Automobiles have truly amazed me from the time I was old enough to be propped up in the seat of my Dad's 48 Nash.  By the time I was 5 or 6 I could actually name the make of most of the cars we would pass on the road.  I started racing in the early 70's, the need for speed, as they say, was in my blood.  I started at the old Pikes Peak Speedway, east of Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1971, when high school pal Ray Daniels and I built our first race car together.  A local racer, Max Geddes (#38) traded Ray a rough old 55 Ford and as they say the rest is history.  Uncle Sam put a short stop to racing, but after I got out I started building and driving my own late model race cars, racing mostly in southern Colorado.  The expense of the sport of late model stock car racing soon out ran, what at the time was my meager budget and I quit driving in the late 80's.  I continued to built race cars with and for two of Colorado's racing legends, Ray Daniels and Mike Bonicelli, which kept my racing passion alive. 

   During those early years I've raced at most of the major tracks in Colorado.  At one time or another I have also raced late models at many of the major short tracks in the mid-west and western United States. 

    We made our return to racing with the CARC, debuting during the 2011 season.  Unfortunately race motor woes pretty much made that entire season a no show for the 44x mod coupe. I came to the CARC not as a racing rookie, but with no mod coupe experience and late models and modified coupes are worlds apart, from a driving perspective. I have to say sitting over  the drive shaft in a race car is a WHOLE new experience for me, but we're slowly figuring it out!  We had a much better season in 2012, earning our first CARC main event win at I-25 Speedway, we also won CARC 2012 most improved driver, CARC 2012 best appearing car and 3rd in the overall 2012 seasonal CARC points.  We are very pleased with our 2012 results! 

    I've also built cars for the Pike's Peak Hill Climb.  I LOVE going fast, no matter what the format might be! Our current modified coupe is a Wilson Chassis Works independent suspension chassis sporting an original  '32 Chevy steel body, a 362 cu. in. Chevy small block race motor. 

    We are currently in the process of building a completely new car for the 2013 CARC season and can't wait to get it to the track.  The car is a new design Wilson chassis, a 32 Ford coupe fiberglass body and a new race motor that we are very excited about after we saw the dyno numbers!!

   AJ Foyt is my racing hero, because AJ could do it all, in whatever he climbed into, very few racers can make that claim, at least not at the level that AJ did it!  Tony Steward might be getting close. My favorite racing memory is actually being at the racetrack and watching Dale Earnhardt Sr finally win his first and only Daytona 500.

   We chose our current CARC car number because team management (Janie, my wife) preferred it and our former car numbers (511 & 88) were not available.  The X in 44x is a carry over from the old days when the cars coming from southern Colorado were often asked to put an X after their car number when we would come to the big city (Denver) to race.

   Janie and I are partners in the current 44x mod coupe with our long time friend, avid car enthusiast and former racer Michael Simmons who lives in Punta Gorda, Fl., forming Simmons & Wood Race Cars.  Michael has a couple of garages full of the coolest cars you can imagine and he and I get together once a year, in Florida, to work on and play with his toys, for a gear-head it doesn't get any better!  Janie is my major crew and biggest supporter, digging right into all activities at the race track. Our other crew members include Carl Woods, Ray Daniels and Dennis Gordon, at various times throughout the year.

   We sponsor ourselves through LTS Performance Motorsports and Simmons & Wood Race Cars.  I recently retired so the racing now keeps me busy and out of Janie's hair.  Janie and I live in Centennial, CO, south of Denver.  We have three grown children Tim, Alisa and Jenna and three grand children, Zach, Kaleb and Shaun. 

   We would love to have you come out to the track and visit us in the pits or chat with us on this website via our "Contact Us" link.  We look forward to seeing or hearing from you soon!

Thanks, Mike