Gentlemen, start your engines: Alumnus Scott Grace begins his 27 year racing

 Scott Grace started racing go karts in 1982 at the age of 13. After 10 years of racing go karts, he moved into the Super Sportsman’s Division at Silver Spring Speedway in 1993. In 2002, he began racing ”big sprints” at Lincoln Speedway. As a result of a few traumatic accidents, he only lasted 2 years. In 2004, Grace came back to the Super Sportsman’s and has been racing them ever since.

      Grace says he began racing after being influenced by his father’s love of the sport, which was contagious. “My father had taken me up to Sandyhook, just to watch,” he says. His parents used to go to Lincoln (a race car track in Hanover, Pennsylvania) when they were dating.

      Because of his uncle, Grace purchased a Super Sportsman rather than any other type of car. His uncle won tons of races on Pennsylvania dirt tracks and was a legend at Silver Spring. He says the cars seemed like something he could afford. “They were a little slower than a big sprint and looked like they could take more damage for a person that was just getting into it,” Grace shared. 

 The driver owned a fleet of these different types of cars that all look basically the same. “I think one of the cool things is that we had one car that was nice enough to take to a car show. It was basically brand new. A few weeks later it was so wrecked we took the whole car to the dump,” Grace said. The only thing that survived was the engine and the steering wheel.

     Because of his accidents, Grace has suffered multiple concussions, problems with his vision, broken vertebrae in his back (T2, 3, and 4). Most all his injuries were with a 410-sprint car.  

        Grace says his accidents with a sportsman are never really anything terrible. “I’ve been in hundreds of accidents but thankfully only one trip in the ambulance.”

     All through his racing career, his father was his biggest supporter. I think he just missed two races the entire time we went. They ventured to every part of the east coast to race go karts Grace says. “We were both terribly poor sports,” states Grace. He continues, “if you don’t mind losing, you’re not passionate enough about it.”

     According to Grace, racing always came first, even before the money or the house. He says every bit of his money went to racing. “I was lucky my wife paid off all the bills because I spent all my money on racing,” the driver said. 

     Over the years, Grace says he’s spent way more than a million dollars on his car. According to Grace, it’s like a full-time job, owning this car and maintaining it to be able to have it good enough to be competitive. When he was a kid, he thought that he would never have to work a real job. “I thought I would just be a race car driver from the time i was a kid on. I was so good at it and I won all the time,” he says. He won the US Eastern Grand Prix of karting back to back years, so he thought he would just move up the ladder of racing, but “it just didn’t work out that way.” 

     Grace continues, “Nascar was my dream when I was a kid. Although you have to have a lot of connections for that to happen. Some of my friends I’ve raced with have made it to NASCAR. They have become professional race car drivers.”

     The races that take place in Pennsylvania are clay oval tracks. They range anywhere from 3/8ths to a half a mile in length. It mostly starts 24 cars in the feature. During the real competitive years, there were around 60 cars vying for those 24 spots, according to Grace. 

     “I think the biggest thing is that I love it just as much as I did then. It’s still the highlight. There’s nothing better than leaving here on a Saturday with your car on the back of the trailer going to the races,” Grace states. He says racing is an addiction. He says it’s very hard to give up, though he’s old. Grace will be returning to BAPS Motor Speedway for another racing season this spring.