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Spruck ’65 becomes Vintage Car National Champion

Driving his 1967 MG Midget, Robert Spruck ’65 became the F-Production 2001 Vintage National Champion last December at Roebling Road Raceway just outside Savannah, Ga. After serving on another driver’s crew for three years, Spruck and the racer built a similar car to get Spruck behind the wheel. They worked four months to convert a $300 car to a vehicle that would meet 1972 Sports Car Club of America regulations, doing all the work except painting and machining. “To make it with the right equipment at the lowest price is basically the way we wanted the car built,” says Spruck. “It’s been a bigger challenge to improve it over the years and still stay within the rules. You don’t want to spend money on things that won’t make it go faster.”

Spruck also drives and shows his restored 1972 MG Midget. In addition, he photographs and writes articles for shows, races, and features in publications such as British Car, Grassroots Motorsports, Victory Lane, Midget & Sprite, Spitfire/GT6, B+, and Classic MG magazines. He is a member of the Peachtree MG Registry, Historic Sportscar Racing Ltd, Sportscar Vintage Racing Association, Vintage Driving Club of America, and MG Vintage Racers.

During his Lafayette days, Spruck competed in rallying, in which drivers on public roads attempt to reach checkpoints at specific times, and autocrossing, in which drivers navigate around traffic cones set up in an off-road area such as a parking lot. In the 1970s, he did autocrossing in an Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite, a Sunbeam Alpine, and a Barracuda Formula S.

Spruck graduated from Lafayette with a degree in economics before serving in the Army in Vietnam and Thailand, then earning an M.B.A. at Long Island University. He is a manufacturing systems consultant and department manager for American Software in Atlanta, Ga. “Lafayette gave me personal growth and challenges, and of course an education that provided a good foundation for a career,” says Spruck, who met his future wife Benya, then an Easton resident, while in college.

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