If Jim Chisholm rolls into your track with just his 2014 Ford F-350 and a 30-foot enclosed trailer, do not underestimate him. This year he won more than $170,000, a total that includes his national USMTS championship. He proudly said he’s a protégé of nine-time USMTS champion Kelly Shryock. Shryock sees a lot of himself in Chisholm.
“The Chisholms are by no means rich,” said Shryock. “They travel with a suitcase and stay in cheap hotel rooms — the way I did it back in the beginning. Winning the USMTS championship is incredibly difficult. There is lots of talent and money to race against.”
Chisholm traveled the USMTS circuit with his girlfriend, Kylie Stafford, and her brother, Kale, who serve as crew chiefs. Crew member Brian Grimm tags along with Chisholm in the hauler while Rich McDonald travels on his own. His father, Monte; mother, Lezlie; and brother Joe help in the shop. With that team, he earned eight wins and led 236 laps in 32 USMTS events. Remarkably, this was just Chisholm’s second season in USMTS.
“Jim has unbelievable raw talent,” Shryock said. “He wasn’t brought up in racing. He and his brother came out to race with no experience — just the full support of their dad, Monte.”
Chisholm’s younger broke, Joe “Smoke” Chisholm, works for Shryock and finished second in USRA national modified points. Chisholm first met Shryock in 2010.
“Kelly was the guest driver once when I was racing in a Slingshot, at age seven,” said Chisholm, of Osage, Iowa. “That was the first time I ever met him. We became friends. When we bought our first full-size car, it was a used Skyrocket, so we took it to Kelly and bounced ideas off of him.”
Chisholm won three national USRA modified titles before moving into USMTS in 2023. While he has used Skyrocket Chassis for years, Chisholm makes his own tweaks to his mentor’s chassis. A Skyrocket chassis with Chisholm’s personal touches is available through his company, Balanced Speed.
“When you are out on the road in USMTS, everyone has good equipment,” Chisholm said. “It doesn’t matter what the brands are — they are all super comparable. Our stuff shows its strength the drier that the track gets.”
Racing this season with Chisholm, Shryock made some observations.
“Jim makes the right decisions and choices on the racetrack,” Shryock said. “He preserves his equipment early in the race and he comes on all of a sudden at the end. It’s nice to see hard work and talent win races.”
Jim Chisholm is preparing for another season in USMTS.
“This season, we never made winning the championship our priority,” said Chisholm. “We went to a track to win, and nothing else mattered. It wasn’t until late in the season — with three or four races to go — that we realized we had a shot at the championship.
“Will we go for the championship next year? All I can say is that we will go to every race with the same mentality as we did last year — to win.”
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.
