Sportsman driver Kenny Gilmore didn’t bother with new rubber on Saturday. That strategy paid off with a feature win at Grandview Speedway.
“I used junk tires on the car,” said Gilmore, of Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. “The left rear should have been thrown away weeks ago — there was just enough rubber to hold the air inside of it. The right rear had two features and one heat race on it. The left front has an entire season on it, and the right front had six weeks of racing.”
Don’t mistake Gilmore’s plan to use old tires as him just being cheap. He figured that for the 50-lap feature, the track would rubber up, minimizing the advantage new rubber would have. Gilmore might know a thing or two about racing at Grandview. He’s the 2021 track champion there.
However, now 60, Gilmore sees his future in question in racing. Known for his witty sayings on his car, he placed a new sign on his car: “For Sale.”
(For more on his sayings, read “Kenny Gilmore: Words of Race-Winning Wisdom.”)
“I’m getting close to retirement,” Gilmore said of his job at the water treatment plant in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. “I won’t be able to afford racing any longer. It’s not that I don’t want to race — I’d gladly drive for someone else — but if I was an owner, would I want to put a 60-year-old behind the wheel of my car?”
Gilmore collected $600 for the win and a $200 bonus for having a TP Trailers decal on his car. What will Gilmore do with the $800 he won?
“Most likely buy tires, I guess,” said Gilmore.
The win for Kenny Gilmore drew a lot of attention to his For Sale sign. He said he received offers for the car he’s asking $12,000 for.
“If I knew a For Sale sign was would it take for me to win, I would have put it on my car eight weeks ago,” Gilmore said. “I’m glad I won another feature — this may very well be my last year of racing. It’s hard to win at Grandview Speedway—one more win is a great personal accomplishment.”
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.
