I know I have met a lot of you guys already at a couple of get togethers. And also have worked on some of your cars at my shop. So, I'm a bit late at writing an introduction.
My name is Ray Vallero and I hate talking about myself, but I'll share a bit about me. I started at Niello VW in Sacto when I was 17 years old. I was doing pre-inpections on new VW's in the mid-60's.
I started racing NHRA in 1968 with my '57 oval window that was called Bug Iron. I then started racing my porche body VW racecar (in my sig) in 1980 or so which was consistently in the 10's in a 1/4 mile. I met Gene Berg at the Orange County raceway at the Bug In's and we became very close friends and shared our technology. My kids raced and his did too, so we became rival families at all the point series races. Back then I had to rebuild my tranny after every race. We didn't have prefabbed parts like they do today, we made everything from scratch ourselves. Ahhhhh, the good old days.
Sandy Braden and I opened R&S Machine Shop in Auburn in 1976. Then I opened Vallero's VW Werks in 1980. Dawn Simas and I started Auburn Hot VW's club in 1983 or so, back when Cal Look was just catching on! Over the years, air cooled VW's were less common, so I have gotten more into the machine shop and automotive repair. But I've always had a love for performance cars (large and small).
I have helped build race motors of every kind, but currently I am back into VW racing. Tony Klink and I are racing his bug in PRA and we are setting a new record at each race in its class. I have been bitten by the "bug" again and it's a wonderful thing!
So, enough about me. I just wanted to introduce myself and say I'm glad to have found you guys and look forward to being more involved.