When it comes to jobs, none come better than race driver Pierre Kleinubing's. Imagine getting paid to do what the rest of us usually have to pay fines for doing. Imagine having an occupation that doesn't bureaucratically trample down your competitive drive but nurtures it as the central element of success. Imagine impressing women-well, at least those women who think a man looks good in Nomex. Yup, race car drivers have it good. Except they have to work when they're sick.
"It was one of the worst weekends of my racing career," explained Kleinubing about driving his RealTime Racing Acura TSX in the SCCA World Challenge Touring Car series while fighting the flu in July's race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. "You don't feel like driving, or performing or anything. But you're going for a championship and you're behind the eight ball and you're have to catch up as much as possible."
Suffering, though, is only a small part of Kleinubing's life. At 30 he's already won the Touring Car championship three times (1997, 2000 and 2001) and, at the time this was written, a total of 24 wins for the RealTime team. That 24th win at Cleveland this year broke a tie he had with team owner Peter Cunningham for most wins with the team. He was the series Rookie of the Year in '97 as well, and finished either first or second for every year between 1997 and 2003. He is without doubt the most successful racer in the World Challenge. But unlike, say, NASCAR or Formula One where the drivers are paid in gross tons of Benjamins, the drivers in a smaller series like World Challenge are still working for a living.
Kleinubing was born in 1974 in Erexim, a town in southern Brazil that is most famous as the birthplace of Victoria's Secret supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio-which, dang it, ought to be enough fame for any one place. He started racing at about 12 when a friend of his bought a go kart and moved Pierre into the driver's seat. But there's only so far anyone can go in Brazilian racing, so Kleinubing moved to America in 1995 looking for opportunities. The opportunity he found-made really-was with already successful RealTime.
"He came up to me at Watkins Glen [International in New York] in the fall of 1996," recalled Peter Cunningham. "He couldn't speak enough English to find his way to the Consulate. But somehow we were able to communicate enough that he put the idea in my head that he wanted to drive for our team. I had never even heard of him. We're still paying the price for that day." That last sentence is a joke, isn't it?
While the RealTime team is based in Saukville, Wis., (just north of Milwaukee), Kleinubing lives in Coconut Creek, Fla. He explained, "A friend of my family had a condo and I could live there. I've just sort of stayed." For a race weekend the first thing he does is kiss his wife, Carla, goodbye and grab a commercial flight to meet the RealTime team.
"I really like the guys on the team a lot," he says. "So it feels like I'm going to be with my family." However, Kleinubing got the weight of that family on his back during a race weekend, so partying is not part of the program. "During the weekend I try to be as boring as possible. I try not to drink during the entire season ... at all."
While Kleinubing catches a flight, the cars come with the team aboard transporters from Wisconsin. Cunningham founded the team in 1987 and they've been running Hondas and Acuras in World Challenge since 1993, so they know what to expect and which setups work when they show up to most tracks. They're currently campaigning five machines in Touring Car: TSXs for Cunningham, Kleinubing and 19-year-old Brandon Davis plus RSXs for Nick Esayian and Eric Curran. The five drivers help accumulate track data and experience in greater quantity than the other teams in the series.
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