For decades, business executives have been backers of auto racing. Now, more and more, the executives are driving the cars. The Grand American Road Racing Association, an organization whose silent partner is the stock-car powerhouse NASCAR, set up a special championship in 2005 for nonprofessional drivers and, more recently, changed several rules to help amateur racers keep pace with professional drivers during a race. For example, all cars now require an early pit stop—an aid to the more easily fatigued executive.

The changes give drivers like Greg Wilkins, 51, CEO of the world’s largest gold-mining company, Barrick Gold, a way to participate in races with professionals. “We’re competitive guys in business, competitive guys on the golf course, and competitive guys in motorsports,” says Wilkins of his racing colleagues. “We don’t come to the racetrack to cruise around for a Sunday afternoon drive.”

In the past, amateur drivers were effectively excluded from international professional racing. When sports-car racing became widely popular in the 1950s, many businessmen would get involved by owning one of the two-seat, enclosed-wheel cars, and were satisfied merely to watch their investments compete.

'We’re competitive guys in business, competitive guys on the golf course, and competitive guys in motorsports,' says the racing executive. 'We don’t come to the racetrack to cruise around for a Sunday afternoon drive.'

Sports-car racing is an endurance sport, and two drivers are necessary to trade off during a pit stop, so owners hired professionals to fill both roles. But the allure of spectatorship wears off. Over time, the business executives started fielding two cars—one shared by two professional drivers for the purpose of winning, and another driven by the owner himself and a professional, purely for the enjoyment of driving.

Established in 1999, Grand-Am has simplified the process for nonprofessionals. There are two series, the Rolex Sports Car Series and the slower Koni Challenge Series, with two classes of cars in each, creating a ladder system that allows businessmen to begin their racing careers.

Tracy Krohn, ranked 512th among the world’s richest people in 2006 by Forbes, started at the bottom of this ladder. Krohn, 53, who employs my father as an engineer, is the chairman and CEO of W&T Offshore, an oil and gas exploration company with a market capitalization of $2 billion. He has graduated to owning and driving his two-car team in Grand-Am’s top class. “It’s a great stepping system,” Krohn says.

While Grand-Am recommends previous racing experience, graduating from a high-performance driving school like Skip Barber at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut is often sufficient for a Koni license. William Oliver, senior vice president of public affairs for AT&T, attended a three-day Barber racing school, which is offered in many areas across the nation, and enjoyed it so much that he is now racing in Barber’s Regional Race Series. “Skip Barber’s philosophy of arrive-and-drive [works for me],” says Oliver, 64. “The mechanics are all there taking care of the cars, and your job as a driver is to show up, have a great time, and when it’s over, it’s over.... It’s very, very enjoyable.”

Though some series use fenderless cars, similar to those seen at the Indianapolis 500, others use stock street cars with only minor modifications for safety—such as a Ford Mustang or a Porsche 911—which are capable of hitting speeds of 160 mph.

The Regional Race Series in which Oliver competes is an amateur championship where drivers race fenderless cars, similar to those seen at the Indianapolis 500. By contrast, Koni uses stock street cars with only minor modifications for safety—such as a Ford Mustang or a Porsche 911—which are capable of hitting speeds of 160 mph. Koni and Rolex allow a driver to rent a car from an existing team, a version of the system that amateur series such as Skip Barber use.

The Koni and Rolex series typically race on the same track during the same weekend. From January to October, there are 13 to 15 races in each class. A full season racing in the Koni series costs around $200,000, mainly for car and equipment rental, travel costs, fuel and tires, and crew salaries, compared with $3 million a season for the same expenses in Rolex. The prize money for winning Rolex race is $17,500, compared with $10,000 for Koni.

Rolex races take place in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. All of them are televised on FOX’s Speed Channel, and ratings increased by almost 100,000 viewers from last year to nearly half a million for the series’ elite 24-hour race at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. In Rolex’s top-tier class, race car manufacturers like Riley Technologies and Lola Cars International make the chassis, with engines being produced by well-known street-car companies such as Pontiac, Porsche, BM W, and Ford. Races are held on road-course circuits, which are typically over two miles long, have right- and left-hand turns, and are built on the outskirts of large cities such as Miami and Salt Lake City.

Racing is a high-adrenaline way to take your mind off work. 'In the car, there's no telephone, there’s no fax machine, there’s no Blackberry,' says one CEO. 'You are not worried about stock prices. It’s therapeutic.'

Since, on average, only about 10,000 fans attend a race, corporate sponsorships are far more limited than with NASCAR and other all-pro racing. SunTrust Banks sponsors a car, as do Ruby Tuesday restaurants and Crown Royal whiskey. But most are sponsored by executive drivers like Mark Patterson, cofounder of MatlinPatterson Global Advisors, which manages a $2.2 billion investment fund. Patterson, who competes in Grand-Am’s most prestigious class, says, “It costs an insane amount of money” to race.

Many executives seek the thrill that comes from competing not only against world-class sports-car drivers, but also against NASCAR superstars such as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart, all who participate in the Rolex Series from time to time. “To be allowed to get on the field with these guys was a jaw dropper,” Patterson says.

For others, racing is a high-adrenaline way to take your mind off work. “It’s certainly intense, but it is actually relaxing,” Krohn says about driving 550-horsepower cars. “In the car, there’s no telephone, there’s no fax machine, there’s no Blackberry. You are not worried about stock prices. It’s therapeutic.”

Ultimately, however, motorsports comes down to winning. Executives like to win. In racing, winning requires a multimillion-dollar investment. “My friends hired a driver coach,” Patterson says. “The next practice out, they were two seconds a lap faster than me. So I’m back in the trailer scratching through my bag looking for my checkbook.”

Travis Braun is a writer from Ovalo, Texas.

Image credit: photograph by Richard Dole.