2010 Hall of Fame

Pete Mandes
Sponsor

Among a large group of generous MIR track sponsors over the years, Pete Mandes and his Speed Unlimited speed shop stand alone as a continual source of encouragement and financial support. Pete raced at Budds Creek on the first or second day it opened and has been involved with the track ever since. In 1967, he founded Speed Unlimited as a one-person business in Suitland, Maryland, and he immediately began providing sponsorship dollars to the track. Pete grew Speed Unlimited into one of the largest and most well known speed shops on the east coast, and he continued his support of MIR all along the way. Pete and Speed Unlimited have been strong backers of local racers, sponsoring the Speed Unlimited E.T. Series and the Speed Unlimited Midnight Madness Street Car series for decades.

In addition to supporting MIR, Pete and Speed Unlimited provide area racers and hot rodders with a large in-stock inventory, fair prices, and a knowledgeable sales staff. These practices have made Speed Unlimited one of the top parts suppliers on the east coast with a 5,000 square foot retail superstore that serves more than 50,000 walk in customers a year, and a mail order department that ships high performance parts worldwide. As Pete has noted, almost every young man in a tri-state area who walks in looking for high performance parts brings along greetings from his father or grandfather who also bought speed parts from Pete! Thanks in large part to the generosity of Pete Mandes, several generations of racers and fans also got to enjoy drag racing at Maryland International Raceway.