Eric Peterson, of Hillsborough, North Carolina, had always loved cars, but wasn’t sure how to transform that into something greater. At least that was until he attended a racing school at Road Atlanta. As they say, the rest is history.
"I went through Road Atlanta’s three-day competition racing school in 1994," Peterson said. "I loved it and asked the instructors what was the cheapest type of racing I could do. They responded, ‘there is no cheap form of racing, but autocross is the most affordable.’ The instructors told me to go buy a Miata. A month later I was autocrossing a 1990 Mazda Miata. Three years later I did my first SCCA Solo National event (Petersburg Pro Solo). I finished dead last out of 13 drivers, but actually drove the best I’d ever had up to that point and was hooked. I think I finished last in most of my early events but found that when I went home to local events, I kept getting closer to the fast drivers. That taught me how important it was to run against the best completion, even if that meant getting smoked by the fastest drivers in the country."
Peterson completed the first of three legs of the Triad with a convincing class win at the Tire Rack Dixie Championship Tour event. Peterson then won his sole Match Tour event at Wilmington. He capped his run off with a National Championship win in E Street, beating his closest competition by 0.884-second.
There was one event that made the season tough for Peterson, as well as many other competitors – the death of Jim Feinberg.
"The biggest challenge, and ultimately inspiration, was the loss of my friend, Jim Feinberg," Peterson said. "Jim, Gwen Habenicht and I spent the week together at Spring Nationals in Lincoln. About two weeks later Jim collapsed at a local autocross here in North Carolina and passed away several days later.
"It was devastating for many of us in the SCCA Solo community. During the week at Spring Nationals, Jim helped me make some setup tweaks to the car on site. We spent a lot of time discussing driving techniques, as well as the sports psychology aspect of autocross. As usual, I learned a lot from Jim – both at the event and during evening margaritas. I tried to look at the rest of the season as an opportunity to employ all the lessons Jim shared with me over the years. For whatever reason, it gave me a sense of inner calm and improved my driving."
Peterson has also been able to translate his driving skills to a real-life application as part of his job as Town Manager of Hillsborough.
"For the past 15 years I’ve been working with the Hillsborough Police Department coordinating and instructing in their driver safety program," Peterson said. "The effort has grown as we’ve partnered with our insurance company to provide training for police driving instructors from across the state.
"We also work with leaders in the law enforcement community across the country in ALERT International - the police driving instruction organization - to make officers and officials aware of the complexity and dangers of police driving due to the inherent performance robbing effects of stress and multi-tasking. Hopefully, our efforts have prevented serious collisions and maybe saved a life or two."
Peterson had some very important folks to thank when it came to this year’s performance.
"I couldn’t have done this without my incredibly supportive wife, Chris Peterson, as well as our two daughters, Kelly and Anna!,” Peterson exclaimed. “The one person who I owe the greatest thanks to is my former co-driver Tim Aro. Tim stuck with me for all these years, especially during many of my low points. He’s an amazing teacher and has a great passion for SCCA Solo.
"Over the years, the following sponsors have provided fantastic support – I can’t thank them enough: Solo Pro Driving School, www.AtomicEmpire.com and McGeorge Toyota, in Richmond, Virginia."
