Instructors
Steve DeBrecht
A lifelong student of motorsports, Steve was fortunate to be raised in the import car business with a healthy exposure to racing from day one. Steve’s early competition involvement started in the 1970’s with SCCA solo II and SCCA club racing with Midwest Divisional championships before transitioning to IMSA endurance racing in the mid 1980’s.
Steve operated the SAAB factory IMSA Firestone Firehawk team as owner/driver for the first year of the series before testing for an open seat on Paul Rossi’s Mopar Performance factory team. Throughout seven seasons under the Team Rossi tent Steve was able to win Sebring twice and Road Atlanta with the benefit of superior equipment and stellar co drivers.
In the late 1980’s, Having retired from the new car business, Steve started professional instruction for a nationwide racing school and driver development series to supplement the paltry income from the IMSA effort.
Race instruction and series management became a full time occupation that carries on to the present day, having spent to date over thirty years earning a living at race tracks around the country.
Steve has expanded into Race Control and Chief/Operating Steward duties for SCCA Pro Racing Trans Am, HSR Historic Sports Car Racing, Masters Endurance Legends, and several prestigious stand alone race events such as Road America’s Brian Redman Weathertech International Challenge.
Steve continues to ‘give back’ to the sport instructing for multiple racing schools, manufacturer supported driving events, as well as teen driving and car control programs across the country. The reward of seeing the students progress is a continual draw for Steve.
Steve, his wife Glenda and rescue Rat terrier Santana the wonderdog, enjoy traveling the circuit and the camaraderie of the expansive racing family.
Jerry Nadeau
Jerry begun his racing career at the of 5 winning multiple karting championships before moving up to formula cars. After finishing 4th in the Formula Ford Festival, Jerry came back to the States and had an extensive career in road racing, including the 12 Hours of Sebring. Jerry made the successful switch to Nascar running 6 Daytona 500’s and beating Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 2000 for his first Nascar cup win (NAPA 500) Atlanta Motor Speedway. Jerry’s broad racing repertoire really lends itself to his ability to coach all experience levels. His enthusiasm for sharing his experience is a real pleasure, while his passion for grass roots racing is still very evident. He’s often found at the local pizza joint eating pizza while watching dirt late models on his phone.
Sean Rayhall
Sean is an accomplished racer winning races as a driver in IMSA, European LeMans Series, Indy Lights, Legend cars, and UARA Latemodels. Sean won the Europea LeMans Championship for United Autosports in 2017 which was a keynote in his career before the end of 2018 where he decided to take a different path in racing switching over to Sprint Cars in the midwest. Sean has always been involved in the coaching side of motorsports, winning Radical Cup Championships, IMSA Lites Championships, USF4 Championships, FR Americas Races, Ferrari Challenge races, etc. from a coaching role in teams as well.
Patrick Wilmont
Stepping into a kart for the first time at the age of 17 was quite a late start compared to most of his competitors. However, he held his own and won a couple of smaller karting championships before moving into the SCCA in 2009. There, he ran a 1984 Mustang earning 2nd in the championship in his first year, winning a few national races in year two, and following up year 3 with his racing funds promptly drying out.
Without funding you don’t race, so Patrick scavenged for rides and spent the next 4 years competing in one off amateur events with anyone that would let him drive. His first professional start finally came in 2016 driving a Mini Cooper in the World Challenge series. In 2017 his momentum continued as he found himself battling with some of the best in the extremely competitive Global Mazda MX-5 Cup. Patrick showcased his talents running inside the top 5 multiple times but mechanical failures would keep him from fighting for a championship. During that season however, he would win the Mazda Move of the Year Award for the best pass during the year, along with multiple hard charger awards for making the most passes during races. From 2018 to 2022 Patrick would primarily find himself racing and coaching in the World Racing League driving GT4 machinery and touring cars in endurance races. In this time frame he would also have a handful of one off starts in IMSA driving TCR Audis and Volkswagens at Daytona and Road Atlanta.
In 2023 Patrick landed a full season ride with an all volunteer team for the IMSA VP Challenge series. With their 6 year old BMW M4, Patrick had two podium finishes, one fast lap, helped BMW secure another IMSA manufacturer’s title, and walked away just missing 3rd place in the driver’s championship.
But more important than racing, Patrick has been coaching for 16 years,with 12 of those years being on a professional level. Over this time he’s worked for many well known racing schools, car control clinics, teen driving programs, police pursuit trainings, tire manufacturers, car manufacturers, and continues to coach his private clients in various professional series around the country.
Sam Corry
Sam is a 16-year old American racing driver from Lake Norman, North Carolina. His love of racing started with asphalt go-karts and then winged outlaw karts and Micro Sprint cars. In 2021, he took a short break from dirt racing to test an F4 car at Homestead-Miami Speedway and competed in the inaugural season of USF Juniors the following year. Some of Sam’s career highlights to date include a 2nd in the USF Juniors 2022 championship and a 2023 USF2000 race win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Ben Varner
Ben started racing at 7 years old at my local karting track in East Lansing Michigan, in 2007. From there he moved onto the regional and national karting scene in 2011, winning the Great Lakes Sprint Series season championship, as well as placing 5th in the WKA Manufacturers Cup Championship with 16 wins on the year. Between 2011 and 2016 I was a factory karting driver for Birel Americas, Merlin USA, Praga USA, Vemme USA, and Rolison Performance Group. He had much success in karting including a podium finish in the United States Pro Kart Series season points championship in 2015, multiple national wins, and an 8th place finish in the 2014 Robopong 200, being the youngest driver in the field, beating the likes of Josef Newgarden, Spencer Pigot, Conor daly, and Neil Alberico. In 2017 he took the next step in his career, moving to the Lucas Oil Formula car series, where he was a finalist in the Karts-to-Cars Shootout. In 2018 our focus shifted to oval racing where he competed in the Mel Kenyon Midget Series, which races on dirt and pavement ovals. He won the rookie Championship and placed third in the season championship in 2020. In 2021, he took the next step to race Non-wing 410 sprint cars for Benic Enterprises and Goodnight Racing. In 2022 after half a season with Benic, he made the switch to Winged 410 sprint cars with SRM, and continued through 2023, with plans in the works for a 2024 campaign.
On top of all this, he started Varner Driver Development, where he offers kart coaching, mechanic work, and data analysis for young kart racers. He has worked as a mechanic for Abel Motorsports in FR Americas, BN Racing in Indy Pro 2000, as well as a systems engineer for McLaren Indycar, Ed Carpenter Racing, and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. He loves the sport and coaching allows him to share the knowledge he has gained throughout his 17 years in motorsports.
Keith Taylor
57yrs old, Retired from auto recycling business.
Always been a car enthusiast, attended the first 2 schools at PTC then raced the first PTC race series. I enjoyed driving enough that I joined the drivers club at NCM in Bowling Green, KY. I have been a member there for 3 years now going on number 4. I came back to PTC and began instructing at the schools and have been helping at PTC ever since. I started racing in the NASA series last year in the Super Unlimited class with my Radical SR3 SXR and did well. I am continuing to race NASA this year and I may run in the Radical Cup Series as well.
Rafe Baskin
Rafe was raised around the world of motorsports. He started racing karts at the age of ten. Racing everything from rotax to eventually working his way up through the various classes of shifter karts. He attended his first racing school at the age of 13 and by age 15 was racing in formula competition. He received an invitation to attend Skip Barbers Karts to Cars competition. In his early 20’s he was working as a racing instructor for Skip Barber. Later on he built his own Ford Cobra to compete in the spec NASA class, racking up plenty of wins and track records. After a sabbatical from the sport he started competing again in early 2021, competing in the first 6 races of the inaugural year of Polecat Training Center’s race series he would go on to win all 6 of the races. 2022 brought on more fun as he drove a prototype in WRL helping the team to a national championship. Rafe is currently racing two different prototypes in various series around the county. It’s safe to say he has the itch to drive again!
Leland Parker
Leland was born in Nashville, TN. He attended Vanderbilt then Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, TN. He left Cookeville to serve in the US Navy and work aboard in the aerospace industry for General Electric, Martin Marietta, and Lockheed Martin. He returned to Cookeville to settle and raise two children, Katherine and Frederick.
Back in Cookeville, Leland performed technical roles with TRW. He then enjoyed fifteen years consulting as a senior project manager with DPSI where he helped hundreds of companies, worldwide, implement and utilize Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS).
In March of 2015 Leland joined The Nature’s Bounty Company (now Nestle Health Sciences) as the manager of their CMMS and its business integrations. In his current role he is committed to ensuring the company’s equipment consistently delivers the highest quality products at optimum capacity while minimizing costs. He leads the Maintenance operations and seeks to meet critical business needs by developing the competencies, technical abilities, and craftsmanship of their Maintenance technicians.
Leland enjoys an active, outdoor lifestyle with his wife Ory and their dog Pepper, but his passion is motorsports. He started racing dirt bikes as a teenager and built his first racecar as a high school junior. He’s raced dirt bikes, stock cars, road-racing motorcycles (WERA and AMA-CCS), and sportscars (SCCA and NASA). Currently he’s campaigning a NASA Spec Iron Mustang and enjoying his role as a PTC Driving Academy instructor.
Hunter Maynor
Hunter began his racing journey in April of 2023 at Polecat Driving School, progressing through basic and advanced courses. With no experience in the racing world, Polecat Driving School quickly evolved him into a top 5 driver at SCCA Regional events. Now, with a solid foundation in racing and proven success, Hunter is eager to share his experience by coaching individuals entering the exciting world of racing. He has track experience at tracks such as Polecat Training Center, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Mid-Ohio, and Barber.