Daytona Beach, Florida - All Andy Greene wanted to do as a 12-year-old boy in Scotland in the early 1970s was sell enough magazines to afford the bus fare to a speedway motorcycle track outside of his native Glasgow, watching his brave heroes slide their brakeless bikes around the track.

Little did he know that would be his gateway into becoming one of the most respected and accomplished mechanics and team administrators in North American open-wheel and sports car racing.

Greene, 53, is the team manager for Alegra/Porsche Centre Oakville Motorsports, the largest team in the Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin. The team, with dual bases in Tampa, Florida, and suburban Toronto, fields five cars in the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA)-sanctioned Single-Make Series.

"If you can't enjoy going to your work, then don't go to your work," the amiable Greene said with his distinctive brogue. "But I've never had that problem. It's all good."

So is the team he manages.

Daniel Morad is second in the Platinum Cup points entering the season-ending Rounds 9 and 10 on Aug. 28-30 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Tim Sanderson is second in the Platinum Masters standings, with Keith Bass third. Michael de Quesada is second in the Gold Cup standings, and team owner Carlos De Quesada and Chuck Harris have combined to earn six podium finishes this season in Platinum Masters.

"I've only ever run four cars with my own team back in the Firehawk days, but five cars, I thought it was going to be a struggle," Greene said. "But it has worked out to our advantage because we have a lot of cars.

"Porsche does a great job on how they build these cars. It's a world series. Like everything else, the German cars are always well built. If you can't beat them, you join them. That's my motto. So I ended up joining them. It's great Carlos is passionate about the Porsche brand. We try to strive to do the best out there with the best we have."

Greene has followed that philosophy for his entire career in motorsports, which started before his teens.

He quickly progressed from visiting the speedway motorcycle track outside of Glasgow to cleaning the bikes for riders at age 12. Greene's passion for speed machines was ignited.

Greene bought a street motorcycle and wanted to work as a motorcycle mechanic but couldn't find work. But there were jobs available as an auto mechanic, so he switched to cars.

One day Greene was riding a double-decker bus to his job as an apprentice mechanic for a car rental company in Glasgow when he recognized an old Mini Cooper car in the corner of a firm's yard. Greene was familiar with the car gathering dust, as he saw it while walking past the yard as a boy.

Greene learned the son of the company's owner - a former racer - wanted to go racing. So Greene, a few other young men and the owner's son, Craig Conway, pulled out the father's old Ford Escort MK1 and restored it into racing shape in 1979.

The lads brought the car to local track Knockhill to race. But there was one problem.

"As time went by and the car hadn't run since 1973, the rules had changed," Greene said. "So when we got it together and got it running, we went and showed up, and unknown to us we didn't realize there was a rule book you had to go by. So they sent us home because we had plastic windows. Being from Glasgow, they called us the Glasgow Hooligans."

The "hooligan" crew returned to Glasgow and made the Escort MK1 - which they affectionately called "The Bomb" - conform with the rule book. Greene was turning wrenches and sometimes driving the car, including in rallies called "stubble tests" on area farmers' fields.

Greene, Conway and their friends finished runner-up in the Scottish club championship that season. They missed the title only because they disdained the rule that required club members to serve as corner workers, scrutineers and in other race organization duties, with a reward of extra points in the championship.

"We didn't do that the first year because we thought we were above everybody else," Greene said. "It was a learning curve the first year."

The next year, Greene and his friends followed the rules and dominated, winning the Scottish club championship with Conway behind the wheel.

Away from racing, Greene opened his own garage in 1981 and worked on street cars and rally cars. But the street car business picked up, and Greene no longer could work on Conway's race cars, instead training some of his employees in that task.

Within a few years, Conway and some friends moved to Florida and bought a car dealership near Gainesville. They invited Greene there for vacation in 1990, and he decided to move to the Sunshine State.

The "hooligans" were reunited, and they decided to go club racing with Greene running the race team. Just like old times in Glasgow.

Then the team stepped up to showroom stock road racing for the next three seasons and became a very successful independent outfit. That attracted the attention of manufacturers and pro teams, with Conway hired as a driver by Mazda and Greene hired to serve as a crew chief with a Pontiac team.

Greene then moved into open-wheel racing in 1998, working in Indy Lights with Conquest Racing. He then progressed to Champ Car, working as a mechanic, crew chief and team manager for nearly a decade with such teams as Della Penna Motorsports, Fernandez Racing and Dale Coyne Racing. He then worked with Formula Atlantic team Pacific Coast Motorsports, returning to his roots with young drivers.

Then Greene decided to move back to Florida, continuing to hone young drivers with F2000 open-wheel teams. One day he received a call from Scottish driver Ryan Dalziel, who told him Alegra Motorsports team owner Carlos de Quesada was interested in building a GRAND-AM Daytona Prototype program for the 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona, with his driver lineup including AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson.

Once that program was established, Greene and de Quesada heeded advice from three Canadian friends - drivers L.P. and J.F. Dumoulin and Fiorano Racing owner Gianni Panico - to buy Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars and enter the Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin series, which was entering its second season in 2012.

"It worked out because it was good to do from May to September," Greene said of the Canadian series. "It allowed the gentleman drivers who have businesses to run to have the least amount of time off than doing a full season."

Carlos de Quesada earned five podium finishes in the team's first season in Canada, in 2012. Then de Quesada won the Gold Cup championship in 2013, and a team powerhouse was born in the series.

"It's back to the roots," Greene said. "It takes a year to learn the car; it takes a year to learn the track and all the people around it, and then the second year you go for the championship. That's basically what we've done."

Alegra continued to grow in 2014, fielding more cars and winning the Gold Cup championship with Sanderson. Its five-car lineup in 2015 features an intriguing mix of young chargers in Morad and Michael de Quesada and savvy veterans in Sanderson, Bass, Harris and Carlos de Quesada.

Greene enjoys the balance of aspiring young professional drivers and gentleman drivers that has been a hallmark at Alegra/Porsche Centre Oakville Motorsports the past few seasons.

"It goes back to I like young talent, and I like the gentleman drivers because I feel the young guys can learn racecraft from the older guys because they're tough to beat," Greene said. "And this series up in Canada, I think is more competitive with the younger guys running up front. There's not much give up there. You're on it constantly."

For more information about Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin, visit www.imsa.com, follow hashtag #GT3CAN @IMSA on Twitter or IMSA on Facebook.

Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin

The Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin enters its fifth season in 2015 ready to produce more intense, exciting competition for semi-professional and aspiring professional drivers in the world's most produced and iconic race car, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA)-sanctioned championship is one of 20 global Porsche single-make Cup Racing series and is the perfect platform for aspiring drivers to ascend to the highest levels of GT competition, such as the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

Racing is divided into two classes - Platinum Cup, featuring the 2014 and 2015 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, which is based on the seventh, and current, generation of the street car; and Gold Cup, which is comprised of the previous iteration (model years 2010-2013) of the race car. A Masters Championship also is conducted in the Platinum class. Each class is awarded with its own podium at the end of every race and individual champion at the end of every season. Points are awarded by finish in class.

ABOUT IMSA

The International Motor Sports Association, LLC (IMSA) was originally founded in 1969 with a long and rich history in sports car racing. Today, IMSA is the sanctioning body of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, the premier sports car racing series in North America. IMSA also sanctions the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge and the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, as well as four single-make series: Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama; Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin; Ferrari Challenge North America; and Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America. IMSA - a company within the NASCAR Holdings group - is the exclusive strategic partner in North America with the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which operates the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a part of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The partnership enables selected TUDOR Championship competitors to earn automatic entries into the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans.