Mention the name Randy Pobst to just about anyone with an interest in sports cars and you’re likely to put a smile on their face. Pobst has had an illustrious motorsport career, driving for likes of Audi, Mazda, and Porsche on their factory teams. He’s claimed multiple championship titles in series like IMSA and Pirelli World Challenge,

along with multiple class wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and he set a class record at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb 2023 while driving the Unplugged Performance Tesla Model S Plaid. He’s also built a reputation as a formidable hot shoe who can jump into just about any vehicle and quickly extract all of its performance potential – a rare skill that has made him the go-to for automotive publications like Motor Trend and Hagerty when they want to find out what kind of lap times the latest road-going sports cars can achieve on a racetrack.

But his talent behind the wheel isn’t the only attribute that will make an enthusiast light up. A big part of it is that, despite all of his successes, Pobst is still a down-to-earth gearhead who’s just stoked on cars and loves to talk shop.

“My mother used to joke that I was born with a toy car in my hand,” Pobst says with a laugh. “As a teenager, my first day driving a car was just a revelation. I just took to it instantly. My friends in high school were really into big muscle cars with lots of horsepower, but I was more interested in corners. My first car was a Fiat 850 Spider. It was slow, but it was lightweight, and that really resonated with me.”

He says that discovering autocross at 19 years old was a pivotal moment for him. “I found this ad that said, ‘Race your own car for $5.’ So I went down there and found out that I could compete against the clock with the car I already owned. That just completely changed my world.”

It likely comes as little surprise that Pobst was competitive right out of the gate, and he soon realized that he’d found his calling. “It was like this great, savage beast had grabbed me by the throat and said, “You’ve gotta do this!’”

Autocross soon led to road racing, where Pobst found success in SCCA Pro Racing’s Volkswagen Cup before expanding out to other series and platforms. “When I started in road racing, I didn’t have any money, so I built my own race cars. These were very simple, production-based cars. I’ve always been comfortable with a wrench. So throughout college I was maintaining these cars, and also keeping various vans alive. Instead of hauling the race cars with a truck, I’d use a van because then I had a place to sleep, too.”

Motorsport eventually became a full-time job for Pobst, and his stints as a factory driver for various automakers meant that race car maintenance became someone else’s responsibility. But Pobst has returned to his roots in recent years, campaigning garage-built machines like his trusty 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo in budget endurance series like Lucky Dog, ChampCar, and WRL. With a more varied schedule these days, Pobst has focused more of his attention on his road-going projects as well, though he’s quick to point out that a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am build wasn’t on his bingo card when he acquired it back in 2021.

“About for years ago, I was hanging out with some buddies out in California after a track day,” he recalls. “One of them works at a dealership, and I remember him piping up and asking the table, ‘Hey – is anyone interested in a ’77 Trans Am?’ And he looks at me. I live in Atlanta these days, and I was like, ‘No way – it’s too far away to deal with getting it across the country, and I have too many projects anyway. I’ve got no room for it!’ But then there was a pause, and I asked: ‘Is it stick?’ And it was.

Sitting next to me was my good friend Nate Amaral, who is a very talented car builder… and my enabler. And he lives out in California. He says, ‘I’ll work on it for you, and you can keep it at my house!’ Next thing you know, I suddenly owned a ’77 Trans Am.”

Boasting 88,000 original miles on the odometer, a 400-inch big block V8, and the original four-speed manual gearbox, Pobst says the car was largely rust-free and solid overall, but it needed a bit of work to make it truly road-worthy.

“It was a runner – it actually ran pretty good. But it needed a clutch, it had rear end gearing that was way too tall, the paint was rough, and it had this hood with a giant fiberglass snorkel that you could barely see over. Like so many projects, the initial plan was to just get it running well, have some fun, and maybe sell it a year or two later.”

Pobst credits Amaral (below, at left) for “about 98 percent” of the work required to bring the Trans Am to its current state. He says that the turning point for the build occurred in 2022 when Holley Performance and Summit Racing both stepped in to support the project. “And that point the mission changed – I wanted to build a fun cruiser that could handle.”

The team selected a suspension kit from UMI Performance as well as a limited-slip setup with more aggressive gearing for the factory 10-bolt rear end, while stopping power was dramatically improved by ditching the factory brakes in favor of modern four-piston big brake kit from Baer. Amaral convinced Pobst to liven up the V8 as well: Outfitted with a set of aluminum cylinder heads, a more aggressive cam, and an array of bolt-on performance parts, the Pontiac mill now cranks out about 400 horsepower and a similar amount of torque at the wheels. The team also selected a Sniper EFI system to give the Trans Am modern drivability.

“I didn’t want a carburetor,” Pobst explains. “To me, they just seemed kind of old fashioned. They can definitely make good power if they’re tuned right, but they don’t adjust to things like weather changes, altitude changes and, importantly, lateral g forces. So the self-adjusting aspect of the original Sniper system was a big selling point for me. And it ran really well right from the get-go. I loved that I could get in the car, turn the key, and it would fire right up and idle nicely. It accomplished all of our goals.”

After dialing the car and running a few autocross exhibition events, Pobst noted that were a few aspects of Sniper system’s operation that he wanted to fine tune. “We sorted out an RF interference issue by shielding the wiring, and I also found myself wanting a little more refinement in part-throttle situations, along with a little less resistance on throttle tip-in because it was tricky to make small changes. It was great on track, I just wanted a little more nuance from it at low speeds while cruising around town.” These traits weren’t deal-breakers from Pobst, though, who turned his attention to the oil starvation issues that he discovered while putting the Pontiac through the ringer on road courses over the next couple of years. Custom drain-back lines and an Accusump system took care of that issue.

“I recently found out about the Sniper 2 EFI system, though, and that really piqued my interest,” he says. “We had heard that the Sniper 2 was an upgrade in terms of its self-tuning capabilities, but the primary motivator for me was the improvement in throttle tip-in feel. So, we got a hold of the new system a few weeks ago. The installation was super easy – Nate had that done in our driveway in no time at all. It was a very simple, straight-forward swap. And it ran better pretty much from the moment I first turned the key. We were really impressed right from the get-go, and we didn’t do anything special – we just plugged it in. Before it was kind of tough to drive the car smoothly at low speeds, but not anymore. And it was a big improvement in part-throttle response as well.”

The Trans Am was also recently treated to a full suspension makeover from Ridetech that included a new four-link setup in the rear as well as triple-adjustable coilovers at all four corners. Pobst and Amaral also recently added subframe connectors for increased structural rigidity as well as a larger master cylinder for firmer brake pedal feel.

A Smokey and the Bandit-style wrap gives the Trans Am its iconic look, while the car’s nickname – Randit – was inspired by a serendipitous compromise that Pobst had to make when selecting a personalized plate. “In the movie, the plate is ‘BAN ONE,’ but of course that was already taken because there’s a million Trans Am guys who want that plate,” he says. “But ‘RAN ONE’ was available!”

Although it turned out to be a much more ambitious project than he’d initially anticipated, Pobst says that the Randit build is starting to feel like it’s almost done. “After installing the Ridetech stuff, I took it out on track at Virginia International for three consecutive days at HyperFest, and I all I had to do was put gas in it. I’m pretty happy with how it’s running these days.”

Shop Sniper 2 EFI conversion solutions here.

Looking ahead, Pobst tells us that the Pontiac will likely be making an appearance at Trans Am Takeover in mid-October. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to be there, but I’m working to make the car a part of this super-cool event. It’s run out of the Summit Racing warehouse on the south side of Atlanta, and it’s kind of aimed at the ‘70s-era cars. This car might even end up on the turntable up front, which would be a huge honor. Usually, they use these incredible builds that have two hundred or three hundred thousand dollars invested into them, but this is a garage build that we did for a fraction of that. I had planned to do a track day with Nate that weekend, though, so I’m still trying to figure out if I’m going to bail out on that and be at the event, or if I can find a way to just get my car there.”

His racing calendar for the fall is quickly filling up too, with two Lucky Dog endurance events already on the roster as well as Targa Newfoundland rally race, the latter of which will see him piloting a modern Mini John Cooper Works GP. “I’m keeping busy, there’s lots of cool things going on,” he says. “I just feel really lucky that I get to do all this stuff!”