Pombo Brothers Realize Grand-Am Dream

For Mat and Mark Pombo, two boys who grew up in Berkeley Lake, there were some neat advantages to having a high-profile, international race car driver for a dad. For example, they got to go to all dad's races for free, meet a lot of famous race car drivers and learn about racing at a very early age.

The downside was that until they graduated from Duluth High School and could earn a reputation of their own, people would often point at them and say there goes "Pepe Pombo's sons."

Dad began his career racing motorcycles in Mexico where he once competed in the Pan American in Mexico, a road race that extended from the Guatemala border north to the U.S. border. He won two national championships in the 1960s and, after moving to the United States, won two SCCA national championships and a pro racing title in the 1980s. 

But time passes and things change. The Pombo boys have carved out their own identity on the race track. Now, they are no longer identified as "Pepe Pombo's sons." In fact, the reverse is true. Now that their father is retired, he is often referred to as "Mat and Mark's dad."

Obviously racing is in their blood but so is the importance of good education. Today, Matt is Dr. Matthew Pombo, an orthopedic surgeon. Brother Mark, a decorated veteran of the second war in Iraq, is an accountant. But their careers haven't kept them off the racing circuit.

In fact this year, for the first time, Mat and Mark are competing as an endurance team, piloting one of the i-MOTO Mazdaspeed 3's in the Continental CupST Class of the Grand Am Series.

"Our dream has always been to get to Grand Am racing," Mat said in a recent telephone interview. "Our longest races in the past have been 40 to 45 minutes. These endurance races are two-and-a-half hour races with a pit stop and driver change."

Team principal Glenn Bocchino said, "Mark and Mat bring a ton of talent and experience to i-MOTO. They come from a rich family history of success in racing. I fully expect the Pombo brothers to be challenging for a drivers championship."

Their scheduled debut got off to a rocky start after their car engine caught fire during practice at Daytona International Speedway, and they missed the race.

But it was a much different story in the next race. The Pombo brothers earned a second-place finish and a podium in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge event at Homestead, FL. They drove flawlessly, led almost very lap, finishing second by a mere .022 seconds.

"The Homestead weekend was definitely special," Mat said. "After the bad luck we had at Daytona, to get on the podium feels great. I gotta thank Glenn Bocchino and i-MOTO for giving us this opportunity, as well as the tremendous effort our team and teammates have put forth to make this result possible."

In their next race, the brother combo turned in another solid effort, qualifying on the pole before finishing sixth. That performance moved them up to eighth in the season standings.

"If we had been able to race at Daytona and finished even in the Top 10, we would be in the Top 3 in points now," Mat said. "If we keep having good finishes, we'll creep back up into the thick of things."

They get another chance to move up in the standings when the racing series moves to Virginia Internationl Raceway (VIR) in Danville Va.

"Our No. 1 goal is to have fun," Mat said. "This isn't our career. But we are having a blast getting to race with each other. There's a lot of top flight drivers in the series that race for a living. We'd like to earn their respect and and have them say the Pombo brothers are good competitive drivers who don't cause any problems on the track.

Meanwhile, dad is having a blast being referred to as "Mat and Mark's father."