Four Amigos Love the Pace of the Race

Four Amigos Love the Pace of the Race

Four fast friends—Mark Wyatt, Alex Vogel, Peter Pejacsevich and Brian Wilson.

By Leonard Shapiro

They are fast friends, to say the least.

And teammates, too.

Every month or so, these four Middleburg area neighbors pack their bags, their tools and most of all, their powerful Porsche race car, for a trip to a motorsport track, where they compete both behind the wheel and as a well-oiled pit crew in a series of races on the American Endurance Racing (AER) circuit.

Mark Wyatt, who owns a specialized construction business, got them all started a decade ago when he organized a couples go-kart race at the Summit Point track in West Virginia. He was joined that day by Brian Wilson, Peter Pejacsevich and Alex Vogel and their families on what each man described as both a fun and transformative outing.

Not long after that initial outing, they entered a 14-hour go-kart race, and had another fabulous experience. They clearly loved endurance racing, but wanted to move from go-karts into real cars.

In 2015, they purchased their first car, a 1985 Porsche 944—price tag $1,200— that wasn’t even running when it arrived. That was soon fixed, and they entered a “24 Hours of Lemons” race, over the next three years they would compete in five Lemons races.

In 2019, they decided to move into the more competitive AER series. After totaling their beloved 944 at the New Jersey Motor Speedway, the team took a serious plunge into the sport in 2020, purchasing two ISMA Porsche Caymans.

The rest of the 2020 season was a great learning experience, racing against factory cars and some pro drivers. The 2021 season has been a rollicking success, with RSC currently leading the AER team championship with two races to go.

Why RSC? It stands for Raising Seventeen Children, their total number of offspring.

“People say racing, and especially endurance racing, is addictive,” said Vogel, CEO of the Vogel Group, a highly-regarded Washington-based lobbying firm. “It tests you emotionally, physically and mentally. It’s all consuming, in a good way.”

His three pals echoed that same theme. All had some experience in different racing formats, but endurance competition offered far more time behind the wheel, even divided four ways.

The Porsche takes the Middleburg guys on rides up to 140 miles an hour.

AER was founded in 2014 “with the single purpose of being the premier automotive endurance racing series in North America. AER’s goal is to provide a fun, safe environment for experienced drivers using almost any productionbased race car.”

Also appealing to the 125 registered AER teams is the attraction of racing on some of America’s most iconic motorsport racing venues, including Watkins Glenn in upstate New York and Virginia International Raceway near Danville.

“I raced some in Austria,” said Pejacsevich, an Austrian native and cofounder, managing partner and principal broker of Middleburg Real Estate/ Atoka Properties. “I always had a love of cars and a love for speed, so this is very satisfying. We do it for fun, thrilling fun, and we do it for the love of the sport. We’re a group of friends with similar interests. What we have is very unique, nothing like it.”

“We all help each other,” added Wilson, chairman of Interstate Waste Technologies. “And it’s so much fun, sometimes it’s hard not to think about it….It’s a real test of endurance both for the car and the driver. We race in rain, at night, daylight, hot, cold. It really tests you.”

AER has an eight-race season to accumulate points between March and November. A racing weekend begins with practice Friday morning followed by qualifying in the afternoon

Between 25-50 teams compete. On Saturday and Sunday, they race between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. There are no idle moments. When they’re not behind the wheel, the drivers do all the work in the required five pit stops—changing tires and so much more—within an allotted three-minute time span.

AER also places heavy emphasis on driver safety in cars that can reach speeds of 140 miles an hour. RSC experienced the occasional racing mishap, but no injuries.

“What I like about it is the amount of seat time in the car,” said Wyatt, president of Diversified Education Systems. “If you like racing, the more you do, the better. We work really well as a ream; we’ve gotten quite good with pit stops. That part is a lot of fun, too, and we have a lot of fun competing.”

Four fast friends having a ball, to say the least.