Guest Speakers

Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Vaughn is the owner/driver for the RTR Drift Team.
World Champion Drifter and Professional Fun-Haver, Vaughn Gittin Jr. is best known for his aggressive, foot-to-the-floor, big-smoke driving style from behind the wheel of arguably the most recognizable cars in the sport: the 2019 Monster Energy Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5-D.

Jack started his racing career in go-karts in 1979, winning every one of the four championships he competed in. He has also won 14 professional road racing victories and 37 podiums across the IMSA Continental Tire Series and Pirelli World Challenge series. He was the winner of the 400th professional Roush win at Homestead Speedway in 2010, winner of the pole and both event races in the Pirelli World Challenge race at St. Petersburg 2016, and the winner of the 2017 IMSA Continental Tire race Road America, in the rain, with a 20 second lead over 2nd place

JTP is a hands-on driver who does his own mechanical, fabrication, and suspension work. He campaigns the 2019 season in a self-built 2019 ROUSH Supercharged Mustang with a Ford Performance Aluminator crate engine. The race car pushes out almost 1,000 horsepower and 831 lb-ft of torque. JTP’s dedication to the sport of drifting is evident in the wide variety of exhibitions, demonstrations, and charity events he frequents.

Billy Johnson is a (freelance) American professional race car driver who has competed in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing in the #66 Ford GT, winning the 2018 6-Hours of Spa, and is the 2016 IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge GS champion. Johnson is a development driver for Multimatic and Ford Performance and helped develop the LeMans winning Ford GT racecar, Championship winning Shelby GT350R-C, Mustang GT4, FP350S racecars, as well as street cars including the GT350, GT350R, GT500, and Ford GT.

Lee Holman was literally born into the high-stakes business of racing, Holman & Moody having been founded in 1956 by his father, John and Ralph Moody. Lee returned the company to its racing roots by building race engines for the Wood Brothers. That’s still where the firm is today, doing specialized cam grinds for NASCAR teams and performance parts for FE-series Ford engines along with building special Limited Edition vehicles.

Donald has been a Mustang owner since 1970 and involved in the Mustang hobby as a journalist and editor since 1977. His first assignments were for the Shelby American Automobile Club and for a new magazine titled Mustang Monthly. Farr received a Lifetime Appreciation Award from Ford’s Team Mustang in 2011 and the Lee Iacocca Award in 2012. He was inducted into the Mustang Club of America’s Mustang Hall of Fame in 2012 and is currently the editor of Mustang Times.

About John M. Clor: Veteran journalist John Clor has owned, raced, worked on and written about Fords and Mustangs for nearly 45 years. After a 15-year career at The Detroit News, Clor shifted to automotive journalism with stints at AutoWeek and later Edmunds.com. He joined the Ford Special Vehicle Team in 1995 and spent most of the next decade working on SVT Communications, PR and Marketing. In 2007 he developed a club outreach program for Ford Racing that is now known as Club Connect, and today manages enthusiast communications for Ford Performance as well as enthusiast content on FordPerformance.com. Clor is an Iacocca Award Winner, author of the books Mustang 2015 and Mustang Dynasty (2007 & 2009) and has penned countless articles and columns on the Mustang for a variety of magazines over the years. 

Chief Engineer of Ford Performance and 21MY Mustang. Carl's career with Ford over the last 30 years has been an exciting adventure working with very talented teams to deliver exciting vehicles that bring years of service to the families that purchase them. His current position leading the development of the 21MY Mustangs has been an honor and privilege for him. The vehicles he most recently led Ford Performance & Team Mustang on are 20MY Shelby GT500 & GT350 & 2.3L High-Performance Package, 19MY Bullitt Mustang, and 19MY F-150 Raptor.

Owners Jason & Lonny Childress have a rich history and a love for racing, but it was not always racing Mustangs, they started out racing monster trucks to include: Bigfoot, Grave Digger & Batman. After 15 years of racing monster trucks Jason & Lonny hung up their fire suits and helmets and started building Mustangs. In 1999, the brothers opened Gateway Classic Mustang in St. Louis, MO, and quickly found the spotlight once more by building world renowned cars. In 2005, Gateway moved to a small town outside of St. Louis called Bourbon, MO. Here Jason and Lonny began to flourish by partnering with industry leaders such as: BFGoodrich, Ford, Ford Performance Racing, Shelby America and Roush Racing. It did not take long before Jason & Lonny found their way back to the racing scene, this time it was through Autorcross and Road Course racing. 

In 2010 Jason and Lonny formed Gateway Performance Suspension. Since then their suspension has undergone numerous facelifts and has become even more of a beast on and off the track. 

Kenny Brown, founder and visionary of Kenny Brown Performance Group, is a highly respected innovator in the automotive industry, building premium high-performance street cars, track cars and racecars for over 40 years. 

 For the past 30 years, Kenny has been the driving force and genius behind engineering numerous innovative new products in the performance aftermarket for late model Mustangs, as well as a mentor and leader in driver development, team coaching and developing professional race teams. 

Aside from Kenny’s passion for building great cars and professional motorsports, he also enjoys sharing his many years of experience coaching and teaching serious performance car enthusiasts how to transform their driving experience.

There are very few in the car industry with Kenny’s depth of knowledge and broadness of experience, let alone willing to share that knowledge to help others.  Kenny feels that if he can help just one person from making a mistake he made in the distant past, it is well worth it.  Working with Kenny is like Having A Pro in Your Pocket! 

Mustang Marketing Manager

Former Mustang Marketing Manager

Former Senior Vice President of Hot Wheels

Former President/CEO of Shelby American, West Coast Customs and Saleen Automotive

Director of Ford Icons

Former Mustang Chief Engineer

Former Mustang Chief Engineer

Director at Shelby American

As president of Shelby American, Gary Patterson oversees all manufacturing, sales, operations, distribution, and marketing. He has been a key Shelby team member since the birth of the continuation Cobra in 1966 through current Mustang and Ford F-150 based vehicles. He manages a broad range of strategic sales, consumer initiatives, and experiences around the globe. Those programs interact directly with enthusiasts, suppliers, the Las Vegas Community, and media.  Patterson is a key test and development driver for Shelby. He has been deeply involved in the creation and refinement of every Shelby vehicle since the company moved to Las Vegas. He has also served as a factory team driver for Shelby American in various events. Patterson has always been involved in motorsports and raced everything from tricycles to sports cars. His love for Mustangs began when his father brought home a 1965 convertible. Those early years led to his first car purchase, a 1969 Mach 1 Mustang which he still owns. Patterson drag raced that car while in high school and later became involved in autocross and competed in a modified Corvette.  Patterson began his Open Road Racing career in 1991 by helping with technical inspections at the Silver State Classic Challenge Open Road race. Patterson has served as President of the Mustang Club of Las Vegas, and was promoted to President of Shelby American in December 2016.

President of Mustang Owners Club of Southeastern Michigan (MOCSEM)

Member of Ford Launch Teams for the 2015 Mustang & the 2015 Shelby GT350

Marketing Manager for Roush Performance for four years

Senior Director of Sales and Dealer Relations for Saleen Automotive

Lee Iacocca Award Recipient

Owner of Marti Auto Works

Nick is a fourth-generation Ford employee, and he has already worked at Ford for more than twenty years himself. His current role in the company is as the Mustang Vehicle Integration Supervisor, and he has previously had experience working in Vehicle Operations, Vehicle Dynamics, and Marketing. Nick has worked in both SVT and Ford Performance, and he has been a part of the 2005 and 2017 Ford GT programs. In addition to all of that, he has also worked on the Mustang Bullitt, Mach 1, Boss 302, Cobra, and Shelby GT500. His time at Ford and on Team Mustang has allowed him to work on the SN95, S197, and S550 platforms.

Courtney started her travel adventures on Bullrun in 2011 in a 1965 Mustang with Lori Sumlin. People started to call the duo -Team Mustang Girls, and guess what, the name stuck. Nine years later and over a half a million miles later, Courtney is still on the road in her Mustang documenting the journeys along the way. She is a correspondent for both Ford Performance and Motor Trend.

Tracey Smith is an accomplished business executive with expertise in branding, marketing, management, and strategy. She leverages her passion for performance and experience in the entertainment, licensing, and film industries to help Carroll Shelby International build its global businesses. Ms. Smith spent her early years as a production artist and art director for some of Hollywood’s biggest studios. She left the film industry to join the Electronic Entertainment/New Media groups at Mattel Inc. Harnessing her Hollywood background, Ms. Smith facilitated the development of Mattel’s online entertainment and software games. Ms. Smith moved from Mattel’s “New Media” division into the Hot Wheels Marketing Group, where she produced enthusiast events such as the Hot Wheels World Tour.  In 2006, she joined Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. to help develop new business opportunities and increase branding and licensing efforts. She has been instrumental in cultivating new licensing categories and marketing outreach, in addition to expanding upon programs with existing licensees. Ms. Smith was promoted to the parent company, Carroll Shelby International in 2014. Her responsibilities include further expanding upon licensing, branding, and media efforts for all of the company’s divisions worldwide. She is also an integral part of the continuing expansion of community programs such as Team Shelby and the new Carroll Shelby Automotive Museum.

Jim and Mike Ring, co-founders of Ringbrothers, were born with a passion for creating cars more exciting than anything else on the road. The pair began tinkering before they were old enough to drive, barreling down the old country roads of Wisconsin with whatever pile of parts they could scrounge together. As their ambition grew, so did their need to build faster, more powerful and more exciting machines. What was once a hobby turned into a business and their hot-rodding ways began to gain the attention of the aftermarket industry elite. Jim and Mike Ring operate Ringbrothers out of Spring Green, Wisconsin, where they build their iconic street machines, design and produce aftermarket parts, and work on local cars in their auto body shop. In many ways, the boys haven’t changed all that much since their early days tinkering with whatever cars they could get their hands on. Only now the builds have more power and are desired the world over. 

If you’ve picked up a Mustang magazine at any time over the last 28 years you’ve probably read something written by Mark Houlahan. Mark has spent more than half his life writing about Mustangs of every generation for past print brands like Mustang Monthly, 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords, Mustang & Fords, Super Ford, and more. After the “great magazine purge” of 2019, Mark is now using his home office to create freelance content for aftermarket parts companies like Revology Cars and is excited to be a part of the new Mustang Hub print brand and Mustang Driver digital brand as well, bringing his technical writing expertise back to the masses once again!

Spending years at Ford SVT in the thick of Shelby Mustang's development only amplified Shaun’s obsession for high-performance Ford’s. After helping to lead the development team of the fabled 2013 GT500, GT350 & GT350R Day made the leap from amateur racing in his free time to full-time professional motorsport leading Stinger Motorsport. Stinger Motorsport completes globally in time attack with a race-prepared 2011 Mustang, recently coming of events in Europe at the Nürburgring & Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Additionally when the pavement ends competition continues in Ultra4 series (known for its marque event King Of the Hammers). Applying the OEM development mindset to motorsport has resulted in impressive results on-road and off and Day shows no signs of slowing down.

JP Emerson is an award-winning author & journalist with bylines in many of the most popular automotive magazines in the country. JP covers classic muscle cars and the people who own them with real stories from real owners relating everything from ownership, car shows, music, road trips, and what everyone has in common regardless of brand. Named 2020's most influential and relatable automotive storyteller, JP has supplied stories and brand recognition while working with some of the industry's most recognizable names.

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"JP's stories are real & relatable while reading like a memory of riding shotgun through the warm summer nights of our youth with the windows down, the radio up, and the open road ahead."

Rob spent 31 years in the automotive publishing world, most notably as editor of Hot Rod magazine (2004-2011) and with stints at most of the magazines within the company that started as Petersen Publishing and is now known as The Motor Trend Group, now owned by Discovery Channel. When Discovery shuttered all but three print magazines, Rob’s passions turned to marketing, and the aftermarket supercharging world came calling, making him the Marketing Director for ATI ProCharger. Rob has owned several Mustangs over the years as well as a wide variety of other cars, but having worked with most of the people on this panel, his favorite marque will always be Mustangs of all generations. And like John Clor, Rob has a serious love of the hated Mustang II!

Steve Turner is the former editor of 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords magazine and FordMuscle.com and current editor of Fastest Street Car magazine, the Official Publication of NMCA & NMRA Racing. He is also a frequent contributor to a wide range of media outlets. Follow him on social media @editorturner.

"Steve" Saleen is an American businessman and former racing driver. He is best known for being the founder of Saleen Autosport, currently known as Saleen Performance, which is an OEM manufacturer of specialty vehicles including the Saleen S7, 302 Mustangs, and Saleen Sportrucks.