User:Kellynova/Gene Felton

Gene Felton

Racing Career Gene Felton began racing cars in 1964 with a BMW 700CS on small road courses in the Southeast United States. At the start of his career, Gene built, maintained, and raced all of his own cars. His professional career started in 1972 with a win at Daytona in the IMSA GT series. He continued to field cars in several different classes until the formation of the IMSA Kelly American Challenge class in 1977. This class was intended to be an American stock car road racing class. Gene won the inaugural championship in 1977, and went on to win the next Three championships through the 1980 season.

After the 1980 Kelly American Challenge season, Gene began to race as a hired driver in several series including the IMSA GTO and SCCA Trans-Am series. He continued in the Kelly Challenge, but the international events consumed more of his time. In 1982 Gene raced a specially prepared Camaro in the 24 Hours of Lemans. Gene continued to race in both the IMSA GTO and SCCA Trans-Am up until his accident in 1984.

At Riverside in 1984, Gene was involved in a serious accident during warm-ups for the SCCA Trans-Am race. This accident left him with a broken neck and he was in traction in the hospital for several months. He made a return to racing the following year at the IMSA GTO race at Road Atlanta. Gene continued professionally racing through 1993, when he retired at the age of 57.

In 1989, as his professional career was winding down, Gene started a business restoring and selling vintage muscle cars and NASCAR racecars. The first car restored was an old Camaro he had raced in the late 1960's. In the early 1990's, Gene formed the HSCRG (Historic Stock Car Racing Group). This series was for retired Stock cars and started on the east coast before spreading west.