WHEATLAND, Mo. — Ed Griggs’ sights are hard set on the O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars event at Lucas Oil Speedway on April 9, where he debuted a year ago.
When it comes to variety, Griggs’ resume probably stands above most other Lucas Oil Speedway drivers. Since beginning his racing career in 1993, Griggs has driven about every type of car on dirt imaginable.
“Late models, modifieds, stock cars, dwarf cars, mini sprints and micro sprints. I’ve raced all of those over the years,” Griggs said. “And this year, I’m going to race a non-winged sprint for the first time.”
Last year, the Pleasant Hill driver wound up sixth in track points at Lucas Oil Speedway with a pair of second-place feature finishes among six top-five runs. Most of the strong runs came in the final few weeks of the Big Adventure RV Weekly Racing Series season.
“It was really good,” Griggs said of his first season in the USRA Stock Cars. “I had never driven a stock car before last year so it was kind of a learning curve. We missed some shows at the beginning of year, otherwise we would have had a lot better points position. We learned a lot. The class is stepping up this year, so that’s what we plan to do also with the new car. I don’t know if we’re gonna step up enough or not, but we’ll see.”
Griggs said getting seat time led to a strong second half of 2021, where he was knocking on the door of getting his first stock car feature win.
“I could win lots of heat races and lead a lot of laps. It’s a matter of leading the final lap that was tough,” he said. “You have to figure who we’re running against with (James) McMillin, Scotty Allen and (David) Hendrix. They have hundreds of feature wins in stock cars and I don’t have that experience yet. Those cars are a blast to drive. The racing is so clean. Lucas leads to lots of multi-lane racing, where you can run the bottom, middle or the top. It makes for a lot of fun. It’s kind of a drivers’ track in a stock car. You can find a line that suits you.”
Coming from a racing family, Griggs started running micro sprint at the old Sweet Springs dirt track in 1993, then switched to modifieds and made nearby Warrensburg his home track for several years.
Griggs got involved in mod lite racing in recent years and won the Mod Lite Stars national championship in 2019. He traveled mostly alone, covering about 17,000 miles that season with a route that stretched from Florida to Arizona.
Now he’s sold the mod lite to add a non-winged sprint to his stable. He plans to race it on a semi-regular basis when he isn’t competing in the stock car division.
“My dad raced sprint cars when I was growing up and it’s always been my dream to do that,” Griggs said. “It’s really the only reason I’m doing that now at 52 years old, to do it before I get too old to do it.”
Both cars are sponsored by Josh Crump, with Crump Construction and True Grit Excavating & Concrete.
“I think we’re gonna have as good a car as there is out there, so hopefully we can provide some value with a good car and some up-front running,” he said. “To be able to be on TV (MAVTV Motorsports Network and MAVTV Plus) at Lucas Oil is awesome. It’s something most tracks don’t have.”