Organization of a Legends Race team

The HMS Legends Team is based in northern Virginia and focuses on road racing.

In March of 1998, the co-founders of Highland MotorSports, LLC Mike Donaldson and Jim Donaldson purchased their Legends car a 1937 Chevy Sedan body style  from Legends Mid-Atlantic of Maryland. This car was a former "school car" used by Legends Mid-Atlantic to introduce prospective racers to Legends race cars.

The co-founders of Highland MotorSports, LLC were not strangers to auto racing. Mike Donaldson has several years of auto-crossing and time-trial event experience with the Porsche Club as well as considerable general knowledge of auto mechanics. Jim Donaldson has both drag racing and circle track racing experience in addition to a solid background in auto mechanics.

The HMS Race Team was formed, the car was inspected, detailed and made race ready by the middle of April. Tools and equipment necessary to compete in Legends races were purchased. A trailer was acquired and out-fitted for hauling the race car. The owners of HMS Racing both joined the INEX Association, the official sanctioning body for Legends racing.  The owners, both of whom will drive in different events attended a drivers school in preparation for the the up coming racing season.

Legends race cars were designed to be adaptable to several different venues, therefore the HMS Team planned a season of road racing and asphalt circle track racing in Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina . To date, the HMS #11 Legends car has completed two seasons of racing with about thirty races total.  We have basically split our efforts between road race events and circle track events. We have not won a race so far but we have had many top ten finishes overall and have finished in the top five in our division in every road race this past year.  Click here for a summary of our latest race.

One thing that we learned rather quickly about racing two different venues was the amount of work that went into changing the chassis set-up from oval to road race configuration and then back to oval.  During the winter between our first and second seasons, we designed and built a Legends Chassis Set-up Jig that would speed up the changing of set-ups and allow us to quickly and efficiently repeat the previous set-up.  The Chassis Jig has been tested during the '99 season and is now available through HMS Racing for other Legends Teams for a modest price.

Legends racing has grown quickly since the cars were introduced in 1992. This year, Legends cars will compete in more than 1600 sanctioned races both in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Sweden. Fox Sports Network  airs a ten race schedule from Lowes Motor Speedway tape delayed the following week.  The asphalt Nationals also from Lowes Motor Speedway is shown tape delayed following the finals in late December.  In July and August, there are two  Regional Championship Legends Road Race events, one at  Summit Point Raceway, in West Virginia and another at Road Atlanta in Braselton Georgia -- HMS Racing will particpate in these events each year. 

We have learned quite a lot about Legends car racing over the past two years, as well as learning about the cost of racing. Our goals for the 1999 season were to steadily improve our on track performance while looking for ways and means of off-setting the financial burden of participating in 12 to 14 events.  We believe that we had a good year, Mike Donaldson was 11th in the State of Virginia in the Pro division for ovals and 11th nationally in the Pro division for road racing.  As with most forms of racing, we are looking for sponsorship agreements that provide the Team with the resources to be competitive and the Sponsor with maximum exposure. We have prime space on the # 11 Legends car for additional sponsors for the 2000 season.

                                 This page was last updated on 01/09/00