Faules, a longtime Sunnyvale resident, has lived a life that seems straight out of a novel. In fact, he says he's been accused of telling one too many tall tales in his lifetime. But in Faules' case, truth is stranger than fiction:

He was blind for several of his teenage years; he became a record-breaking Olympic-style skeet shooter; he set hunting records on an African safari; he published a book. And on Dec. 6 his race-car team beat world-renowned teams in a 25-hour endurance race in a 1979 RX-7 Mazda that he calls "the little car that could."

"When you're a little boy, you have these dreams of being a race-car driver. I sit here now and reflect, 'Wow, I've really done this,' " says Faules, 52. "There was a period of time when I was told I wouldn't be able to do any of these things."

"I started off lucky," Faules says of his life. While pregnant with him, his mother was involved in a car accident and broke her neck. Amazingly, Faules was born healthy—but his twin brother was stillborn.

He grew up in Bandon, Ore., and he says "I always had this ambition to go faster." As a youngster, he participated in drag-racing around dirt tracks and rode his go-cart near his parents' ranch.

But when he was in his early teens, a freak accident radically altered his life.

After dinner one night, as he sat at his desk working on a model car, some glass ammonia capsules (he used them for the football team he managed) heated up under the lamp and exploded. The glass fragments pierced his eyes and found their way into his optic nerve. He was blinded.

Faules continued with life as it had been, going to the same school, feeling his way around classrooms and hallways. He refused to learn Braille.

In his book, I Slept in Africa, and Other Stories, Faules wrote, "We never talked about my being blind. We always talked about when I was going to get my eyesight back. I never once felt handicapped."

Some three years after his accident, Faules' parents found a doctor in Portland who was able to melt away the glass in his optic nerve with a laser photocoagulator.

The day the bandages were removed from his eyes, Faules says, "You could cut the air with the knife, the tension was so thick." With Faules' family gathered around, the doctor closed the drapes, turned off all the lights and then removed the bandages. He tested Faules' vision by clicking a red flashlight on and off. But Faules couldn't see a thing.

"The doctor's over there talking to my parents and the nurse is holding my hand and then I see something," Faules recalls. "Then I said, 'Hey, I see something! Mont. Gomery. Ward. Mont. Gomery Ward. Montgomery Ward.' "

What Faules saw was a flashing sign about 15 miles away. The doctor said it was a miracle.

"It was like something you saw on TV," he says.

With some additional cataract surgery, Faules' vision was restored. He did, however, lose depth perception.

Off to a good start

Faules moved to Northern California in his late 20s because he wanted to both drive and work on "muscle cars." He built his dream life around race-car driving and developed friendships with such famous drivers as Carroll Shelby, racing legend and creator of Shelby automobiles.

But the Oregon native needed something more.

"I really missed being able to go out into the backyard and go hunting," he says.

So Faules took up Olympic-style skeet shooting at the now-defunct Peninsula Sportsmen's Club in Menlo Park.

A coach was skeptical of Faules' ability to shoot, given his lack of depth perception. But Faules worked hard and actually made it onto national teams, where he set records. "You never let people tell you you can't," the coach told him years later.

"That was a special time of my life. I learned a lot about myself," Faules says.

During that time, he met Mary Chris, a customer at Faules' Mobil service station on Homestead Road. "We started going out. I took her for drives in hot cars," Faules says, chuckling.

Chris is a teacher at Sunnyvale's Church of the Resurrection community preschool. The two have been married now for 27 years and have one daughter, Charmagne, and a son, Will.

Around the track

In 1990, Faules founded California's Best, an auto repair shop on W. Evelyn Avenue. After getting the business on its feet, Faules participated in the local racing circuit and joined NASA (National Auto Sport Association), where he began as a student and now serves as an instructor.

The California's Best racing team gained some notice in 1998, when it won the Timex Endurance Series as well as NASA's 12-Hour Enduro (endurance) race. A year later, California's Best team again won the 12-Hour Enduro and then the Mexican Grand Prix.

Faules decided to "semi-retire" in 2000. He wanted to focus on his family. Will was then a Homestead High School athlete, outstanding in baseball, football and track and field. Faules realized that spending so much time at the track meant he was missing out on important moments of his son's life. He decided to take a break.

Into the wild

But while in retirement, Faules realized another dream when he took a month-long hunting expedition to countries including South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania. "The beauty, the sounds, the weather, even the red dust—it's life changing," he says. "I didn't want to just go there on a safari. I wanted to experience the people, the culture, the food."

Faules had grown up reading the works of Ernest Hemingway and had wanted to go on the traditional hunts captured in Hemingway's books. The Africa safari, however, was what he had dreamed of: out in the bush with trackers, a gunbearer, a Zulu warrior and setting up camp each night.

Faules donated the meat from each catch to the closest African village and brought home the heads of zebras, jackals and wildebeests.

But his main achievement—"the highest priority on my list," he says—was taking down a kudu; the kudu is the second largest animal in the antelope family. Known for its graceful, sweeping antlers and distinctive white chevron marks, the kudu, Faules says, "just looks like the word dignified."

Three weeks into the hunt, Faules took down a 72-inch-tall kudu. More than 50 inches, he says, is considered a world record. As a result, Faules took home four gold medals from the Safari Club International.

"But there's more to Africa than hunting. There's the beauty, and the animals," Faules says. "My dad taught me a lot about hunting. But most of all, he taught me a respect for the land. He told me, 'Going out hunting and being in nature doesn't always mean killing something.' "

After returning, Faules sent emails that detailed his hunting expeditions, his experiences with tribal villages and lessons he learned about life and himself. Those anecdotes became the basis for I Slept in Africa, and Other Stories, published in 2002.

"All of my life, my friends and family have said, 'Wow, you should write a book.' But I never thought I was a writer," Faules says. "And then to go to my hometown and do a booksigning at the big local bookstore—I was overwhelmed."

Last summer, NASA announced that it was holding its inaugural 25 Hours of Thunderhill, a 25-hour endurance race in Willows, Calif. Faules knew he had to jump in.

He put together a team of drivers including his son, Will, who by now is a football player at Foothill College. Will had practically grown up on the track. "Driving has always been in my blood. My dad taught me to drive stick, sitting in his lap at 6 years old," he says.

At 13 Will became a licensed race-car driver. "The chief director of NASA had always talked about getting a kid down at the track," Will says. If NASA determined that youngsters were mature enough and experienced enough, it would grant them racing licenses in the organization.

"He went straight from go-carts to Dodge Vipers at age 13," Faules says of his son.

Faules also rounded up record holders for the big race: Marc Kiberg, Mike Courtney, Jon Emerson and Kurt Wiseman. "Each one of us has expertise in certain fields," he says. "I really think of this in racing as the dream team."

According to Faules, some 72 teams from all over the world and with significant sponsorships also signed up—"a lot of teams where money is no object. But you know, money is an object for us," he says.

Jerry Kunzman, regional director of the Northern California region of NASA, says two of the top-placing cars at the race had cost approximately $180,000 each just to fix up, not including the cost of the vehicles themselves. The team that eventually came in fourth, Kunzman says, was sponsored by Car & Driver. "Someone let us know that Dave Brown was going into a competitor's car. Dave Brown is the man [in racing]," Faules says.

"And there's Gary in his '79 RX-7 that's probably not worth $500," Kunzman says. "He took an old car that's probably no longer able to compete and went up against these cars with all this money in them."

A grand finish

The week of Dec. 6 and 7, about 2,000 crewmembers and 800 drivers convened at Thunderhill. With the race about to start, California's Best team members decided to use rain tires, which are slower on a dry track but have more lasting power than regular tires.

"It's beginning to rain as we're getting into our cars. All the drivers are panicking," Faules says.

In the beginning of the race, Faules' team was 32nd out of 72. By the end of the first 12 hours, his Mazda was first in its class and fourth overall.

"This race is not a drive in the park," Kunzman says. "There's wrecks in front of you at 120 mph, there's guys banging into you from behind, there's mud on the tracks, it's pitch dark, you've got some headlights but not much."

In the 13th hour, disaster struck. Driver Jon Emerson radioed in, panicked. "The brakes are gone. I have no brakes."

In the pit, the crew members tried their best to replace the brake caliper as efficiently as possible. "Up until that point, we were nine laps ahead. After, we were six behind," Faules says. "It didn't make sense that we could be in the lead again."

On lap 23, a Porsche hit the Mazda, sending the bumper flying off.

"We had to ask ourselves, 'Do we back off and finish it?' because that's a win in anyone's book," Faules says. "We said, 'Screw it, let's win this thing.' "

With 15 minutes to go, Faules' team was first in class by 1 minute and 40 seconds. But then, the driver said the car had no fuel left. "My son and all of us were at the end of our ropes," Faules says. "We decided we were going to try to refuel. But we had to do this fast."

Luck was on the team's side. All week, the crew had practiced quick pit stops. "Preparation is the key. We run our business and personal lives on a 'what-if' basis," Faules says.

Back in the race, there was three-quarters of a lap left. "Seconds felt like days," Faules says. "Here comes the checkered flag, here's our car."

First in class

California's Best had completed 562 laps in the 25 hours, beating the second in its E-2 class by two laps and scoring a perfect 100. It had lagged slightly behind cars in the E-S and E-SR classes to place an amazing sixth overall.

Team members received gold medals and watches, and they donated their $6,000 cash prize to cancer research.

That was to be Faules' last race. He'd made the decision before the race to step back from racing—continue teaching with NASA and to share his racing experiences at local schools, as well as work in the shop—but then he received an unusual phone call.

"I was pretty much resolved to the fact that this was it," he says. But "one of the biggest names" (who Faules wants to remain nameless) has asked the California's Best team to race a "fully prepared race car" and will fund the team later this year.

Both Faules and his son are excited about the opportunity, but for Will, this could be the beginning of a racing career. "I love driving. I'd love to pursue something in it. But right now I'm focused on finishing school and football," Will says. He is pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering or auto design.

His father says he has been told several times, "Faules, he's better than you."

"To be standing by the wall and seeing your boy go by, outperforming all the other cars, and to hear people say, 'Wow, who's that?' 'That's the Faules kid,' " he says. "I would rather see my son driving 160 mph on a racetrack than driving 35 or 45 mph on a street."

Will credits his father for his attitude and his driving skills.

"It's been amazing just seeing him race these cars," Will says. "And stuff that's happened to him has always taught me to take nothing for granted. I'm real fortunate to go do the things that we do."

But Faules isn't out of the picture yet. The call of the racetrack may keep him breaking more records.