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Jim Roal joined the PCA in 2004 shortly after buying his first Porsche, a 1987 944S.  About a year later he met the president of the Lincoln Trail PCA (the region where he lived at the time) and mentioned that the website was out-of-date.  On the spot the president made him the webmaster for the region.  During the time Jim was in Illinois and part of the Lincoln Trail region, he held various positions including webmaster, newsletter editor, vice president, and membership chair.  

Jim enjoys HPDE.  He drove his first HPDE with the Chicago Region PCA at Blackhawk Farms in Illinois in 2005.  He was hooked and has been attending HPDE about once a year ever since.

Jim and his wife bought a home in Las Vegas in 2020 but kept the Cayman S at their Illinois home until they sold that home in 2022 and brought the Cayman S to Las Vegas and transferred from Lincoln Trail PCA to Las Vegas Region PCA.  Jim drove the Las Vegas Region PCA HPDE at Spring Mountain last November.   

In 2014 Jim bought his second Porsche, a 2006 Cayman S, which he still owns today.  He flew from Illinois to Virginia on a one-way ticket to buy the car and drive it home.  This summer Jim bought his wife the 3rd Porsche, a 2021 Cayenne.  

Jim was a professional mechanic for 15 years at a Ford dealer in Washington State and still does most of his own maintenance, repairs, and modifications today.  He did several upgrades on the Cayman including Fabspeed headers, Koni Sport struts, and an Android stereo upgrade. Both while working at the Ford dealer, and for several years after, Jim did performance modifications on customers cars including supercharging, EFI modifications, dyno tuning, and much more.  When his mother-in-law gave Jim and his Wife her 1984 BMW 318i in 2000, Jim built a custom turbocharger system and more than doubled the car’s power.  

Jim earned a BSME degree from Washington State University in 1997 and moved to Illinois to work as an engineer for Caterpillar Inc., where he still works today. Jim is the technical leader of on-board diagnostics (OBD) and electronic service technologies for Caterpillar.

Jim also enjoys biking.  Once in Las Vegas, he began off-road electric mountain biking. He generally rides about 30 miles a weekend, mostly off-road.  

You can see more about Jim and his cars on his website at http://jimroal.com/