Wow, Roger, it feels fantastic! So good!
When you meet a guy like him, you know his true and true. He has no agenda. It's just that you're all around nice guys.
He was always the most welcoming, most inclusive guy in the community. Everybody was welcome.
Roger went out of his way to include people who were new at events and invited them in.
He had this uncanny ability to help build friendships.
He was the most optimistic person I have ever met.
He's just a very humble, passionate, knowledgeable person that was all about family, all about friends, and all about this hobby.
I just have always struck at what a genuine person Roger is. It's that genuine nature of Roger that makes him really special.
He's just had a genuine affection for everybody. Anyone who came along, he was invited and that's how the circle grew.
I don't think there was any question. Everybody loved Roger.
Roger was one of the finest people I've ever met in my life.
DKP started in 1965 and it was one of the very first Volkswagen clubs.
But this one is the only Volkswagen club that is still going.
There's three DKPs, one, two, and three. DKP one was Ron Plenny, Mark Berber, Great Bunch, the whole group of guys.
In 1972 or 1973, the first phase of the club fizzed out.
We wanted to see if we were talking to the old members, if they would mind if we started it back up again.
They came to some of us guys that pretty much for the most part thought it was done and said we really like what you guys did and blah blah blah and all that.
And of course most of us that they asked said well heck yeah, full speed forward.
With the early group of authentic DKP guys that had this sort of almost a religion about what these cars had to be capable of and then of course invented this look.
For both motors at that time, when you got into the high performance realm, everything was custom.
You didn't have off the shelf stuff like the guys can get from DKP now.
I blew my car up 13-9 because that back in the early 70s, all this stuff that you could buy now and everything and we didn't have.
Nuts work, fat performance came in, guys with fat, scat, jean-bird, Fleming, Harrison and Thurwood, all those names.
That was the head pink and the Keith Black of the Volkswagen world.
When you look at the whole culture of Volkswagen's and Porsches and what was being done in Southern California and Roger was on the leading edge of that.
Part of Roger's story was his time in his Volkswagen days and he was very proud of telling the story of his friends when he was in DKP and when he had the car crash when he was 24.
In 77 at Orange Count Raceway, I was president of the club at the time.
I got a call from a friend of ours and said Roger was in a really bad accident.
He's over at UCI. He's got an air pocket around his heart and both arms are broken at the elbows. He had multiple fractures.
His friends rallied around and actually followed the ambulance to the hospital.
The subject came up of, well what are we going to do about his car? His car is totally smashed up. That was the first rebuild that we did for Roger.
The guys in the club bought the shell of my original car and they all helped me build another car.
From A to Z, we got that car taken care of. We rebuilt it to better than it was the first time.
That was my fastest car. I used to run 13 and a half seconds in the quarter mile.
For me that was a standout thing in terms of Roger's personality, his character, the fact that he would be so beloved by so many different people.
Chris then told me that I was the first one that he asked to be in the club.
It wasn't until 1999 that I became really connected with Roger.
Chris came down to Southern California with his friends and we went to the Muckentaller Concourse.
It was about Monday after Freeman Thomas and I formed our group and I approached him during a car show and asked him to be a member.
The more I got to know him the more I was very convinced that he's a true our group guy.
I knew Roger's car before I knew Roger. I would see his car in the magazines, the Aubergine 9-11.
I saw somebody that had already fast forwarded and started to already establish something really original and unique with the look of his car and also what he did with EKP.
Just being in the club has been so much fun and all the different places we've gone to, that first place we stayed at, that led me to never come back again because there was too many race cars.
The early days of our group though, Roger was always at the front of the line, always the one organizing, always the one leading the drives and he would always be out front with that car.
I feel like when Roger's leading this pack of 9-11, he's in his elements. I remember riding with him one time and I was very amazed how skilled he is. He can drive the pants up on 9-11.
It was always fun to drive with him in a group. We were usually at the pointy end at the front of the group and good clean driving, good clean fun up there on the hills. It was a pleasure.
Me and I started together and it was a race. Back and forth when you were there with me and we had so much fun.
The first four or five years I was doing everything by myself.
About the fifth year I was on the verge of burnout and Roger was always there, always willing to help and stepped up to the plane and basically said, Chris, let me help you.
The first thing I noticed about Roger was he's a leader. He could really rally the troops. He became the group of meister for Southern California.
People respected him, loved him, listened to him and that's how we was.
There were some just amazing traffins that were organized with him.
Roger was involved in putting together the traffin. You always knew it was going to be fun because he pre-ran all the drives that we would do or he had schedules, he had handouts. You knew you weren't just out there, gosh, I hope this works.
I like an infant being kind of like that. Here's a bunch of boys all together and here's Dad saying, this is how we're going to do it, guys.
And every year it got better and better and bigger.
One of those traffins, I remember, one of the guys going around and there was a reconnaissance bucket seat that was for sale.
One of the guys had an ST seat and I was wanting to buy it myself but I couldn't afford it at the time.
So the guys took up the collection, didn't sell him, and during the evening banquet, surprised Roger.
They came up behind me and they got the seat. All the guys in the club bought it for me as a gift.
I cannot say enough how everybody in the club is the greatest people.
The whole R group has developed in part because Roger has been such a driving force in it and not as something he wanted to do or set out to do.
That was just his natural thing.
Roger is basically the reason why the R group has gone to the heights that it has.
Everybody feeds off of Roger's enthusiasm and that's never changed.
In 2011, as a tribute to him, we named the traffin, the Roger Gregor traffin.
It was a very emotional moment when I had to call him to speak.
Chris and Freeman gave me wonderful, wonderful gifts.
I really wanted to give Roger for his car, the GT badge, but I wanted to give him the original.
Freeman gave me his original GT emblem that he, the very first one made and that just blew me away where he gave me that.
For me, I didn't think it was as big of a deal, but it became a huge deal for him and that just sort of showed me, you know, how much he cared about things.
I've got it framed and all that. I'm not going to put it on the car because my heart would have dropped if it got damaged or lost or broken or whatever.
I cannot say enough how everybody in the club is the greatest people.
To me, it couldn't be any better and I'm still around and that's why I want to rebuild my car.
To surprise everybody, hopefully by next year, I hope I can do that.
After 15 years in number 15, that would be great for me to redo it, have my car redone and surprise you guys with certain things that I may do.
My basic idea was if Porsche would have built what an RS would have looked like in 74 is what my car was.
And you see very few of them albergine with black interior, at least not in a digital way.
But that was my deal. I wanted the black with the albergine and because it was different.
When Roger was working in Porsche Motorsports had talked about doing a 2.9 liter twin plug engine for the car and he started putting together the pieces for that.
He would say to me, Scott, I want to bring over the pieces for that engine, I want to build that 2.9 twin plug, I want to build that 2.9.
And I said, Roger, you got to do the car. You need to do the car first. And that's when Esposito here stood up and said, I'll do the car.
And of course, when you throw the gauntlet down, then you kind of don't have much to say.
So I said, you do the car, we'll take a car and that's how it's all started.
I was driving to work one morning and I just thought, I really want to do this guy's car.
So I called Mike Softa and I said, well, I really want to do his car. And he said, well, he doesn't have the budget for that.
And I said, no, I want to do the car as a gift.
Roger has owned that car since 1984. So he literally owned the car 30 years.
He really kind of set the standard for the RS, look-alike, quality cars.
But yet he did it his own way with the black trim and the SC valances on the sides of the car.
He really did the car the way he wanted to do it.
Our goal in doing the car was to do it exactly the way Roger did it.
That was always the key for me. It was in constant contact with Terry and Roger about that.
We stripped it and we cut off the RS flares they were installed 30 years ago.
They were overlapped and leaded and I couldn't really save them to put back on.
So I actually had to put quarter panels on it and then I reflared the quarter panels.
The car was actually lots and lots and lots of work.
Part of what Roger had set out to do with this car was to upgrade from where he had it.
There are many shops that are involved here but everything in the suspension that moves got replaced.
We restored the front control arms, we restored the rear trailing arms and once we had the car nice and straight from John,
we were able to have those assemblies done and put them right on the car.
We have new bilstein shocks front and rear on the car, 930 calipers and rotors.
It was exactly a month ago that we were dynoing the engine at heads up performance
and about three weeks ago that we received the car back.
Jeff Swartz, he's been driving the car now and he said the car feels amazing.
So I think if Jeff Swartz says the car drives good, I think he must drive good.
So I'm pleased with that.
What he cares about cars is that's why I love it.
So if you're here to join me, nice and loud, I love you Roger.
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Wow, it drives nice here.
Thank you.
Alright Roger.
This is your car. What do you think?
I don't know.
Wow, that sounds good. It feels good.
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Every time Roger says to me, I don't know how I'll thank anybody.
I don't know how I'll thank everyone. I don't know how I'll thank you.
You know, I tell them the same thing every single time.
Roger, just be there at the next event.
Oh, there you go buddy. How about that?
What a day. What a day.
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All I gotta say is I'm so blessed with everybody and I hope I'm around for a long, long time with all these people
because I couldn't be any better with anything than be with you guys.
Anything else? I mean, I love you guys.
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