Updates from Darin Grimsley

October Happenings

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:02:21 GMT

We normally take October off after a hard season of racing, but not this year. We got a lot of stuff going on this month, unfornately none of its racing! We have sold Shane's Nova Hobby stock. We have cleaned out the storage area for the racing stuff, man we've got too much crap! Gonna need a racecar yardsale, LOL. Shop is being cleaned out as we speak. We are going to be adding a coal/wood stove to the shop this month also. That's gonna make winter a lot more tolerable this year. Next thing up are pulling the motor out of the IMCA Stock Car to replace the flex plate and starter. Also, we are gonna replace the stock firewall to bring the Stock Car more in line with what IMCA allows.

We have the Thunder Mountain Speedway awards banquet coming up this month. Should be a lot of fun and we'll be bringing home the hardware!

That's it for now. Stay tuned. I'll be adding new blogs, pics, updates, etc.

Sept-End of Season Wrap Up

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:53:21 GMT

What can I say, guys? 2008 was a helluva season. We accomplished more than we dreamed of doing. We did set out to be Thunder Mountain Speedway (Olathe CO) and Colorado State 2008 IMCA Stock Car Champion...and so we are. But what we never would have thought of was the kind of season we had. Despite two hellacious wrecks our season stats are phenominal. Out of eighteen starts we had eighteen top-five finishes, eight feature wins, five heat race wins, four trophy dash wins...outstanding if I do say so myself. I owe it all to my wife, Linda; my mom, Yvonne; and my best buddy/employer/crew chief Todd. Linda and Yvonne for their unflagging support during my quest for a second track title and first State title, and Todd not only for his dedication, but also the fact that he put a fantastic set-up under me every week. Sponsors need thanking, too. Kwiki Tires, Brenda's Bookkeeping, Martin Housepainting, Mylar's Auto Refinishing, Muffler Craft, Lady and Bug Graphics. Thanks to all.

As of right now, we have no plans for any "post" season racing. If that changes you all will be the second to know. For next season I'll be cutting back on the race schedule. After eight years of not missing a race unless the car was broken or I was sick, I'm getting a little tired of the weekly grind, and know my wife is tired of it, too. So for the sake of everyone's mental health (LOL) we are going reduce the number of races we run next year. I will still be racing at Thunder Mountain Speedway, but would also like to hit some of the tracks in our region. Most likely we will hit TMS, Farigrounds Speedway in Cortez, maybe Aztec Speedway in Aztec, NM, Hayden Speedway in Hayden, I-76 in Ft. Morgan and quite possibly the Duel in the Desert in Las Vegas. Its all tentative right now.

Until the next blog post...race hard, have fun and keep the rubber side down!

August '08

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:24:48 GMT

August...This past month we were very consistant. Got another couple of feature wins at
Thunder Mountain Speedway with no finish lower than 3rd. We had a really bad scare a
couple of weeks ago when the car in front me in a heat race checked up hard coming off
of turn four. All seven of us in the heat were tightly bunched up. I climbed the other guy's
left rear, right side of my car got launched far enough in the air that I thought I was gonna
go for a barrell roll, got tagged by another car and got sent nose into the front stretch wall.
I ended up with a slight case of whiplash and a bruised left foot and ankle. The got both
front fenders, left inner and outer tierods, center link, nose, two wheels and a tire.
Oh yeah....and the frame got bent...again. So we thrashed on "The Bride" and got her
back together as best we could....and went out and won the feature! We raced at
Fairgrounds Speedway in Cortez, CO on August 29 and 30. Won the heat on the 29th,
finished second the feature. Saturday, the 30th, we ran second in the heat and third in
the feature. Good enough to lock up Colorado State IMCA Stock Car points Championship.

Digging up new tunes for my next "theme" music pla...

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:46:33 GMT

Digging up new tunes for my next "theme" music player

July Update

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:42:52 GMT

Wow, what a month! Three feature wins and a Second. Two Trophy Dash wins. That gives us six feature wins this year so far, four out of five and six out of eight. Sweetest night of the month, hell, sweetest night of the year was July 5th. Shane, my son, and I both won our Trophy Dashes. I won the IMCA Stock Car feature and Shane took Second in his Hobby Stock Feature...after a dramatic last-lap-high-side-in-the-marbles-hail-mary pass that took him from Fourth to Second in turn one. what made that night so very special was July 5th was was the 1st Annual Rocky Grimsley Memorial race in honor of my late father. See ya at the races!!

June Update (barely!)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:11:11 GMT

June has been a really good month for us. I have won three out of the last four features and two heat wins. June 14th win was kinda cool. It was dress day at Thunder Mountain Speedway in Olathe, CO. Bonus money was paid out to drivers that finished first, second or third that were wearing a dress under their firesuit! I earned an extra 100 clams for wearing a cheerleader uniform! Had fun with it, the crowd loved the whole Dress Day thing, and of course the announcer made me do a cheer. June also saw me take the points lead at TMS, barely, by one skinny point.

Next up for us is the Rocky Grimsley Memorial at Thunder Mountain Speedway. IMCA Stock Cars are running for extra purse money. Possibly might go to Cortez, CO., in July to try to get some state points, but definitely going to Cortez in August.

See ya at the RACES!

May Update

Tue, 27 May 2008 10:03:05 GMT

May has been one up and down month so far. Things have gone either really really right or really really wrong. In the IMCA Stock Car I have two feature wins and a heat win this month, but I have also been wrecked by the same loose cannon that manages to wreck everyone at least once a year. I guess every track has one of those, though. He gave me slide job coming off of turn four and put me in the front stretch wall. I still mamged to limp home in third. Damage was: bent frame, rf upper control arm, inner and outer lf tierods, three wheels, one tire, broken motor mount, both front fenders, hood and nose piece, lr upper shock mount and both front fender mounts. Sheesh.

The hobby stock with my 17 year old boy driving has had a great run this month. Only thing gone wrong (besides a pretty good sized engine fire in the shop, LOL) was a tranny that lost 1st, 2nd and reverse gears. Both times he has raced this month he has started in the back of a 15 car field and has finished 3rd and 4th respectively. Not too darn bad for 15 lap features. Man, that kid impresses the hell out of me, he can work traffic like no one else in that class at Thunder Mountain Speedway.

We are gonna try to make it to Cortez, CO for their IMCA Stock Car race next month. Its been a few years for me since we've raced there last, but I have always liked that track very much and have always run well there. Something about that track suits my driving style to a "T". We will probably go to Cortez again in July and August.

See ya at the races!

Update for April-First Win of the Season!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:06:38 GMT

Here we go for April- First off we opted not to go to Test-n-Tune at Thunder Mountain Speedway. I had a feeling the track would fall apart and we wouldn't learn anything, only get our equipment abused....an I was right, the track did fall apart. What we call "dirt" around here isn't really dirt; it's adobe. If you've seen it or raced on it you know what a pain it is to get prepped for racing. Very low organic content and enough alkali to reject water. My IMCA Stock Car was ready except for paint, so instead of test-n-tune we painted. The first "race" was April 12th, actually a practice race; no points, no money. Just as well no points, no money since the track fell apart again and features were cancelled since the track dusted up really bad and the water truck broke down. I started outsice front row for my heat and a heck of a battle for the lead with #47 Ed Brown ensued. After six laps of working him I finall took the lead for good. A heat race win under my belt is a good way to start the season.

Shane's new hobby stock is giving us fits. I thought I looked it over really good before we bought it , but the more I work on it and look it over themore I find things I don't like and have to fix or change it. Typical racecar situation: fix one thing and two more things rear their ugly freakin' heads. We should have hix car ready for this weekend. I'm anxious to see what the kid can do in a better car than he's ever raced.

March Update (And I'm Finally Ready to Talk About ...

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:17:51 GMT

So here we are about one month away from the start of Thunder Mountain Speedway's 2008 season. I've been busy rebuilding the front hoop on the IMCA Stock Car, which got moved to the left by about 3" at the IMCA Supernationals. Front hoop is rebuilt, I just gotta weld on the fender hangers, hang the fenders and doorskins and voila! Then I can get started on Shane's new metric Hobby Stock, which should't take much since I bought it as a roller.

Needless to say, we won't be going back to Boone for the Supernationals. After towing 17 hours to get there, after having a transfer spot all three qualifying days only to get taken out, after spending in excess of $650 in repairs, I'm not a happy camper about Boone. Total damage in three days: 1 front hoop, 2 front fenders, 1 nose piece, 3 shocks, 2 wheels, 1 tire, 2 outer tire rods, 1 inner tie rod and adjustment sleeve, 1 starter and 1 upper A-arm. Sheesh. All this after the daily pit meeting in which the pit steward got up and said that smoking cars, leaking fluids, dangling parts and questionable driving will result in a black flag. With 168 I-Stocks there, 3 days of racing, 46 heat races, 12 B-Mains and 6 A-mains....not a single black flag was thrown! The flagman couldn' have found the BF to save his life. There were plenty of smoking cars, leaking fluids, dangling parts and lots of questionable driving. So, of course, after the IMCA Hobbys and Stocks complained about the flagging, the flagman went the other way with the mods and threw the BF if a driver so much as looked at him cross-eyed. But it wasn't all bad. We got to visit with friends we haven't seen in about 4 years, made some new friends, met some great people, travelled to an area that none us had been to before and I proved to myself that I wasn't just a "local hero"; that I could and did run with the best in the nation.

That's it for now. See ya at the races!

2008 Montrose Home, Garden and Sports Expo

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:49:23 GMT

February 15 and 16 GrimsleyRacing had our IMCA Stock Car on display at the Montrose Home, Garden and Sports Expo in the Thunder Mountain Speedway "booth". What a great show! Its amazing how many people I talked to had no idea there was a racetrack within ten miles of home, despite the radio, TV and print advertising, shows, expos and parades our track participates in. Talked to a lot of people, made some new friends. We handed out over 500 flyers, gave away over 200 free general admission passes. I had to scramble to get the I-Stock ready for the expo. The starter busted on it the last day of racing last year. Replacing the starter on a stock frame metric car with 1 3/4" headers pretty much means pulling the motor just to get to the starter. Dave Haus (owns a 1200cc Lightning Sprint) and I got the call on Tuesday asking if we would put our cars on display. All Dave had to do was wash last season's mud off his mini sprint and his car looked great. Me, I had to scramble to get the starter swapped out and didn't have time to pound out any dents or freshen the paint before the show. Oh well, at least no one asked where the demo derby was! It was all well worth it. Awesome exposure for Thunder Mountain Speedway and great exposure for my sponsors including, Muffler Craft, Kwiki Tire, Brenda's Bookkeeping and Tiffany Trucking. Might have landed another sponsor due to exposure at the show. I'll let you know how that turns out. See ya at the races!

Chasing Points in '08

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:33:14 GMT

Man, oh man. I am actually excited about this upcoming season, for the first time in a while. This season we are gonna chase points! I haven't seriously chased points since 2004. We did go for points in '03 and won the Thunder Mountain Speedway IMCA track points. Chased track points in '04 and missed it by one skinny point. One point. One. What a heartbreaker. But this year we are going for it, with a twist, we are also gonaa go for IMCA Colorado State Championship also. I have finished Second in state three times! Always the bridesmaid, never the...*ahem*...bride. Chasing points is nervewracking and time consuming, You gotta change your driving style because you are racing for points. You can't take any unnecessary chances to take the big W. With Cortez, CO back in action and IMCA sanctioned, that is where we will go several times this year to try rack up enough points for elusive State Championship. This will probably eat up our travel budget, which kinda sucks because I do like to catch a big out of town post IMCA season race somewhere. We have gone to Las Vegas NV in '03 and '04, Pahrump NV in '05 and the IMCA Supernationals in '07. If our budget allows it, I am considering going to Abilene TX for "the Shootout" in October (or is it November?). What this means to potential and existing sponsors is added exposure in different markets.

We have gotten a new car for my son, Shane, to drive for this season. He has been racing a Nova for two seasons, but we feel it is time to put him in a metric car, which has more adjustibility. 2008 may be Shane's last serious racing season. After this summer he is moving to his mom's in California to finish out high school. I hope he decides to return here to Colorado. Linda and I will miss him greatly. This kid's got some mad skills as a race car driver. If he comes back here after high school I'd like to see him move up to IMCA Stock Cars then on to IMCA Mods. I guess we will have to see where his life takes him.

2007 Overview

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:40:56 GMT

2007---Man, what can I say? We had some crummy luck. Ran really well, just don't have the results to show for it. It was a really rough year for us. But we did manage to get four Trophy Dash wins, a couple of Heat race wins and a Feature win. At least I have kept my feature win streak going with at least one feature win each year for the last six years. Let's see here...what else? Finished Sixth in track points at my home track, Thunder Mountain Speedway, tmspeedway.com in Olathe CO, and Sixth in IMCA Colorado State Points. September we took our IMCA Stock Car to the IMCA Supernationals in Boone IA. Once again we ran really well, just don't have the results to show for it. I mean, we were able to run with the best in the country, had "A" main qualitfying positions and either broke something or got stuffed. Aaarrrggh! Damn the luck! The Supers was a good time, regardless. We hooked up with friends we hadn't seen in, like, four years and made some new friends (Hey, Mr. Chris Webb, 'sup man?) and met some really great people. Despite, the crummy luck in 2007, I am really looking forward to the 2008 season. I will be back in our IMCA Stock Car. We will have new look, getting tired of the yellow/royal blue look. 2008 you will see my stock car in day-glo orange, white and Pepsi blue.