Amity resident Steve Walker has raced on all kinds of tracks in all kinds of weather. This weekend, he’ll compete at his home track, Portland International Raceway, in a pair of classic BMWs.
Photo courtest
Steve Walker

Amity’s Steve Walker is no stranger to the race course, and this weekend he’ll take a pair of cars to Portland to compete in the Baxter Auto Parts Portland Historic Races.
Photo courtesy
Steve Walker

Prev Next Enlarge

Amity’s Steve Walker loves racing — especially if he’s piloting one of his two classic BMW’s in vintage races at Portland International Raceway, his home track.

And, the 58-year-old educator-turned-businessman-turned-farmer will be on the Baxter Auto Parts Portland Historic Races grid with the pair of Bimmers (a 1972 CSL and a 1966 1800 Ti) at PIR Friday through Sunday for three days of practice, qualifying and racing. Walker’s BMWs will join a field of more than 250 prestigious historic racers, all restored to original specifications. The classic vintage automobiles will compete in variety of groups according to make, age and horsepower.

Walker’s interest in racing began during his childhood days in Minnesota, where his father had a series of car dealerships. His father, Steve said, began with British sports cars in the early ’50s and added a VW/Porsche dealership for the Twin Cities area in 1954. Later, his dad became the Midwest distributor for BMW, Mercedes and several other marques in Minneapolis.

It was in the Minneapolis dealership that Walker took on the job of a lot boy in 1966, adding other duties as well. But the racing bug really took hold in Walker’s life when his father’s VW dealership sponsored a Formula Vee (FV) in Sports Car Club of America events. That Volkswagen-powered car was driven by the legendary Jerry Hansen, who won more national championships than any other driver.

“I used to go along with my dad to the races, and soon I was thoroughly hooked,” Walker said. “The track we spent the most time at was Road America, and I remember seeing the early Can-Ams there along with the June Sprints and the fall races.”

At Road America, the site of this fall’s SCCA National Championship races, Walker had the opportunity to tour the track at speed with a number of good drivers, “which only inflamed my desire to compete some day,” he acknowledged.

While he wasn’t quite old enough to compete in regular SCCA events yet, he began running autocross at the age of 16; at 18, he expanded his interests to include ice racing in the IIRA in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada. His first car was a 1966 NSU TTS, which he ran in both winter and summer. In 1971, he sold the NSU and purchased a Mazda RX-2, which served double duty, running on the ice in winter and the track in summer.

“I really enjoyed the ice racing I did back in Minnesota,” he said. “It was quite a challenge. We ran studded tires, and by the end of the three-hour enduro, there was a groove through the turns where the ice had been dug out by the studs.”

Then a career-path choice led Walker back to college, putting his racing interests on hold. That was 1974, the same year he married wife Mary, and the couple left their MIdwest roots in 1982, moving to the state of Washington.

Two years later, they picked up stakes and moved again, this time to Oregon, where Steve’s interest in racing resurfaced. But this time it was his oldest son who occupied the driver’s seat in a go-kart.

“We raced sprint karts, road-race karts, dirt karts and street races for about 12 years,” Walked said.

After a hiatus from the sport — his son had moved out and married, thus ending the decade-plus go-kart connection — Walker soon felt the bug beginning to bite him again.

“About five or six years ago, I came to a point where I wanted to start racing again,” he said. “All of our children (the Walkers have four adopted children, one from Columbia, two from Korea and one from India) went off on their own.”

So, he rekindled his interest by running some track days with the Portland BMW club and watching the Portland historic races.

“I decided I wanted to try my hand at that,” he said, “so I went to the Bondurant school to get my license and began looking for a suitable car.”

The only requirement in his search?

It had to be a BMW.

And not only a BMW, but a classic BMW.

“My primary interest is racing vintage races,” Walker said. “It is a little more low key, and the people involved all love these old cars as much as I do.”

His search for the perfect vintage BMW went nation-wide, and in 2004, he discovered the 1800 in Connecticut.

“It had been a great car, prepared to the highest standards, and was quite competitive against Alfas, Cortinas and other vintage sedans,” Walker said. The 1800 was specially equipped with a stiffer suspension, a strong, five-speed gearbox and race-prepped motor.

His second BMW — the CSL — he purchased this past winter.

“It had been a race car in the Midwest since the early ’90s,” Walker said, “but it had been sitting for the last eight years or so.”

When he discovered the car, it was in Florida. After negotiating with the owner for almost a year, Walker became the proud owner of A classic CSL.

Normally, Walker tries to compete in six to eight races each summer in various vintage classes in California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon, running primarily with SOVERN AND HMSA, although he holds an SCCA license. At the recent Rose Cups in Portland, he picked up a pair of class wins, one of the highlights of his “second” racing career.

At the Portland Historics this weekend, Walker will run his 1800 in the small bore production race (Group 7) and the CSL in the FIA sports racing group (Group 3).

In addition to his interests in vintage racing, Walker, who has a masters degree in education, enjoys his role as a farmer, raising cherries, wine grapes and hay on his property. Before settling down in Amity, his career in education included stops in both the MIdwest and Washington, working as an administrator and teaching in private schools.

“I also had a company in Salem for 12 years that developed training and simulation programs for high-tech companies like Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Praegitzer Industries and Liberty NW Insurance, Norm Thompson and Eddie Bauer,” he said. “Now, I just farm.”

In addition to overseeing crops such as cherries, wine grapes and hay, Walker manages the family timber business. His family, he said, has owned timberlands in northeastern California for about 100 years.

He’s also an owner/investor in the new race track being completed In Oregon Raceway Park, located in Grass Valley. The track is slated to open soon for SCCA and International Conference of Sports Car Clubs events.

And if racing and maintaining two classic BMWs isn’t enough, Walker is in the process of adding a third BMW to his racing stable.

“I have a 1972 BMW I’m prepping to race,” he said.” His wife, a big part of his racing over the years, also has a Porsche 911 she plans on entering in the Forest Grove Concours in July.

The couple recently celebrated 35 years of marriage, and three of their children still live in Oregon, along with three of the their grandchildren. The oldest child and his family work on the farm. And while Walker loves the farm, this weekend he and Mary will make the short trip to PIR, “camping out and socializing with great people that race.”

So if vintage race fans attend the event this weekend, look for a 58-year-old racer in the seat of his classic CSL (No. 5) and 1800 (No. 17) Bimmers clad in the traditional BMW white, red and blue livery. He’ll be the guy with a huge smile on his face, fully immersed in his passion of vintage racing.