Chesapeake Region
Dawe’s Motorsports Development
Randy Richter
The current June issue of Panorama has an excellent article on the “The Magician” who is Peter Dawe. During the recent Pocono’s Parade there was a suggested side trip to the gearhead shrine that is Dawe’s Motorsports Development. On Tuesday of Parade, Peter had kindly opened his shop and provided lunch to attendees. Arriving there I was quite frankly dismayed at the paucity of visitors. In fact, only one other person was visiting at the time. I will not cover anything in the article as that is an excellent read. Rather, I will provide an anecdote or two from my visit and some additional pictures. After entering the facility, I walked among the various cars and took some photographs. The shop is overloaded with engines, cars, parts, parts, and more parts. In fact, speaking with a lady who was greeting visitors, I was informed that Peter had a whole huge warehouse off site full of historic parts, potential project cars and rare unobtanium. Finally, after passing through several rooms Peter was sitting on a stool in front of parts for a 962 engine. More on that later. Peter was in discussion with the other visitor to the shop, so I headed to the wall of historic pictures. Seeing those pictures brought me into my own private way back machine as I recognized many of the venues and the cars. After Peter finished speaking to the other visitor, I went over to thank him for opening his shop. I allowed how the pictures reminded me of seeing those historic cars run back in the day. Specifically, I mentioned to Peter, my stint as a press photographer at Texas World Speedway and Riverside. He allowed how our paths probably crossed as of course he was at those races working as a mechanic. Finally, I mentioned the 962 engine parts in front of him. He could tell I was fascinated that such parts still existed. He very studiously set my assumption to rights when he mentioned that the only way to have these parts is to manufacture them. I left the shop amazed and impressed that this outpost on back street in Stroudsburg Pennsylvania held such an amazing amount of talent and such a vast storehouse of Porsche knowledge.
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