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ou see that ad on the other side of the page, particularly the photograph? Well, this is the story behind the photograph. Not the photographer behind the photo, who is Mark Weber, but the story behind the photo’s subject—Joe Cogbill, his wife Virginia and his crew, sometimes known as the Lagoon Brothers.

Now if you think that’s a weird way to approach a story, consider the main subject—Joe Cogbill, a hulking big redhead who goes by the ironic handle of Little Joe, as in Alfred Joseph Cogbill III. Joe was deemed a little weird early on when the guys at school learned he was interested in foreign cars. This at a time when the Chevrolet, Sting Ray, Mustang, and Camaro were making it big on the schoolboy circuit. It seems Joe Sr. whom his son describes as a “legal drug dealer” since he sells pharmaceuticals, brought home a Porsche 904 when Little Joe was 14 and about the size of the rest of us. It was love at first sight, despite the klapped out, rusted condition of the old red bomber.

“He got a wild hare and went middle-aged crazy,” says the younger Cogbill, “and decided to go SCCA racing. We were the lowest bucks Speedster race car everywhere we went. We raced on Pirelli tires because we couldn’t afford anything else.” Thus, the racing hook was sunk somewhere deep within the soul of a redheaded boy and he went foreign car and motor racing crazy himself. He bicycled to work 3 ½ miles a day each summer in Macon thereafter to work for $1 per hour as a gopher for a couple of that conservative Southern city’s less than conspicuous foreign car repair shops. By age 17, Joe Jr. had moved to Atlanta and graduated from Avondale High School. He immediately opened his own Porsche shop. “I had the proper attitude and the desire,” he says looking back on the successful beginnings of his Porsche service business—The Import Doctor. But Joe, didn’t you say you worked for English foreign car repair shops for $1 an hour before you opened up your repair business for the German marque? “Well” he says with a broad smile and reddish brown eyes twinkling, “When I opened my business, I got a lot of On The Job Training.”

Not only was Joe a fast learner when it came to repairs, he was also a fast learner when it came to race car prepares—and driving. Four years after he started his repair business, Joe decided to go racing in style. “We went down to Florida and bought the car that used to blow us away.” The car he and his father bought was an E-Production eligible Porsche 356 from Harra Zitza in Orlando, Fla. It was a car previously owned by Dave Helmick, who owned two 356’s and decided to sell the D-Convertible model because it had bigger carburetors and carried a 100-pound weight penalty versus the standard Porsche Speedster. The car had been given special factory treatment in Stuttgart while Helmick was in the military service and thus was a unique racing vehicle.

Cogbill nevertheless has overseen some serious development on the car since he acquired it seven years ago. He and his crew have installed coilover shocks and a suspension which is adjustable at all four corners for any desired chassis change. “You can only go as fast at the car will go through a corner,” says Cogbill, who credits E. J. Trivette with helping him build and tune the chassis to perfection. “When E. J. gets through laying on the hands, the car sticks in the turns like it’s on a rail.”

Cogbill’s regular trips to the Runoffs almost culminated in victory in 1981, when he finished second behind John O’Steen’s 356. In 1982, Cogbill finally achieved the pinnacle, wining the E-Production championship in his 1959 Speedster, one that had been racing since 1962. Cogbill then repeated as E-Prod champ in 1983, and if you don’t believe the second title was as sweet as the first, check the photo at the left.

Cogbill is quick to give credit to others in regard to his success and doesn’t even seem to hold any grudges against all the old high school buddies who thought he was weird for being into Porsches. (The same guys that are now seen squiring imports around Macon.) In addition to Trivette, Joe credits his crew members, all of whom work on his car strictly during off hours, especially crew chief Art Benson, who works as an engineer at Law Engineering between rush hours. Raymond Brooks (an accountant) is the fabrications man. Keith Lane (a computer repairman) is the team gopher in charge of keeping everybody loose, and Beal “Hollywood” Hardy, says Joe, is in charge of “always looking good in photographs.” From left to right in the photograph over there, the order is Hardy, Brooks, Benson, and Lane, i.e. the Lagoon Brothers, thus known because of the messy, dark pools of oil they sometimes leave in their wake.

Cogbill, now father of six-month-old Brett Joseph, also gives plenty of credit to his wife Virginia, such an avid (Cogbill) racing fan that she sent her husband to “Bertil Roos” driving school. Naturally, Joe gives plenty of credit to his dad for “initiating me into the racing business.” Joe Sr. also helped his son initiate his used and new parts business known as Porscheware (see front bumper) and drives with his son in Showroom Stock enduros in a Porsche 944 and in other professional endurance events in a Porsche RSR. The younger Cogbill also likes to point out that winning in a Speedster is easier because car owners of that same ilk share their secrets with each other, unlike participants piloting some of the other E-Prod marques.

But let’s give credit where it’s due. The big redhead is the main Cog(bill) of the racing team as well as the main Cog(bill) behind the wheel. He doesn’t ride alone, however. Up front on the hood is a three-foot high rendering of the Tazmanian Devil of Merry Melodies cartoon fame that didn’t quite make the photograph. You know, the fast-moving character that spins across the landscape like a turbo-charged top, chewing up anything that gets in its way like a buzz saw. “I always liked his attitude,” says Joe. Which is? “Go after it!” Hmmm. Nothing weird about that.