{"id":10971,"date":"2025-04-04T15:11:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T15:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/?p=10971"},"modified":"2025-04-04T15:11:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T15:11:45","slug":"sahlen-nonnamaker-families-celebrate-20-years-of-racing-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/04\/sahlen-nonnamaker-families-celebrate-20-years-of-racing-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Sahlen & Nonnamaker Families celebrate 20 years of Racing together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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2025 marks the 20th<\/sup>\nyear that the Sahlen & Nonnamaker families have raced together.  In that span a of time a lot of on track\nracing has occurred.  As well lots of life\nhas been lived together.  This includes\nWeddings, Vacations, creating a Women\u2019s Professional Soccer Team, Evenings at\nthe Track hanging out and watching kids as well as grandkids grow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joe Sahlen reflects back on how it all started \u2013 \u201cSahlen\u2019s Packing had been sponsoring the Sahlen\u2019s Six Hours of the Glen for a few years, and we wanted to expand our footprint into being involved with a race team on track as well.\u00a0 I had shared this with the Watkins Glen and Grand-American staff of this desire.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are a lot of different types of teams that race out there.\u00a0 The staff knew that Sahlen\u2019s is a family oriented company, that we are focused and driven for success with a deep passion for cars and racing.\u00a0 And knowing all that, the Grand American Officials made the recommendation that we look at the Nonnamaker Family and their team.\u00a0 This led to introductions and conversations.\u00a0 And soon those conversations led to partnering up with their ROLEX and Grand-Am Cup campaigns with their 8 Porsche 911s.\u00a0 Will soon encouraged me that I shouldn\u2019t just stop there and that I needed to get behind the wheel to truly immerse myself into the racing experience. And now here we are 20 years later, still enjoying the racing and having fun off the track as well.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Over those past 20 years,\nyou can often see the Sahlen & Nonnamaker families at the track in the\nevening with their motorhomes parked next to each other, hanging out together.  Often the conversations drift away from\nracing to other areas of life \u2013 work, kids, soccer and general states of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joe Nonnamaker shares his memory on that very 1st<\/sup> meeting \u2013 “I remember that race in 2004 at Watkins Glen.\u00a0 It was one of the most torrential downpours you ever saw at track.\u00a0 Cars were spinning every which way in the last turn.\u00a0 And somehow we survived that race to make it to the GT class podium.\u00a0 And there was Joe as the event sponsor handing out the trophies.\u00a0 We got to chat and from there the rest is history \u2013 20 years later.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the span of time, 11 Children\/Grandchildren have grown up in the Sahlen & Nonnamaker families.\u00a0 Often at the track you can see Will & Wayne Nonnamaker\u2019s kids busily helping the team, whether that is wrenching, cleaning cars or even getting dinner ready.\u00a0 And at every Watkins Glen event, all the Sahlen & Nonnamaker children get together for great times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the most memorable track events was the \u201cGlow Stick\u201d party at the Glen.\u00a0 All the kids had fun with the entire party filled with more neon than you could imagine and cool jams playing in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Billy Sahlen reflects on the passing of the 20 years \u2013 \u201cWow, to think that 20 years have past.\u00a0 For me this connection with the Nonnamaker Family has been most of my adult life.\u00a0 It is amazing to think that Will\u2019s son Ian is now the same age as I was when this all started.\u00a0 I remember him just running around the track with his little cars, and now it has all come full circle. \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anita Sahlen remembers a vacation excursion in Utah many years ago \u2013 \u201c After one of our races at Miller Motorsports Park, we all went to a National Park.\u00a0 There was this great train ride, and then we all went to climb the big mountain there.\u00a0 It was quite a hike and the air was very thin.\u00a0 Ian was so small that Joe and Will kept taking turns carrying him on their shoulders up the path.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many a times, the Nonnamaker\nfamily has visited the Sahlens in Buffalo. \nAnd when this occurs there was either a dinner adventure at Chef\u2019s in\ndowntown Buffalo, or even more typically a wonderful dinner with a great\ndessert cooked up by Anita, eaten on their wonderful outdoor porch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wayne Nonnamaker reflects on the Sahlen 150th<\/sup> Celebration a few years back \u2013 \u201cI was pretty cool to have our entire Nonnamaker family invited to the Sahlen\u2019s Anniversary event held at the Buffalo Transportation Pierce Arrow Museum.\u00a0 Our Nonnamaker family has only been in business for 40 years.\u00a0 To be a family run company for 150 years is just amazing. This event was just over the top.\u00a0 And out front we were able to have the Team Sahlen Audi and our many Feather Flags, making for a grand entrance for all guests.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On many occasions the Sahlen\nfamily has passed through Ohio \u2013 and stopped into the Nonnamakers on their way\nthrough.  This has included times where\nJoe & Anita camp out at the Team Sahlen race shop with their RV before a\nMid-Ohio race. And there have also been times where Billy has stopped in to say\nHi on his way to & from Cedar Point. \nOn one such occasion, Billy & Will took the opportunity to visit the\nPro Football Hall of Fame to see all the Buffalo Bills enshrined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kris Nonnamaker remembers the crazy winter storm at Joseph & Kristen Sahlen\u2019s wedding \u2013 \u201cWe had the pleasure of attending Joseph & Kristen\u2019s wedding in late fall in Buffalo.\u00a0 As can happen up in Western New York, an ice storm came through.\u00a0 Everything was frozen over, branches were breaking off trees, power lines were down.\u00a0 But the wedding was still able to go forward.\u00a0 The reception had to be moved to a new location.\u00a0 Through it all, everyone persevered forward and made the best of it to have fun on this joyous occasion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Sahlen &\nNonnamaker family also share a common bond in being in the Food Industry.  Sahlen\u2019s of course is known for their amazing\nHot Dogs, Hams and Turkeys.  And the\nNonnamaker family has been in the Fast Food business for over 30 years with\ntheir Subway Restaurants.  This common\nbond has been the part of many chats about the industry and discussing the growth\nand expansion of each business entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Will Nonnamaker kicks around one of his special memories \u2013 \u201cBesides racing, one additional area of passion that the Sahlen & Nonnamaker family shares is Soccer.\u00a0 Both Wayne and I played soccer in high school, and even attended the 1994 World Cup.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s daughter Alex and her husband Aaran both played professional soccer.\u00a0 This led to Sahlen\u2019s starting their own Women\u2019s Professional Soccer Team.\u00a0 And in that adventure we had to honor and enjoyment of being involved in many aspects of the creation and evolution of this team.\u00a0 This included the fun of creating a name, Western New York Flash, and Team Colors, naturally red, yellow and black.\u00a0 Even to helping design the 1st<\/sup> team website.\u00a0 We attended many games in Buffalo and Rochester.\u00a0 And this included witnessing some of the dramatic Championship winning games that the Flash achieved.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the racing world, most\npartnerships don\u2019t last 20 years.  But\nthen most partnerships are only based on the on track racing.  For the Sahlen & Nonnamaker families the\nbond, connection and friendships go way beyond the racing.  What the future adventures for the 2 families\nwill be is yet to be written, but for sure it will be action packed and full of\nfun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2025 Team Sahlen Campaign Partners:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2025 marks the 20th year that the Sahlen & Nonnamaker families have raced together.  In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10991,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10971\/revisions\/10991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}