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  • Lars Wolfe

First Name:
Lars
Last Name:
Wolfe
Country:
United States
Bio:
Champion In training

Lars Wolfe
47 years of age
Father of 2 Sons, Kadin 18, and Verik 14
Married for 10 years to high school sweetheart

Lars was born on March 30, 1974 in Eugene, Oregon, where he led a normal young man’s life, until high school. There he met his two main loves in life. One he knew from the start…cars! And the second he would not know for a few more years, his future wife. His car fascination started in necessity. He needed transportation and he drove a 1970 VW Beetle passed down in his family to him, to keep it running Lars needed to learn how to fix it himself. He became pretty good at fixing his cars, and friends knew they could go to Lars to have their car fixed as well. After exploring college for two years Lars decided to change his focus and get a degree in automotive repair.

After graduating college in 1996 Lars moved to California to be closer to his high school sweet heart, and start his career as an Automotive Technician. His move to California also brought him within driving distance of three of the best racetracks in the United States. Lars started to drive track days in his VW GTI and soon after he starting to instruct at NASA events and for AUDI club of America. And there his dream to become a racer was born.
His Carrer progressed from independent shops before earning a job at the local VW dealer in 1998. Shortly after starting at the dealer, Lars married his high school sweet heart in 1999, and so began another chapter of Lars’ life.

And after only being the dealer for two years, Volkswagen of Germany approached Lars to come work for them fixing cars in the Bay area that the dealers shop Forman could not fix. A dream job for Lars being a VW enthusiast.

Lars, a blue collar man, adjusted life to the white collar ways. He met his future mentor in Rally but he didn’t know it at the time. He found out soon that Erick Hauge was a Factory Subaru Co-driver in the early 90’s and had raised the sport in the US from an illegal sport that guy’s got together and ran in the middle of the night to what Travis Pastrana and Ken Block has helped create today In the USA.

2003 was the start of a lot of things for Lars including his family, when his first of two sons was born in January of that year. As well, his desire to be a racer took a different but necessary course. Erick and Sans, Lars’ rally mentors, asked Lars to crew a rally in 2003 and there his love for rally was solidified. They molded Lars in the steps to correctly gain the experience to be an all-around great driver. And Lars set his sights to create his own team.

In 2004 gave Lars more experience to complete his dream when again his rally Mentors stepped in to help. They offered Lars the opportunity to crew chief a rally car, but shortly after, life decisions caused him to leave VW and he found himself buying his own shop.

Owning his own shop gave Lars the freedom to explore other racing and gave him the chance, with the guidance of his mentors, first to build his own Rally car. But also while building his own car Lars crewed for a friend’s VW Jetta in the Speed Channel touring car challenge. With his business growing, his rally car complete, and his team united, 2005 brought the first steps to where Lars is today. He and a friend Scot Langford got in the car and raced there first rally in Oregon in April of 2005. A learning experience to say the least, by the end of the event Lars and Scot found themselves dead last of the remaining cars that finished the Rally that year. And that was the first and most important lesson Lars learned from his rally mentors. “To finish first, first you MUST finish!” With the support of his family, friends, and sponsors, Lars and his new team won the Western States Rally Championship in 2005 and opened the doors for bigger and better things in the future.

2006 was a light year for Lars only participating in two rallies and focusing on his business and family. But that year also saw huge changes by the selling of his business and the birth of his second son in October. Lars was given the opportunity to move his skill set from production cars to pure race cars by landing a job at a shop at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, California working on Vintage Nascar and Trans-am cars of the 70’s and 80’s. There he perfected many facets of his fabricating skills and also became much closer to the racing community.

With the help of a major sponsor in 2007, he made an effort to win the two-wheel drive championship in the National Rally America series and was only able to make four events across the country. In those events he stuck true to his mentor’s words “To finish first, first you must finish.” He managed to finish on the podium three of the four races and by the end of the year he found himself third overall in 2007 taking the next step to becoming a champion.

In 2008, with the sponsorship changing yet again, Lars’ sons were getting bigger and more interested in what dad was doing. Lars wanted to spend more time with his family. Lars made the decision to switch disciplines and altered his gravel rally car to tarmac and went road racing in the only series that he felt could compare to the mental rigors of a rally competition….enduro racing! Lars traveled across California and with a win at the final event of the season at the 25 Hours of Thunder hill he finished second on the season in his rookie year of road racing.
2009 brought yet again more changes to Lars’ career as he went away from the vintage cars and reentered the new millennium and was hired on at a company specializing in Turbo all-wheel drive Rally cars, WORKS. There he was asked to establish the service side of the business in the worst economic turn in history and with his help he is still working on putting this world renowned shop back on the map. A major part of that process is to go Rallying again. This time Lars would up the anne by moving to all wheel drive and compete with the big dogs. With a last minute decision and help from a lot of friends he took a perfectly good 2006 Mitsubishi Evo9 and converted it into a rally car in record time of one month, just in time for the third rally of the season, the Olympus rally. His first time in an all-wheel drive car the team found themselves up to fifth in class when a mistake by Lars ended the car on the roof in the ditch and their rally was over. Back at the shop and with a never quit attitude the team reconstructed the car and had it ready in a month’s time for the next event Oregon Trails rally. Unfortunately, this event ended worse than previous with a huge off that really shook Lars’ confidence behind the wheel of a rally car. Their season was over. Now May, and with our relationship with Mitsubishi they came to us with an ‘09 Mitsubishi RalliArt and asked us to tune the car and see what it was capable of doing. With only one thought in Lars’ head, let’s build a rally car out of it! And the next generation of rally began. While the car was being built a chance phone call brought Lars and BFGoodrich Tires together. It was to be a meeting in Las Vegas for the launch of the BFGoodrich KDW Shotgun Challenge. BFGoodrich Tires asked drivers of all disciplines to bring their cars and to scare the contestants out of there driving suit. Let’s just say it was a lot of fun. Lars brought the two new cars that WORKS had assembled to showcase and Lars found a new group of people that spoke his language. Later that year the BFGoodrich Nation of GO tour was launched from WORKS in sunny California where BFGoodrich and the Martin Agency documented their travels across the country.
The next year 2010 Lars’ drive to race again was too great and it propelled him to finish the RalliArt and prep it for the western swing of the Rally America championship. One year after two big wrecks Lars got back in a new car, with a new team and tried to take the next step in his career. With so many unknown’s no one on the team was even expecting to finish and with Lars a little older and a little wiser they finished the next two rallies and are working reestablishing a foothold in the National rally community. And in the midst of all this, BFG found it upon themselves to involve him with a team of great competitors and people that compose TeamBFG. This group of ladies and gentlemen has qualities that he has grown to believe in, and wants to share and teach not only to his family but to anybody that wishes to learn about something good.
Lars’ plans for the future are staying focused on bringing a good light to Rally in the USA, look into other avenues of racing to broaden his experience level, better himself not only as a husband but as a father to show his sons that the world is good and to live life to its fullest. And in November of this year Lars took 2nd driving a BFG sponsored buggy in the 35 year anniversary of BFG’s involvement…. dominance of the BAJA 1000!!!!!!
2011 saw Lars’ involvement in the countries newest form of racing, Time Attack, and Red Line Time Attack. Driving the WORKS Evo X Lars managed a 3rd place finish against the best drivers in Road racing with the mentality that he learned in Rally “To finish first, first you must finish!” Rally was still top on list for Lars and He participated in the western Rallies of the Rally America series and worked very hard to continue to refine the RalliArt and the team. And at the second rally in Oregon. Lars and the team found them 3rd overall at the one of the toughest Rallies of the season against the best rally drivers in the country. Sadly, at the end of 2011 Mitsubishi decided to remove themselves from racing and had to crush the beloved car he put so much work and effort into.
2012 to current, Lars has not stopped racing actually he is more involved! Shortly after Mitsubishi pull the funding for the rally car, Lars and his team refocused on the future and a new project. They Found the Nissan JUKE yes a JUKE an ugly little car with huge potential. After a rocky start the first Juke found a short life after Lars wrecked the car at the 2016 Oregon trail Rally writing the car off completely, luckily no one was hurt in the accident. Lars didn’t slow down one bit, he found another donor NISSAN JUKE and started the project over, even better, improving on all aspects of the car and being a forefront of research and development for aftermarket parts with his sponsors and this quirky little race car. When the second car was finished and racing Lars wasn’t done! He had another dream in his mind and that was to share his passion of racing with people that otherwise would never THINK they could EVER race a real race car. Lars pulled his first race car, a 2000 VW Jetta endurance race car out of moth ball freshened it up and created Quattro Cervezas Racing. It was built in the newly formed Lucky Dog Racing Series on the then west coast but now nationwide series. There he brought 5 Brand new driver into the car and under his tutelage went racing! “It has been one of the most satisfying accomplishments in my racing career, being responsible for bringing 5 new drivers into the sport of auto racing and teaching them the way I was taught all those years ago”
Now on the doorstep of the future, Lars has knocked on the door of opportunity and the door has been opened, there is nothing in his way, all the pieces are there. And with the decades of building relationships with Sponsors and people that believe in Lars’ vision… There is nothing Lars and his team can’t accomplish. “These 2 race cars have been a dream come true for me and with years of balance and perseverance I have fulfilled my dream”. But that’s the thing about a “Champion in Training” we can never stop dreaming about what we can do next and what it’s going to take to get there. The future of my racing career at 47 has just begun to open into what it could possibly be, and I hope I can position myself around the right people at the right time to continue my Training to becoming a Champion.” Lars Wolfe owner/operator/ builder #23 Nissan JUKE rally car and the #23 Quattro Cervazas VW Jetta Lucky Dog Racing Series enduro racer

Driver Lars Wolfe

1990 fixed own VW beetle and drag raced, autocrossed and car shows

1994 started on path to becoming a Automotive Technician

1996 graduated college and moved to California, started track days with 92 VW gti, started instructing for NASA and Audi club of America

1998 started work at VW dealers

1999 married high school sweet heart

2000 accepted job at Volkswagen of America

2003 Lars’ first son was born Jan 15th and crewed his first rally

2004 crewed for a speed world challenge team and crew chief of rally car,

2005 Drove first rally in Oregon and won Western States Rally Championship for 2005

2005 attended O’Neil Rally School

2006 Lars’ second son was born October 7, sold business and went to work on Vintage race cars.

2007 filmed commercial for a Sega rally video game tv commercial that was aired on major networks. Finished 3rd nationally in the Rally America rally series.

2008 Started his Motorsports employment at WORKS motorsports at Infineon raceway. Drove and finished 2nd in the western states Enduro Championship.

2009 Went back to rally after taking a year off to go road racing and debuted WORKS evo 9 rally car. Filmed nation of GO tour, at Infineon raceway. Filmed the KDW challenge in Las Vegas for BFGoodrich

2010 became part of Team BFG, Debuted WORKS Lancer RalliArt rally car Participated in the TEAM BFG meeting at Miller Sports Park in Salt Lake Utah. Lars Also participated in 3 National Rally in 2010 placing in the top ten with a new car and new co-driver trying to develop a new team for the 2011 season. Finally, Lars And Team BFG placed 2nd in the BAJA 1000 in November of 2010

2011 Filmed BFG commercial spot with Shaun White airing on ESPN and Speed Channel. He has raced the 3 western coast Rally events of the Rally America series. And currently is participating in a new race series that has aired on VS. Channel with a new program called Red Line Circuit Battles. Were a 3rd place finish was achieved.

2012-2015: Lars researched worked, saved and purchased the vehicle to become the Multi-Purpose Racer a 2012 Nissan Juke.

2015-17 the Nissan Juke race in the Global Time attack series, American Rally Series, National Hill climb association, and many others. But in early 2017 the first Nissan Juke was wrecked at the Oregon trail rally. The car was a complete loss.

2017-2018 Lars Purchased a 2013 Nissan JUKE at auction and started the process again but better in all respects.

2018-2019 this time the Nissan Juke tested and focused on Rally racing and on its debut Rally it Placed 1ST in class at the Olympus Rally in 2019, and was not able to complete the next rally the following month with a broken lower control arm at the Oregon trail Rally. At this time also start the rebuild of the VW Jetta Enduro Racer where Lars and his team of rag tag newbie neighborhood dads Placed 3rd in class C at Laguna Seca Raceway a great success for a brand new team.

2020: well it was 2020 Lars the JUKE and the JETTA only got to race once the Juke showed its speed and reliability again by holding 2nd place in class for most of the event before Lars had a moment on stage getting the car stuck and ended up in 6th place in Class. The Jetta was able to race in the inaugural Steve Sumner Memorial race a fallen member of Quattro Cervazas racing team who passed away earlier in the year, and Late on day one of the event the car was taken out of the race when a Wheel broke and the subsequent damage was too great to continue.

2021- Lars and the Team of Sponsors and crew are gearing up for a light year of racing slowly back into the swing of things after Covid-19 has changed the face of racing in the USA. Lars Will also be starting the final part of the NISSAN JUKE project completing vision for the car building the FIRST manual AWD Nissan Juke in the WORLD!!

To all sponsors of Lars Wolfe Racing, crew, family and friends…Thank you for the continued support and stay tuned for more awesome!!