K&N's Brenda Grubbs Motorsports Strong Out of the Gate in 2011 with Stock Class Camaro
- 25 Feb 2011
"This is a team," she said. "When my husband Bill and I started this, he was the one who pushed me to get into racing. At the time, I did not want to. Because unless the wife is involved, she either doesn't go [to the events] or she goes and sits and I really had no interest in that. He just kept after me and after me to get a car and I said, well what if I drive? He said OK and I thought to myself, yeah how long is that going to last." More than a decade later, in the same 1969 Camaro they started with, it's still going strong. 2011 will find Brenda and Bill once again chasing points in Stock across NHRA Division 2 and a good handful of NHRA National events. "We are primarily running NHRA events this year and filling in with IHRA where we can," said the award winning Account Manager for General Mills. "We started off the season with the IHRA event in West Palm [Florida] and couldn't make it to Immokalee because my husband is a Delta pilot and cannot take off more than two weekends a month. So we really have to pick and choose what races we go to. And believe it or not, since Immokalee was on Super Bowl weekend, we couldn't go because Super Bowl weekend is the most requested off of the year for Delta pilots." "Plus with us starting off at West Palm, then by not being in Immokalee that gave us a weekend off before the back to back events in Bradenton and Gainesville," she added. With Bill tuning the car and Brenda driving, they took their 1969 C/SA Camaro right to the number one qualifying spot at their season opener, where Brenda made it to six cars in Stock Eliminator during the IHRA Palm Beach Nitro Jam. They were back into action for their first scheduled NHRA Division 2 event at Bradenton Motorsports Park, where Brenda quickly put their entry right at the top of the heap, only to be knocked down a few notches during the final qualifying session. Again the team put together another strong showing with quite a few round wins before narrowly missing a bye into the final, when Brenda found herself on the wrong side of a double breakout in the quarterfinals. While Brenda and Bill continue to compete with their Camaro in Stock Eliminator, they are pretty excited about the new project car they are putting together at home. "It's also a 1969 Camaro and it will be a 427," smiled Brenda. "It will more than likely run in SS/DA. We did buy it as a roller, but Bill wants to make some significant updates and he's very big into safety, so there are a lot of safety related updates that we are going to make. We are hoping that we will debut the car this time next year. There is no pressure to get it done, but with the way my husband is, I'm sure it will be ready by then." Once the new edition to the Grubbs stable is complete, Brenda will drive both cars. Just like the 1969 Camaro that Brenda and Bill have won numerous championships with, the new 1969 Super Stock Camaro will be fully equipped with K&N Engineering products. "We only use high quality products," she noted. "We have been using both the K&N air filter and oil filter on our car and will being doing so as well for the new car." The month of March will be a very busy one for the husband and wide duo with three scheduled NHRA events starting with a NHRA Division event in Valdosta, Georgia before moving on to the GatorNationals in Gainesville, Florida and wrapping up the month at the NHRA Cajun SportsNationals in Belle Rose, Louisiana. Brenda looks forward to another season on the trail right alongside her husband Bill, doing what they love to do together. "It's so awesome to have a passion that we both share," she pointed out. "It's not like so many other couples where the husband is out golfing on the weekend and the wife goes shopping or whatever. This is something that we share and we share it off the track, too. I mean we are always talking about it, thinking, planning and so forth. We have a great collaboration when it comes to who handles what for the team." Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world. |
