He Is Driven to Succeed as a Formula One Racer : Auto racing: Matthias Nikolakopulos is a successful electrical engineer, but his dream is becoming a big wheel among racing elite.

Matthias Nikolakopulos, one of the youngest electrical engineers in California, is in France this week wrestling with his future behind the wheel of a lightning-fast race car.

At 26, he has a bright career ahead of him in his father’s engineering firm.

But Matthias, as he is known to friends because his last name is too difficult for many to pronounce, wants to be a race car driver, despite pressure from his father.

“He is a top engineer,” Alex Nikolakopulos said. “He demonstrated good engineering techniques as a little boy. It would be very difficult for him to pursue (a racing career) without a great deal of distress to us.”

Matthias, who took his first ride on a minibike when he was 6, has shown promise, however, not as a good ‘ol boy Richard Petty-type, but as a classy Formula One driver. That’s why he’s back at the world famous Circuit Paul Richard race track on the French Riviera today, attempting to become only the second American ever to qualify for the championship of the Pilote Elf Series, which is run in part by the Winfield School in France.

About 250 drivers, most of them European, pass through Winfield each year. Very few, according to Car and Driver Magazine, earn certificates, as Matthias did in June, one of only five Americans in a class of 20 to do so. Certificate winners qualify for an advanced driving course. They return to France each October with the hopes of qualifying to compete in the Pilote Elf Series, driving smaller versions of Formula One-type cars. The top driver, winner of the Pilote race, receives a full year of sponsorship by Elf Petroleum, a French oil company, to race on the Formula Renault circuit, a minor league of the Formula One. Twenty-one graduates of Winfield have climbed to Formula One, the highest level of racing available in the world.

Currently no Americans are racing Formula One, but Matthias could be soon. His performance in the time trials at Winfield in June drew the attention of Car and Driver Magazine, which said: “Nikolakopulos looks to be a potential merit winner.”

Adds John Peterson of Franam Racing, Inc. of Minnesota, who arranges for Americans to compete in the Pilote Elf Series: “I’ve heard good things about his performances (at the school). “This is an elite organization, and he returns as one of the top two in his class.”

Frenchmen have dominated Pilote Elf competition, winning four of five races. In recent years, to encourage more participation by Americans, the top Yank finisher has received a racing scholarship. This year it includes a trip to a top driver seminar in Montreal and a year as a driver on the Barber Saab Pro Series of racing in the U.S. In addition, the top American could also win, but must finance himself, as the third seat in the Pilot Elf Formula Renault series.

Either way, should Matthias make it past the semifinals this weekend, Peterson said, “He has a place in racing. There is no doubt in my mind.”

Formula One is a costly sport which requires many sponsors. Formula cars are custom-built, open-wheel race cars costing as much as $50 million apiece.

But the sport can be profitable. Top drivers, often leading lives as colorful as the brightly painted road-hugging cars they drive, can earn $12 million a year.

“It’s been many years since America has fielded a competitive effort in the Grand Prix scene, and even longer since we’ve won the world championship,” Matthias said.

Mario Andretti was the last American to win a world championship 12 years ago.

Matthias would like to be next, but, according to his father, he would be better suited with a future in electrical engineering.

Responds Matthias: “I’m there. But my heart is not in it.”

It isn’t enough just to learn to drive, Matthias said. It becomes a lifestyle. Formula One sponsors want a complete person, a man who exhibits a combination of coolness and responsibility, yet flare at the right time.

“I want to stake my own claim. I want to beat the odds,” he said.

He is studying the French language and French customs. He also eats French foods and is taking Dale Carnagie classes to improve his confidence.

“At 5 years old I already knew that I wasn’t going to be one of those kids with a baseball bat on my shoulder and a ball in my hand,” he said.

Although shy, at 6 he summoned the courage to ask a teen-ager on his block in Palos Verdes Estates if he could ride the teen-ager’s minibike in the nearby fields. To his surprise, the answer was yes. Matthias was hooked.

He bought a Honda 50 c.c. minibike when he was seven, then three months later took it apart and spread the parts over the garage floor. He wanted to learn what made it work.

His mother died the following year, leaving Matthias, the youngest of five children, a lot of time to himself.

“But instead of fighting (loneliness) I made the best of it,” he said.

He graduated to motorcycles and by the time he was attending Palos Verdes High, he was racing them. He loved to fiddle with engines. At 16, he put a Buick V6 into a Dodge Ram 50 pickup.

“You can’t really change what you are,” he said. “You have to take whatever you have and make the best of what you are.”

One day before school his father discovered him awake at 2 a.m., tearing down a motorcycle in the garage. Parts were strewn everywhere.

“There’s still parts in that garage today,” Alex Nikolakopulos said.

Schoolwork was easy for Matthias, so he spent most of his time in the garage.

“I think I had four hours of sleep a night while I was in high school,” Matthias said. “Dad really got mad at me that night he found me in the garage, but after awhile he couldn’t really complain. I was getting good grades and doing what I wanted to do.”

Mechanical knowledge came easy. Said Brian Springer, a high school shop teacher: “He was a gem of a student. Very intelligent. Whenever he wanted to get something done, he finished it. There are very few students I remember, but Matthias was one of them.”

Matthias continued to race motorcycles while attending USC. He moved into go-karts after graduation and then, on a trip to Europe in 1986, discovered the Formula One circuit. He fell in love with it.

“In the U.S. racing is such a hodgepodge, there is no rhyme or reason to it because there are so many levels,” Matthias said. “In Europe, Formula One is a serious business, requiring a lot of concentration. It is exactly what I dream about.”

Matthias obtained his electrical engineer’s license two years ago. He went to work for Dad, but racing boiled in his blood. Two years ago at the Phoenix Grand Prix, he snuck into the McLaren Team pits and learned all he could.

The personalized license plate on his flashy 300ZX read “F1 Bound.”

“Everything about (racing) is so me,” Matthias said. “Other drivers complain that when they put the helmet on, they can’t hear anything going on around them. Not me. I like being isolated. It’s like I’m in a think tank.”

If Matthias doesn’t make it as a race driver, Peterson and others say he has the engineering background to design cars. Matthias thinks so, too, although his father would prefer he stay closer to home.

“I would rather have him in the office with me,” said Alex Nikolakopulos, who also employs another son. “I have watched him race when he was doing go-karts and I held my heart in my hand each time.”

“I know he worries about my safety,” Matthias said. “But he knows I have a level head on my shoulders.”

He is confident. He points to an astrological forecast for his Oct. 9 birthday. It predicts that he will “travel in October and could win (a) contest.”

During lunch at a fancy French restaurant in Redondo Beach before he left, Matthias revealed that the conflict about his future sometimes rages within him. Looking all the bit of a high-level electrical engineer with a tie knotted firmly around his collar as he ate, he said: “You have to follow your passion, your dream, even if you fail. I just want to do it, without breaking a lot of hearts along the way.”