Benefield: Petaluma racer not yet out of gas

The siren song of racing at Laguna Seca was too much.

Joe Huffaker had been retired from racing Sports Car Club of America races for a decade, but when club officials announced last fall that this year’s national finals would be held at Laguna Seca - a course the veteran Huffaker likens to nearly his home track - he set his sights on qualifying.

Describing it as “setting his sights” on merely qualifying might be understating Huffaker’s confidence.

“At the beginning of the year, I had to knock the rust off but it came back,” he said. “I was very, very fast.”

His confidence in his own abilities appears not to have been misplaced.

“He hasn’t raced in almost 10 years and when he showed up again our official magazine had him picked to win the GT Lite class. That says a lot right there,” said Reece White, spokesman for the SCCA.

“Huffaker Engineering builds very good race cars,” White said. “That is a long tradition and he is a very good driver - one of our club legends, really.”

Huffaker, who lives in Petaluma, had won eight national titles in 12 tries before he retired 10 years ago. That final race was not a win and he describes it as a “bad note.”

Still, he felt like the time was right to focus on the family business of engineering cars, not racing them.

“I kind of proved what I needed to. I mean, 12 years and eight national championships?” he said.

But when Laguna Seca, a technical track that Huffaker knows exceedingly well, was named the location of the national championship runoffs, he readied his Mini Cooper and started racing qualifiers.

That’s no small endeavor. It’s a semi-truck, it’s cars, it’s a team, it’s course prep. And Huffaker wasn’t driving just one class, he was racing an MG in the F Production class. Oh yeah, he took second in the nationals in that race.

Huffaker, 59, was seemingly born to race. The family auto engineering business, Huffaker Engineering, that his father started is located at Sonoma Raceway.

When speaking about Northern California’s first family of racing, friends and colleagues call the six-foot, five-inch Huffaker “Little Joe.” His father, the founder of the business, is, of course, “Big Joe.”

“Little Joe” has to nearly fold himself into his Mini. He’s modified his rig so he essentially sits in the back seat, just above the rear axle. He was once “black flagged” by race officials because he was so far back in the car they were confused by the position of his side window safety netting.

Huffaker races the GT Lite category of small cars because he knew clients and race watchers wouldn’t expect the little Mini to have big juice. Huffaker wanted to prove he could build it speedy and drive it even speedier.

“I was trying to escape and show we could build anything,” he said.

It’s the building and modifying that has perhaps the biggest pull on Huffaker. Folding yourself up like a piece of origami on race day is fun and all, but Huffaker said the real thrill is in tweaking a car so a driver can squeeze every ounce necessary from it.

“That was my example of engineering for them,” he said. “I will utilize every single rule. We can do this for any car.”

True, said Gary Pitts, San Francisco regional executive of the Sports Car Club of America.

“The cars that he builds win in the hands of whoever they are in,” he said.

The championship he won last week gives Huffaker nine in total - five in F Production, four in GT Lite. Only 23 people have won more than five and just three people have more national titles than Huffaker, according to SCCA records.

So is he retired - for good - this time?

Nope.

Huffaker expects that he’ll race some qualifiers next season but won’t race in the national championship runoffs. He’ll save that for 2016, when the nationals return to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio - a course on which Huffaker picked up seven of his nine titles.

He’s also quick to point out that despite the layoff, his speeds were faster this year than a decade ago. Same car, same driver.

Same result.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield