racing is life

The Community Garage is a non-profit organization dedicated to mentoring youth by introducing them to motorsports and automotive fabrication. We believe that high expectation coupled with trust has great power to further a child's development.

Through motorsports, one gains a wide range of practical life skills as well as specific mechanical knowledge. Motorsports helps build more than cars, it builds character and important abilities across all aspects of personal and professional life.

Our Garage members develop:

CORE LIFE SKILLS

Critical Thinking, Stress Management, and Personal Responsibility

WORKFORCE SKILLS

Effective Communication, Interpersonal Skills, and Prioritizing Goals

To those familiar with it: Racing Is Life.

Our Story

The Community Garage started as the long-time dream of "Dr. John," resident hot-rod philosopher. His aim was to blend his passions of teaching, automotive craftsmanship, and motorsports. Since few kids have a family member or friend with direct exposure to high-level motorsports, The Community Garage was conceived as a way to bring kids closer to that world. The dream was to create a space that offers youth rare and challenging opportunities through cars and motorsports.

Why cars? Why motorsports? Because there are very few things that can inspire and excite the soul like cars. America has long had a love-affair with cars for good reason. Once a kid has a chance to experience the energy and joy of motorsports, it can lead to a lifelong passion or career. Harnessing the power of that excitement, The Community Garage has a unique way to give focus to all of the STEAM fields. Kids love learning about physics when it rolls on four wheels. They understand the relevance of their math class when it helps them fabricate a part or trouble shoot an electrical gremlin. Art class takes on a renewed meaning when they can apply what they learn on a custom paint job. Cars and motorsports make learning engaging and fun.

Cars also do not come easy. From financing to fixing them, cars present everyday challenges that are not easy to overcome. Racing is life. The Community Garage focuses our efforts on instilling skills and values that are important across all aspects of life. In racing, we do not give out participation trophies. We do not make excuses, and we do not pretend we are the only important person on track. We make mistakes, we fall short of our goals, and we learn how to pick ourselves up and make tomorrow a better day. We rely on our team in the garage and at the track. We respect our competitors and face them in victory or defeat with integrity.

Racing is life - when life is done well.

Meet The Team

john santiago

Founder & Executive Director

John Santiago is a professor and (previous) Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the College of DuPage. He received his PhD in 2004 and specializes in developing program curriculum. He has been a NASA Great Lakes High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE) instructor for over ten years and the Novice Group Leader for the last six years. He has published articles and presented at national conferences for HPDE instruction. In his own driving, he has competed in time trial, sprint, and endurance race formats.

Tom sprengelmeyer

Director

Tom Sprengelmeyer is an automotive technology and engineering teacher at Evanston Township High School. He has been a certified Visual Arts and Career & Technical Education teacher since 2014. He earned his bachelor's degree in education at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and continued his education earning a Masters's in Educational Technology from the American College of Education.

eric meyer

Director

Eric Meyer strives to bring people in the High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE) community together. Eric has several HPDE Instructor Certifications with several organizations and enjoys mentoring at HPDE Instructor Schools. He currently is the Chief Instructor at the forward thinking NASA Great Lakes region.

david wilts

Secretary

David Wilts is the founder and CEO Digital Masterplanning. DMP has created an innovative software platform for the real estate industry which greatly improves the productivity of people and capital. DMP also advises real estate financiers and developers on how to best use and leverage disruptive technology. DMP created the digital masterplan for National Landing, JBG SMITH’s project which won the Amazon HQ2 competition.

David brings for-profit and not-for-profit board experience to the Community Garage as the board secretary. Previously he was a trustee of Roycemore School and chaired the technology and facilities committee.

marlon sumlin

Treasurer

Marlon started autocross in 2005 with the Akron Sports Car Club (ASCC). He organized car corrals for Mazda in 2006 before moving into HPDE events. He has crewed for Mazda teams such as SpeedSource, Freedom Autosport, and i-Moto from 2008 to today.

Marlon joined NASA Great Lakes in 2008 and has been an instructor with them since 2014, earning Instructor of the Year in 2014. He has supported the Great Lakes driver’s education curriculum team, and led the Hyperdrive group for several years. Currently he runs in Time Trial competitions and began his wheel-to-wheel competition efforts in 2022.