Most people in the area know Denny Norton as the owner of Performance Unlimited, the auto repair shop at 5415 Austin Court, Ringwood, that keeps their cars safely on the roads. A few years back, however, it was just as common to see Norton behind the wheel of a stock car or monster truck. Norton made a name for himself as a competitive driver in the region.

April 23 and 24, Norton returned to competitive driving, though in a less familiar arena – road racing.

Merry Men is a name that conjures visions of robust men with long bows and English accents wearing green tights. For Norton’s return to racing, it represented the name of a team of racers, including Wayne Seely, Mike Recine, Ken Girard and Dave Johnson, who were racing for fun and to raise funds for Japanese Tsunami relief. Norton said that, while he enjoyed the more gentlemanly sport of road racing, he was just fine skipping the tights.

“I was surprised the way some of the other drivers would politely move out of your way,” Norton said of his first experience road racing. “With monster trucks and stock cars, it’s a bit more aggressive than that.”

Norton said he’s comfortable hugging someone else’s bumper while going through turns at (???) mph. He said he’s also comfortable driving in heavy traffic with other drivers who aren’t afraid to fight for the lead.

Though, during the road race, if he tried to slide into another car’s slip stream, the other driver would inevitably, and with a very proper air of ‘sorry old chap’ civility, move aside, that’s not to say the event wasn’t competitive. In fact, Norton said it took him a couple laps to shake off the rust from several years’ absence from competitive racing. Still, the Merry Men finished 16^th overall out of 65 cars, and ninth in their class.

Finishing at all was the key. Seely said the event was part of the ’24 Hours of Lemons’ nationwide endurance races to prevent gingivitis. He said the group raised $960 to donate to the Red Cross to help survivors of the March 11 Tsunami that slammed into the northeast coast of Japan.

“I’m still soliciting,” Seely said. “I want to get over $1,000.”

Seely, who Norton described as a strong and experienced road-racing driver, said that Norton definitely enjoyed the event at Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, MI.

“He (Norton) had so much fun he said he’s thinking about building his own car for next year’s Lemon Race,” Seely said.

This year, the team of five took turns behind the wheel of a rented 1969 Alfa Bellini.

“It was an ugly car – oh yeah,” said Norton. “But, it handled well.”

The race was slowed a bit on Saturday, April 23, when the track was peppered by rain and snow. Seely said he’s used to racing in wet conditions. On the other hand, he said Norton probably didn’t have much chance to race in the snow or rain as stock car and monster truck competitions were shut down when the weather turned sour.

“We tried using Rain-X every time we came into the pits,” Seely said of the wet track that sprayed a mix of water, residue of rubber and grease onto the windshields. “It helped at first but, after two laps, it would be just grease again.”

He said that, in those conditions, the best you can do is to follow the other guy’s taillights.

By Sunday, the rain and snow had cleared up.

“Once Denny got on the dry track, he was in his element,” Seely said. “He was just flying through the turns.”

Seely said his top lap time was one-minute, 50 seconds. Norton beat that time by one second.

“Once he (Norton) got himself acclimated to that environment, he picked it up real quick,” Seely said.

Seely said the team ran 326 laps and finished the race. Norton said about 20 percent of the cars didn’t finish.

“I ran that car hard,” Norton said. “It was fun. You couldn’t have wiped that smile off of my face if you had tried.”