Early last weekend I received a breathless (OK they’s all breathless) call from Bill Caswell informing me that he was at the Nurburgring in Germany getting ready to make practice laps so he could race with a team in an attempt to kick some ass at the qualifying race for the famed 24 Hours of Nurburgring event which is coming up in June. In typical Caswell fashion, the story was completely off the wall. He had been invited over by racer Robb Holland who is an American wheelman competing in the British Touring Car Championship as well as working as an instructor at said ‘Ring. One team was going to be racing a gnarly Audi TTRS during the qualifier but there was a second team car, an Audi SP8 RS4 (which is the evil looking black car pictured above) which was driven by Holland, Danny Kubasik, and Bill Caswell. While we’re not sure how much of the driving Caswell did during the six hour race, we can report that the car won its class and we’re pretty sure that means it gets entry into the twenty four hour race in June. We’re waiting on confirmation from Caswell on it.

In the course of telling me how he was going racing in Germany (which has been a lifelong ambition for him) Bill mentioned that he had to relocate his entire shop the night before his plane took off. We didn’t quite get the full explanation on that but once the guys is back stateside we’ll catch up with him for more information. Having driven a couple of “regular” cars around the ‘Ring in the past, Caswell was excited and nervous about hitting the course in a car with lots of horsepower (V8 horsepower we’d specify), full racing slicks, and enough umph to literally catch air on a few sections of the course. Apparently that all went OK because the Rotek team captured top class honors.

The big question for Caswell right now is pretty simple. What happens next? This is not a free ride with all expenses covered. In fact, it is the opposite of that. Bill hauled himself there and had to pay for his seat time. For the six hour race, that was one thing and basically a week long trip. For the 24 hour race, it’ll be a different kettle of fish. We’re not sure if he’s planning on opening a lemonade stand, hooking on the corner, or hustling sponsor money but we’re going to keep you posted. If anything, paying attention to Bill Caswell provides a pretty compelling story about what one can do when they literally look past every insurmountable obstacle and laser focus on the one thing that they want to do in life. To say that Bill has taken his racing adventures further and faster than we could have ever imaged he would is an understatement. The guy may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but to this point he has races Baja multiple times, WRC, road racing series all over the country, and now in a serious bit of business at the Nurburgring. No wonder they are making a movie about him. (Seriously, they are. Jeremy Renner is going to star in the film and direct it as well.)

The Bill Caswell adventure continues….this this time with a checkered flag and raises hopes and some serious questions about his racing future at the ‘Ring.

Beer tastes better when you win stuff.