Road America. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Jim McAleese’s McAleese and Associates/Jetco Engineering Chevrolet Corvette survived a wild wreck on lap 17 to score his first series’ win in the Next Dimension 100 SCCA Trans Am race Saturday at Elkhart Lake’s damp Road America.

Pole-winner and Appleton, Wisconsin native Cliff Ebben had his Stumpf Ford Mustang blow an engine in turn six while leading. The oil on the track surface caused a majority of the leaders to spin and almost block the track entirely.

Trans Am TA class podium – Doug Peterson (wnd), Jim McAleese (winner) and John Baucom (3rd) [Dave Jensen Photo]

Trans Am TA3 class podium – Cameron Lawrence (3rd), Tony Ave (winner) and Gar Robinson (2nd) [Dave Jensen Photo]

Cliff Ebben leads the field into turn #3 in the fog early in the Trans-Am race. [Dave Jensen Photo]

The Trans Am field races down into turn 8 at Road America. [John Wiedemann Photo]

MOPAR power leading out of turn six. [Roy Schmidt Photo]

Lights On in the fog. [Roy Schmidt Photo]

“Not your every day Cadillac” Doug Peterson #87. [Roy Schmidt Photo]

Tony Ave won the TA2 division in his Lamers Motor Racing Ford Mustang. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Lawrence Loshak’s bright Raybestos Ford Mustang shined even in the fog at Road America. [John Wiedemann Photo]

John Atwell powers out of turn seven in his A & J Lab Portal Chevrolet Camaro. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Kerry Hitt races his Advance Composite Products Inc. sponsored Chevrolet Corvette towards turn eight. [John Wiedemann Photo]

#91 Joe Napolean ended up in the tires after looping his Camaro in turn three. [Dave Jensen Photo]

#02 John Atwell comes to abrupt stop in turn six. [Roy Schmidt Photo]

Adam Andretti and #94 Clint Sawinski meet exiting turn six. [Roy Schmidt Photo]

#67 Jason Berekley takes to grass to avoid chaos. [Roy Schmidt Photo]

Adam Andretti limps his damaged Camaro home to a 9th place finish in class. [John Wiedemann Photo]

McAleese, of Leesburg, Virginia, managed to squeeze his mount through the carnage in the lead as a full-course caution (the third of three) ended the event two laps later as it had reached its 75-minute time limit.

“I’m finally relaxing. I’m hitting a hard slow down now. I can’t believe it (a win) happened; hopefully the first of many,” noted the winner. “It was slippery as heck for the first nine or ten laps; that’s when most of the carnage happened. Once we got through the track just came alive.”

Doug Peterson (Cadillac CTSV) and John Baucom (Mustang) shared the over-all race podium.

Veteran home-state driver Tony Ave finished 19th over-all but brought his Lamers Motors Mustang home first in the TA 2 class after starting 29th in the 63-car field.

“We had to do a single-file start, so I had to start way behind. I got up to fourth pretty quickly, but there was such a big gap we had to run as hard as possible,” said the veteran of many races around the four-mile circuit. “We got to second before the caution came out and after that I’ve been around here long enough to know how to get around in the wet. Cliff Ebben would have won in his car but it broke. “

Cameron Lawrence (Dodge Challenger) and Gar Robinson (Chevrolet Camaro) filled-out the TA2 podium.

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

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