First Gear BY JAMES HEINE
If you’re stranded in Elkhart
Lake, Nicolas Hammann
is your man
There are a lot of ways to discover a First Gear candidate, but limping into Cal & Gus Motors at
the corner of Rhine and Lincoln Streets
in Elkhart Lake, Wis., on what today
passes for a spare tire isn’t one an editor
of SportsCar might pick for a top 10 list.
Yet that’s exactly how we met
Nicolas Hammann on a rainy
Thursday last June. Aforesaid editor
had punctured a tire on I- 43 in
downtown Milwaukee and reached
Elkhart Lake on his Protegé 5’s spare.
At Cal & Gus, Nicolas was kind
enough to undertake repairs.
One bit of conversation led to
another, and we discovered that
Nicolas, in addition to wrenching on
cars – and busting tires from rims – is
a First Gear member and the pilot of
his family’s STU BMW 318ti in
Regional and National events.
If you’re not familiar with the
Elkhart Lake landmark, Cal & Gus
has been a Hammann family business
since 1934, when it began as a Ford
dealership. Today, it is operated by
Nicolas’ father, Gary, his uncle, Brian
Hammann, and a family friend, Dick
Binder. Nicholas, a 17-year-old senior
in high school and a member of
the Kansas City Region, has been
working part time at the shop since
age 10 or thereabouts.
For Hammann, his work at Cal &
Gus has been a natural introduction to
racecar preparation and maintenance.
And like almost every other young
driver today, he began in karts at a
young age ( 7 in this case). He earned
his SCCA competition license in April
2010 at the Mid-America Motorplex
(MAM) near Omaha and subsequently
recorded his first class win there. Last
May, he qualified for his National
license just in time for the Chicago
Region Weather Tech June Sprints,
where, in his 318ti, he qualified 53rd
in a field of 56 (which included T1, T2,
STU and AS cars). In the rain, he
finished 34th overall and 10th in class
on “rain tires” gleaned from “some old
customer tires lying around in the
back of the shop.”
“It’s kind of funny how it all started,”
Hammann says about his racing. “Our
uncle bought a kind of go-kart with my
dad, and it was for all three of us kids –
that’s my two sisters and me. My dad
asked which one of us wanted to do
the racing stuff. Neither of my sisters
Initially, his karting efforts were
modest, Hammann says. Eventually,
those efforts became more serious,
and he won the Road America kart
club’s Kohler Junior Championships in
2007 and 2008 and its Kohler Senior
Championship in 2009.
“I successfully competed in over 70
feature events with no DNFs or black
flags for rough driving or unnecessary
contact,” he says.
Hammann’s SCCA career began
with the acquisition of the
aforementioned BMW, the Driver’s
School at MAM and some serious
mentoring by Kansas City Region’s Jim
Wheeler, whom Hammann describes
as the kind of member who “makes
Hammann followed his MAM debut
with a series of Regional class wins at
Blackhawk Farms near Rockford, Ill.,
Nicolas Hammann is
handy both driving
and fixing cars. He’s
not doing bad in
school, either. For
being this month’s
First Gear member of
the month, Hammann
will receive a $200
gift certificate to
SafeRacer.
“I’VE BEEN VERY LUCKY TO DO THE STUFF I’VE DONE ALREADY” Nicolas Hammann
presented by
he’s run the Milwaukee Region’s Pirate
Cat Nationals at Road America and a
Regional weekend at Blackhawk Farms.
“It was not my best race of the
season,” Hammann says about his
latest Blackhawk outing. “It was the
first SCCA race I ran off track. I made
a lot of mistakes in the race, but I did
drop my lap times by almost two
seconds over last year.”
Even though he was unhappy with
himself, he “learned a ton about racing
in general,” Hammann says.
“Hopefully, I can apply the information,
so I don’t make the mistakes again.”
In high school, Hammann maintains
a 4.0 grade average and stands at the
head of his class. Also, he has lettered
in soccer and track and field and been
honored for his dedication,
sportsmanship and versatility. When
we last talked with him shortly before
Thanksgiving, he apologized for his
tardy reply to our latest queries,
adding, “We started basketball this
week, and I have been very busy.”
Busy, of course, also includes
spending time with family; watching
sports car, Formula 1 and NASCAR
racing on TV; hanging out with
friends, snowmobiling and attending
weekly mass at his church.
He has also logged “hundreds of
hours” with his Logitech Racing
Wheel and Playseat Evolution racing
simulator, Hammann adds.
Post high school, Hammann intends
to pursue a career in mechanical
engineering, beginning with studies at
the University of North Carolina –
Charlotte or the University of
Michigan. Long term, he hopes an
engineering career will allow him to
stay close to motorsports.
“I would really love to be a
professional racecar driver,” he says,
“but in that field today it’s hard to
compete unless you’re like 12 and you
have a lot of money behind you. If not,
you’re probably not going to be able to
race full time. I’ve been very lucky to
do the stuff I’ve done already. I think a
career combining engineering and
motorsports would be a dream job.”
Until that day, Hammann will
continue to study, work, play sports
and race whenever he can.
Oh, yes, the tire, which had a large,
ugly gash in its tread: It’s still holding
steady. Thanks, Nicolas.
26 february www.scca.com
