About Us

I was a gear head from Day 1. The first real racing I did was 1/24th scale slot cars at Le Mans Raceway in 1966; it didn't take long until I learned several key lessons about racing…you had work on your stuff, practice a lot, then practice more, you had to drive smooth and most importantly you had to have tires. So at 13 I was saving my lunch money for tires.

Slot cars were a ton of fun and I learned a bunch, but shortly after some friends asked me if I wanted to go Trail Riding…WOW, what a blast! I raced home and told my parents I had to have a bike. I figured that was the last thing they in the world they would let me do, but they already knew I had gasoline running through my veins…they told me I could have one if I saved the money. I mowed lawns, washed cars and even helped a friend with his paper route. In three months I had over three hundred dollars and found my dream bike. My Dad took me to see it, I whipped out my money to pay the guy and my Dad said, "Put your money away, I got it". Pretty cool thing. I had a bike and some money to run it. Thanks Dad.

I rode everyday, I mean EVERYDAY. I would run home from school, push the bike down the street and take off till dark. That is when I first learned how to work on engines, I couldn't afford to have it worked on so I had to learn, and little did I know this would turn out to be my passion and ultimately, my career.

I met a guy called Ron Esau at school. His dad and brother raced stock cars and I began working on them after school. I started as grunt cleaning parts, running errand's etc. The whole thing was a great life experience and I traveled with the team, working with some great people. I picked up a mentor, Ivan Baldwin from Redlands. Ivan was a true mechanic/driver, he did it all. The most important thing I learned about racing was from him, never quit. The worse things got the harder that guy worked.

In 1971 I upgraded to a new Sachs 125cc motocross bike. It was a true race bike and had all the latest trick suspension. The first day out riding I was flat out in 5th gear, I wanted to see how good the suspension was, so I hit a pretty good bump and went over the bars. It wasn't as good as I thought and I ended up on my head with a crushed vertebra and messed up my neck. For the very first time I really got hurt on a bike. While I was recuperating I went to see the Hang ten Grand Prix MX at Carlsbad. A bike went into the crowd and hit me and five other people. I had a concussion, five broken ribs and broken shoulder. After recuperating from both of those I started riding again and my first race back I got run off into a ditch and dislocated my shoulder. Later that year I spent ten days in the hospital with intestinal blockage.

This was a tough year, I was scared to even go outside, but I still had the itch to race something so I went back to racing slotcars a couple nights a week. My Boss raced karts before stock cars and suggested I give one a try, so I went to our local track and tried one out. What a blast. I will never forget thinking that I was going so fast; on about the third lap I was thinking how could anything go any faster. Then the local hero passed me on the outside in the fastest turn like I was parked. I was thinking I had to have one and should be safer than the bike. So I went and bought one the next day.

I had my first race the next weekend at Adams in Riverside. On the third lap I bicycled in the little monza and flipped. Welcome to Go Karts. Two broken ribs and road rash, but I stayed with it. I raced mostly club and region 7; it wasn't until 1984 that I ran a grand national at Columbus Junction, Iowa in a dual engine Yamaha kart that Doug Henline built for Me. I won.

By then I had started building engines for myself and some friends. I just felt my builder didn't want to win as bad as I did so I did them myself. This led to opening San Diego Karters Supply / Fleming Racing Engines. We had some great years winning at all levels.

Chuck Pittenger of Pitts performance had spent a few years trying to recruit me to come work for him, in 1992 the timing was finally right, so we moved to Los Angeles. We built quite a team together, winning races all over the country and staking my claim as one of the best in the business. Around the same time my son, Colin started racing. I had gone racing with a lot of people and won a ton of races but it was more fun with Colin. Those were some great times and I stayed at Pitts until Colin started racing cars.

In 2004, I re-opened Fleming Racing Engines again have continued to win at all levels. In addition to my karting efforts, Fleming Racing Engines was awarded the rights to be the sole engine supplier for the Junior One and Junior Two Trophykart Classes in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series. (LOORRS). I spend most weekends supporting customers all over the nation.

In my 35 years of supplying national caliber racing engines, I'm proud to have worked with and helped develop some of the most successful racing drivers in NASCAR, IndyCar, SportsCars and just about every category out there. Of course more importantly is the long list of families and young drivers who I have truly enjoyed working with over the years, striving to ensure we deliver competitive equipment matched with the kind of support found nowhere else.