Ken Thwaits calls himself a "Camaro fanatic." With one of the most extensive Camaro collections in the country, and a race team that consistently puts its Camaros near the front of the Trans Am Series field, it's clear Thwaits' fandom reaches a nearly unmatched level.

Like so many stories in the motorsports world, Thwaits' began with his father, who started racing in the mid-1960s. When Thwaits was in his early teens and growing up in Southern California his dad got him a go-kart, which eventually led to Thwaits competing in Formula Ford starting in 1978 and Pro Formula Mazda by 1984. Thwaits won the latter series' championship in 1985 and then turned to showroom-stock Camaros in the late '80s as his initial driving career wound down. 

"It's the typical thing, you meet a girl, start a new business, start a family and racing was put on hold for me for 22 years," Thwaits explains.

He had always wanted to run Trans Am cars, having been a fan of the famed vehicles and drivers that populated the series during the muscle-car era in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but had simply never had the means to do so.

Thwaits instead became what he calls "a baseball dad" until his youngest son announced he was going to stop playing. At that time, Thwaits decided to start racing again and Showtime Motorsportsports was born soon after. The name comes from Thwaits' Showtime Baseball Academy, which is located next door to his race shop and car collection.

In 2022, the team also found success in its second TA car, a No. 5 Camaro which has been piloted by the likes of former Brickyard 400 winner Paul Menard, Trackhouse Racing co-owner Justin Marks and comedian Adam Carolla. Menard has run three races with the team and scored a victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway, while Marks won at Watkins Glen during a torrential downpour in an event where Thwaits says the driver "didn't put a wheel wrong all day." Most recently, Memphis area builder and sports car driver Keith Grant piloted the car to a runner-up finish at VIR.

Additionally, in 2022 Showtime Motorsports launched a two-car operation in the Trans Am TA2 class, an ultra-competitive division that features many of the same models that appear in TA, but their fuel-injected engines are limited to just under 500 horsepower and many spec regulations level the playing field. 

For the season-long campaign Thwaits hired two-time champion and winningest TA2 driver, Cameron Lawrence, to pilot the No. 6 Camaro. A variety of drivers have driven the sister No. 4 car, but Dylan Archer was behind the wheel in year-end events and will contest the whole 2023 season with the Showtime group. In addition, Thwaits' men's boutique clothing store, Franklin Road Apparel, sponsors young upstart Brent Crews' TA2 efforts.

"We've got our fingers in all kinds of the pie here," Thwaits says.

In 2023, Marks will drive alongside Thwaits full-time in a second TA car (No. 99), with Keith Grant making spot starts in a third and additional entries available. Meanwhile, Michele Abatte and Evan Slater will join Lawrence to make up the team's three-car TA2 attack. In addition, a MAVTV documentary entitled "Road to Glory" will spotlight Showtime Motorsports throughout the season. 

Thwaits' Franklin Road brand has become synonymous with Showtime Motorsports and has provided an ideal advertising outlet with steadily high sales numbers for the store. A related business, Showtime Promotions, provides custom embroidery, screen printing and promotional products.

Thwaits is an entrepreneur who has long been involved in a wide variety of businesses, including Precision Dynamics International (PDI), an automotive training and marketing company that works with multiple OEMs to train sales consultants and also puts on a variety of consumer events. In addition, with the business Thwaits tests cars and writes reports on how they compare to competitors.

The company has been in business for more than 30 years and for much of his life Thwaits lived in Phoenix, near a major client's proving ground, before the work took him to the Nashville area in 2007.

It was in Tennessee that he started collecting Camaros, and today, the collection features more than 25 examples spanning various generations. Although Thwaits' first car was a 1965 Chevelle, and he's also long been a fan of El Caminos, when he began collecting he decided to stick with just one model.

Among the numerous highlights in the collection are two 1969 Z/28s featuring JL8 four-wheel disc brakes, three rare split-bumper Camaros (including the famed "Envious" build), a third-gen IROC found in a trailer with 9.5 miles on the odometer, and an LS1-powered fourth-gen with only 175 miles.

The cars range from rare numbers-matching and low-mileage originals, to crate engine-powered restomods, to specially built, high-powered Pro Touring race cars. For instance, Envious features a 680 horsepower Wegner LS7, while the Z/28 Thwaits raced in the OPTIMA series has a Lingenfelter LS7 under the hood.

"I like the numbers-matching stuff because that's a valuable asset and to even drive the cars it really is a throwback; the ones I have run really well," Thwaits says. "But then I also have the cars that I've raced in OPTIMA and are built for that series. We've kept those in the barn so to speak."

*Because of their effect on a vehicle's emissions performance, these engines are intended exclusively for use in competition vehicles. These engines are designed and intended for use in vehicles operated exclusively for competition: in racing or organized competition on courses separate from public streets or highways. Installation or use of these engines on a vehicle operated on public streets or highways is likely to violate U.S., Canadian, and state and provincial laws and regulations related to motor vehicle emissions.