Bourassa started the group-website-business (it’s hard to tell where the divisions are) four years ago after he was frustrated in finding a top-quality pair of driving shoes. “If you Googled driving shoes then, you got 1.4 million hits. Today, you’d probably get 7 million,” he says. “I finally saw someone wearing the shoes I wanted in the pits at Watkins Glen and ordered a pair. Then I figured that there were other people looking for the good stuff and willing to pay for it.”

That was the start of the business, Motorsports Marketing Resources, and its website mmrsite.com. So far, he’s listed 1,100 companies that meet his standards with another 1,500 he suspects have the right stuff.

MMR’s email messages have been coming into my email box for two years now. They’re attached to magnificent newsletters that are linked to people, events, and companies devoted to motoring excellence.

At first, I suspected some PR-type was trying to drum up publicity for the group and put me on their distribution list. Now I’ve come to believe it was the hand of the late Gene Ritvo, the epitome of a Motorhead—bon vivant, photographer extraordinaire, restaurateur, entrepreneur, and lover of style and performance in automobiles, motorcycles, and bicycles. He left this world suddenly, and way too soon at physical age 74 (spiritual age 29) two years ago this month.

When the last email came my way, I realized it was Gene’s work. He was staying in touch from beyond the grave because he’d submitted my name to the group before he passed away.

The latest email, with a Ritvo-quality photo of a Ferrari engine, invited me to tour Kachel Motor Company in Lawrence. Their dyno was the tug, or rather pull, that was needed to drag me out of bed at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

Click photo for larger version.

When the motorheads show up, the parking lot turns into a combination car show and cruise-in.

The trip was worth it. KMC has an amazing facility dedicated to the care, maintenance, and most importantly, performance mods to high-end motor cars. The language of Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and BMW M3 and M5 is spoken knowledgeably here.

Tim Kachel has transformed a former Lawrence factory building into a motoring safe house, with cars tucked into back rooms dedicated to their particular project.

Motoring is in his blood as the fourth generation of his family to be in the business. His great grandfather was a Pontiac dealer in Lancaster, PA, and there’s a 1952 photo in the shop of a Kachel Studebaker dealership.

He started learning his craft at birth but got into exotic cars, working at age 15 for the highly respected Schneller BMW specialty shop in Newbury and later at Turner Motorsport in Amesbury.

The only disappointment of the day, if you can call it that, was that the dyno pulls were done on an in-house BMW instead of Motorhead cars. The BMW was factory rated for 390 horsepower but showed just under 320 on the dyno.

“Wheel horsepower can be different from the horsepower coming right off the engine,” said Kachel.

Bill Griffith can be reached at WGriffith@globe.com.