Saying goodbye to a VW Aircooled East Coast Legend! RIP Nathan Lee…..Angel’s wings are Aircooled!

It is with great sadness I write this today. On January 23, 2020 at 63 years of age our VW racing community lost an East Coast Legend! I can only speak of my friendship with Nathan and I wanted to forever memorialize him with this article to endlessly float around on the web!

Knowing Nathan the way I did he wouldn’t have even wanted this. He was quiet, reserved and personal. I met Nathan in the late 90’s. I had just gotten into racing VW’s and he, along with brother Reggie, had already been at it for over 20 years! These guys were the reason Pete Peek started carrying parts at Peek Performance, a VW Performance shop that had been in business since the early 70’s! Nathan was a reserved man that kept things close to his chest. He would always talk to my wife Michelle about how much he loved his children and how his wife ran the house while he would let the kids “walk all over Daddy”, haha! Having my own daughter I related to this!

I’ll never forget watching him become the 1st 8 second air cooled VW on the East Coast in 2009! The joy on his face was priceless! You see Nathan never raced for points, or for money, he raced for that number! He wanted to push his car as fast as he could push it and achieve his personal best! I would call him the “mad scientist” because he was always trying new things on his VW in an attempt to make it faster, more reliable and more consistent. He was never afraid to try new things! That was him!

He absolutely loved to talk VW’s and VW performance! Nathan and I became closer when he found out I had kidney cancer. He was a cancer survivor himself! I’ll always cherish the memory of him calling me when he found out and him telling me to keep my faith! To stay strong and hold on to my friends and family! We talked for over 2 hours that day and it’s a conversation I’ll always hold dear to my heart! We’ve had many since then of course but that day was badly needed and even though he didn’t know it, he lifted my spirits!

He will be sorely missed at the events and his VW life (which is the one I knew) will affect people from the East coast to the West coast as he made friends all over this great nation by doing what he loved! Racing Fast VW’s! RIP Nathan Lee! Angel’s Wings are Aircooled! May your spirit forever fly!