It took 13 years of racing, but Justin Grim finally did it. He won his first modified feature at Grandview Speedway. That victory, though, required a leap of faith with his shock builder.
‘We kind of struggled in the heat race,” Grim, of Orefield, Pennsylvania, said. “After the heat, my shock guy, Ron Seltman, said I had to make some adjustments before the feature. He put a pretty big swing into what we were doing. I was a little nervous about making the changes, but they worked.”
Grim felt the difference right away.
“We moved a lot of load around,” said Grim. “Boy, did that change things.”
With five to go, Grim passed Ron Harring Jr. for the lead.
“I had a little doom and gloom in my mind when I took the lead,” Grim said. “I asked myself, ‘Oh no, what will happen this time?’ It’s happened to me in my many years of racing — I get close to winning and then there was a caution, cars bunched up ahead of me, [or] I made mistakes.”
Grim tried to force those negative thoughts out of his mind.
“I focused on clean laps with no mistakes,” said Grim. “I didn’t take my foot out of it for a while — until I was sure the race was done.”
Grandview Speedway’s modified field is fiercely competitive. Yes, Justin Grim could have chosen easier venues, but he elected to race regularly at the Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania, dirt oval.
“I chose to race at Grandview because it is so tough to win there,” said Grim. “No other track is more difficult to win at. Not a lot of racers win there — to win is an honor and privilege. I’d rather be in the top 10 at Grandview than win at a track with less competition.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
