It is never easy to accept the death of anyone or anything. I’m not writing about the death of a great driver, or engineer, or designer, but a race car. The race car was a 1960 MGA named HoneyBee. This gallant warrior first hit the tracks in 1990; a product of an enthusiastic professor named Bob Schoeplein and a couple more guys named Bob with dozens of MG people lending a hand.
Bob was bitten by the racing bug when he attended the 1988 Pittsburgh Vintage GP. Bob knew a racer, Hank Giffin. When Hank asked if Bob could give him a hand, he did and his life was changed. From that day forward, MG Bob’s quest was to become a vintage racer. When found, HoneyBee was anything but a race car.
She was a tired driver owned by a high school principal near Baltimore in Maryland. It was late 1988 and Bob Schoeplein bought her for $1,000. He immediately gave the car the name, HoneyBee. Bob named the car after his daughter Melissa, which in Greek, translates to HoneyBee. And so, the saga started. The body had a fair amount of rust and somehow Bob convinced a shop teacher friend at JEB Stuart High School to take on the job as a project of his high school class. Not long after, the class teacher informed Bob the cars frame was worse than the body and not salvageable. Undeterred Bob found a solid, used MGA frame and reconditioned it on his front porch in the middle of winter! More drama sputtered into the making of HoneyBee, but by Spring 1990 she and Professor Bob were ready for drivers school. The stories of how they both made it through are worth a book by itself, but MG Bob Schoeplein does not have the word quit in his vocabulary. By the end of summer 1990, he and HoneyBee had a logbook and a competition license. Their first race together was the Lime Rock Historic Festival in 1990.
As the cosmos turns and coincidences mysteriously happen, my first race in HoneyBee was also at the Lime Rock Historic festival in 2012. Even more bizarre or possibly poetic, HoneyBee’s last race was at the Lime Rock Historic Festival in 2025. Over the years Bob raced HoneyBee, they competed in 76 race meets and over 150 race starts from coast to coast and Florida to Canada. The stories of Bob and Honey Bee are legendary and there is not an MG racer of any repute, who doesn’t remember MG Bob Schoeplein. Her race record continued with me, and at her end, she finished with a total of 125 race meets and nearly 300 race starts.
My beginnings in HoneyBee were not auspicious. While I had a lot of success as a young man, including an IMSA Camel GT championship, I had not raced since the Camel GT at Pocono in 1981. Much like Dr. Schoeplein, I looked at alternatives on how I should start my vintage career. After attending a few races, it was apparent the MG crowd was heads above other marques. I wanted a simple car. Not a high-priced winner, but something I could get in, start up and go racing. It turned out that HoneyBee was that car. One small problem was I lived in Honolulu and the car was in Virginia. With the help of some wonderful friends I rented an RV, borrowed a trailer, loaded up with spares and tools and off Rosemary and I went to Lime Rock for my return to racing.
I wasn’t terrible, but I was certainly rusty. The cars springs were gone and she leaned and wallowed like a walrus. But we were racing. Then, before the first race began, HoneyBee’s motor exploded during the Saturday morning warm up. An 8” hole in the block and a broken crank. I crafted a sign that read “HAVE BEER, NEED MOTOR”. We had a score of friends appear and by Sunday afternoon we had a motor picked up from the docks at Bridgeport that was sent from an enthusiast on Long Island and another motor from a local MG racer. A borrowed engine lift, lots of tools, heaps of helping hands and we found to our dismay the motor from Long Island was an 1800 and would not fit the 1600 bell housing. We put in the Barn Find motor to find it had about 20 lbs of compression and just wouldn’t run. But HoneyBee and I had plans for the future.
I got in contact with Kent Prather, the #1 MG engine man in the US. My savior, Kevin Richards, found a 1622 block and we sent as much of it as we could to Prather’s shop in Kansas. Over the winter Kevin exchanged and rebuilt literally everything on the car; suspension, steering, shocks, brakes, etc.. Keep in mind I lived in Honolulu roughly 5,000 miles and half an ocean away. Without Kevin this story would not have happened. Another couple of MG friends, John Wright and Mike Eaton pitched in on the rebuild and with bundles of new parts. In the spring of 2013, complete with a shiny new
deep maroon motor from Prather Racing we made it to the Jefferson 500 at Summit Point in May. Lots of fun, a bundle of toothing troubles and silly mistakes but we made every session and I ended up 8th in the first race and 6th in the second. We were on our way, and we had no idea what a fabulous adventure lay ahead.
The next race at New Jersey Motorsports Park ignited the fire. Friends Carl George and Storm Field, both very fast MG drivers, were faster than me in practice. I had never seen the New Jersey track and only had one race weekend in the car. Both men were gracious with advice on driving the track and sadly for them, I ended up passing both and finishing first overall after a battle with a 1275 mini. Amazing, a win during our second race weekend. That first season of 2013 continued with races at the old Rockingham Speedway with a million flies that could carry a small dog, but another win and cementing friends with the Nashville Zapata Racing gang.
The season closed out at Virginia International, absolutely one of the finest tracks in America. This was another new track for me. Carl George and I were at the top of the SVRA group 1 points board and this race would decide who would be the 2013 Champion. Carl had the best of me, but I was so close as to always have him in sight. While about 200’ in front of me I noticed his tailpipe bouncing around down the long back straight. Next lap it came loose, and Carl had to pit giving me the win and the Championship. HoneyBee and I were on top in our first full year together.
More was to come. The motor went back to Prather for an upgrade, Kevin and a drag race buddy built a completely new roll cage and we dropped HoneyBee an inch. It worked and HoneyBee was fast everywhere. Lots of power, great handling and we went on to win Group 1 Championships in 2015, 1016, 2017 and 2018. Including a Bell Helmet FP win at COTA.
We also pretty much dominated our class at the Lime Rock Historic Festival each of those years.
Kevin and I followed a strict maintenance schedule and renewed shocks, bearings, brakes and suspension every winter and we sent Kent Prather our engine every 50+ hours. Our win record was Fangio-like with 38 wins in 89 starts. Our finishing record was 93%.
Together we raced Sebring, Road Atlanta, Homestead, the first vintage event at the Indianapolis Speedway, Amelia Island, Summit Point, VIR, New Jersey Motorsports, Watkins Glen, Mid Ohio, Waterford Hills, Roebling Road, Mosport, Road America, COTA Rockingham Speedway, even Schenley Park in Pittsburgh.
In 2018 Kevin and Mike Eaton found my old BMW 2002 I had raced in the IMSA Camel GT challenge and TransAm from 1972 to 1974. The car was essentially the same as we put her away in 1974. Her name was NAZDAR, a Czech drinking toast, christened by the man who built her, Jiri Nechleba, aka AutoSport. Somehow, juggling his career as a fireman and husband Kevin was able to take the shell and completely renew everything but the body and livery. I sent the motor to Ray Korman, another old friend who I had raced against in the 70’s. It took a few years, but NAZDAR came back to the track in 2021 and our faithful steed Honey Bee took a back seat. We took her out and exercised her every year but with mixed results, a few wins, a few shunts.
I did race both HoneyBee and Nazdar together twice, once at VIR in the Spring of 2021 and again at Watkins Glen. Results were mixed. It was almost like she was penalizing me for leaving her behind. She was especially cruel at Watkins Glen in the Collier Cup. Two years we won the group 1 race only to crash in the Collier Cup the next day. We loved Lime Rock and during the 100th anniversary of the MG marque in 2023 we were first MGA in all 3 races we entered. In 2024 disaster struck, again at the Glen, and her wonderful Prather motor said Aloha and blew up after 11 great seasons. Later in 2024, I sold NAZDAR and it was going to again be all HoneyBee for 2025.
Malcolm and Rod at Apex, with Kent Prather, put together a new motor and the plan was to win Lime Rock and carry the success over to Watkins Glen. And it was going well. In the very first practice, we were 4th fastest of 35 cars. HoneyBee and me were flying and back in the game.
But fate had other ideas and on the 11th lap of that practice a Lotus 7 and I were racing hard and coming over the crest of the downhill in top gear to find a complete novice in a rental Renault racer doing about 40 mph in the middle of the track. We hammered the brakes, the Lotus moved right to avoid him, I went left to the outside. The novice moved right leaving no room for the Lotus. He had an instant to decide, couldn’t see me and moved left. We ran over his LF wing, flew in the air, came down hard and slid a few hundred feet into the tire barrier raking it some 30’, climbing up the sides and then tipping over. When the safety crew arrived and dropped me to the ground, I stood up, stretched a bit and felt…fine. I started to take my helmet off, but the head response Doc stopped me immediately and did a neck and back check. Finally, I was able to turn around to see how horrible the wreck was. The Bee had given herself up in a horrendous high-speed hit and saved me. All the safety work we did, all her strength and grit allowed me to simply walk away.
Most folks think of cars as objects. Steel, glass and rubber. But we racers know differently. Our race cars are alive. They talk to us; they tell us we can go farther before braking and they slap us when we take the wrong line through a corner. They partner with us every time we strap ourselves into their Being. We join as a vital force. It sounds trite and is used over and over, but we truly become one with our car. There can be no replacing HoneyBee – no HoneyBee II. Her vital organs will go on.
The motor, the tranny, the LSD diff and axles will all go to new homes. Her twisted frame, destroyed fenders and body will be buried like a human body. Gone, but like a human, her spirit has gone to the track in the sky and will live and be remembered. Hey, after 25 years of competition with hundreds of races and friends all over the Continent, the legend of Hone Bee will not die.
