Horst Kwech
 |
This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2010) |
Horst Kwech is a race car driver, race car constructor, engineer and inventor known primarily for his several wins and two championships in the early Trans-Am Series races of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.
[edit] Biography
Horst Kwech was born in 1937 in Vienna, Austria. Shortly after his birth, his mother emigrated to Australia where he grew up. Kwech began sports car racing in Australia in the fifties with an Austin-Healey 100/4 for Leaton Motors. He showed his mechanical engineering talent early building a custom sports car, the RM Spyder, with a Holden motor, which he later sold to finance his trip to the USA. Kwech joined Knauz Continental Motors of Lake Forest Illinois in 1963 as a lead mechanic. He won the SCCA Central Division Championship in an AUSCA Mark II in his first year in US Racing, in 1963. The AUSCA Mark II was an innovative tube frame sports car of Kwech’s design that competed with the Lotus 23. In 1965 Kwech won the SCCA Central Division Championship in an Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti Super.
Kwech’s racing success in 1965 came to the attention of Alfa Romeo’s head of USA racing, and Knauz Motors was offered a chance to purchase an Autodelta-prepared GTA to campaign in the newly established SCCA Trans-Am Series, with Kwech as the lead driver. In 1966 the privateer team of Horst Kwech and Gaston Andrey was the most successful in the Trans-Am, accumulating 39 of the 57 manufacturers' points for Alfa Romeo and clinching Alfa’s Under 2 Liter Trans-Am Manufacturers' Championship.[1] Horst Kwech and Gaston Andrey also scored more points than any other drivers. Horst used the same GTA to qualify for the 1966 SCCA ARRC runoffs at Riverside. He went on to win the first ARRC B-Sedan National Championship in a famous race with 25 lead changes, against the Lotus Cortina of Allan Moffat, and was presented with the SCCA President's Cup for his outstanding drive.
In 1967 Kwech formed Ausca with Ron Neal and Bill Knauz in Libertyville, Illinois. This company developed Alfa Romeo performance parts and prepared and raced Alfas in various series. In that year, he prepared and raced the Tri-Color Alfa GTA’s with Monty Winkler, and Alfa Romeo gained second place in the 1967 Under 2 Liter Trans-Am Series.
In 1968 he raced for Shelby and won the Riverside Trans-Am race in a Shelby-prepared Mustang. This was one of three wins for the Shelby team in Trans-Am in 1968.
Kwech competed in the Under 2 liter Trans-Am Championship again in 1970, in an Alfa Romeo GTA.[2] In 1971, he ran an Alfa Romeo GTV against a strong Datsun team led by John Morton in a BRE Datsun 510.
In 1972 Kwech drove a Lola T300[3] for the Wetson Molica team in the L&M Continental F5000 Championship. He competed in six races with a best finish of sixth at Road Atlanta.
In July 1974 Horst Kwech and Lee Dykstra formed Dekon Engineering.[4] The name DeKon used the D in Dykstra and the K in Kwech and was short for Design and Construction. Dekon was located in Libertyville, Illinois. Over three years, Dekon Engineering produced seventeen race cars. Of these, fourteen were Monza’s.
The Dekon Monza was designed to compete with Porsche which had dominated the IMSA Camel GT Challenge. After some teething problems the Dekon Monza of Al Holbert won the IMSA GT Championship in 1976 and 1977.[4]
Horst Kwech has been granted 17 patents and is an active design engineer today.
[edit] References
- ^ 1966 SCCA Trans-American Championship Results Retrieved from www.trans-amseries.com on October 30, 2009
- ^ 1970 SCCA Trans-American Championship Results Retrieved from www.trans-amseries.com on October 30, 2009
- ^ "Lola T300 - car numbers HU5 and HU18". Oldracingcars.com. http://www.oldracingcars.com/f5000/lola/t300.htm. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
- ^ a b "IMSA History: Dekon Engineering". Alex62.typepad.com. 1975-04-10. http://alex62.typepad.com/imsablog/2006/02/dekon_engineeri.html. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
