This season marks Joe Sahlen’s 20th year of racing. While many racers start their adventure in their early 20s, Joe Sahlen was instead very busy building up and growing the Sahlen Packing Company. Instead, Joe took the “Paul Newman” route to racing. This is not to say that Joe did not always have a passion for racing. Even as far back as the 1970s, Joe and his wife Anita would roll up to Watkins Glen International in their company econvan to campout and watch the Formula 1 race.
Joe’s passion for racing continued to grow and then into the late 90s Joe itched his need for speed by attending Chin Motorsports Track Days with his trusty Ford Focus as well as Bob Bondurant Driving School’s Ford Mustangs. As well, Sahlen Packing started their long term association with Watkins Glen International for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen. This long and winding path finally reached an apex in 2004 with a chance encounter with the Nonnamaker family and their Endurance Sports Car Team. Soon thereafter, Joe was behind the wheel of one of the team’s Porsche 911s at Roar before the 24 Test Days at Daytona. Joe was immediately hooked with the fast intense action of the Michelin Pilot Cup and started his racing adventure.
Joe contested his 1st season in the Porsche 911 in the Grand Sports Class, as well as a Dodge SRT4 in the Sports Touring Class. Soon Joe was racing on tracks all over North America, including trips to the Dominican Republic plus Ontario & Quebec Canada. Over the next couple of seasons Joe expanded his portfolio of race cars to include a Chevrolet Corvette C6, Porsche GT3 Cup, Mazda RX8, Mazda RX8 GT and Mazdaspeeed3. Then in 2013, Joe achieved every racer’s dream of driving a Prototype in the ROLEX 24 Hours. And additionally, he was able to also drive this beast of a racer at his Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.
Joe’s on track success really took off in the 2nd Ten Years of his racing adventures. In the past decade Joe has raced in the Tire Rack – ChampCar Endurance Series, Summit Racing – American Endurance Racing, World Racing League presented by Hagerty and the Lucky Dog Racing League presented by Hankook Tire. In those series Joe has raced a wide variety of machinery including the Mazda RX7, Audi R8 GT3 Ultra, Porsche Cayman, Porsche Cayman GT4 PDK and Porsche Boxster. With these Team Sahlen racers, Joe has rung up over 20+ victories and 40+ podiums.
And as Joe enters his 20th year, he is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, Joe recently secured the OVERALL Victory at the 14 Hours of Daytona in the Tire Rack – ChampCar Endurance Series. Most poignantly, occurring 20 years after Joe’s 1st racing adventure that was at Daytona and in a Porsche as well.
Joe Sahlen shared his thoughts on the past 20 years – “I don’t believe if you ask me back in 2005 if I would still be racing 20 years later, that I would have said yes. But here I am, still having a lot of fun and having great success on track. As I reflect back on all the cars I have driven, its quite a different assortment of machinery. It is hard to say which is my favorite. I have to say though that these Porsche Boxsters we are racing now are amazing to drive.”
Joe’s long term co-driver Will Nonnamaker had this to share – “Joe and I have been driving together now for 2 decades. For having never raced before, Joe took to on track competition like a duck to water. Its funny, but like a fine wine, I think Joe is now driving as well as he ever has. And the proof in the pudding is the recent string of Overall wins that we have secured in the past year.”
2025 Team Sahlen Campaign Partners:
honeybeeBase.com, Malco Products, Porsche Beachwood, Discovery Parts, ECS Tuning, Tarett Engineering, Guard Transmission, HubstandsPRO, Maxima Racing Oil, Pagid Brakes, NGK Spark Plugs, CM Racing Products, Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, Design Engineering Inc., OMP Racing, Bell Racing, Forgeline Wheels, Optima Batteries, All-Fit Automotive, Capri Tools, Fabspeed Motorsport, Eibach & Valco Cincinnati with Big Wrench Racing
