RIVERSIDE, California — Rob Kiemele is changing the way he goes stock car racing.
The owner of Unlimited Motorsports has been a regular competitor in the Super Late Model class at Toyota Speedway of Irwindale, Calif., and Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino, Calif., where he won a main event earlier this racing season.
What Kiemele is focused on now, however, is being a car owner. The Unlimited Motorsports garage in Riverside houses two Super Late Models, a Late Model and a Ford Pinto that can run in either the Mini-Stock or Pony Stock class. All of them are potential race winners and all of them are available to rent for a single race or a season.
Brett Edwards, who won two main events and holds the track record at Orange Show Speedway, took advantage of the opportunity to run his first race of the season last Saturday (Aug. 6) night.
Edwards qualified the Unlimited Motorsports/Cal’s Towing Chevrolet Monte Carlo fourth and finished third in the 4-lap Trophy Dash. A starter malfunction forced him to start last in the 12-car field for the main event. That proved to be fortunate, in a way, since it kept him behind a first-lap pileup that eliminated three contenders. Edwards lined up sixth for that restart and was running fourth and gaining on the leaders when a brake problem sent him to the pits for good after 18 laps. He finished eighth.
“First of all, I’ve really got to say thanks to Linny White,” Kiemele said. “I had to be out-of-state all week. Linny prepped the car and put his setup in it and he and Brett worked most of the night Friday to finish it up.
“I feel bad about the way the race ended for Brett. When he practiced he said the car wasn’t (handling) any good. For qualifying and the Trophy Dash he said it was pretty good, but still tight, so we made some drastic changes for the main event and the car was really, really good until all of a sudden the brakes went away.
“I don’t know if he could have caught the winner, but he definitely would have been in the top three if it wasn’t for that. We’ll do our best to make sure that never happens again. We try to make the cars bullet-proof. That’s pretty much impossible, but that’s our goal.”
Kiemele, who also owns Unlimited Landscaping, said in the spring he had been looking forward to running a full season as a driver, but found he wasn’t enjoying it the way he had in the past and decided “it was time to say enough is enough for right now.”
He feels the cars are too good to be allowed to just sit and gather cobwebs, though.
“The cars are all race-ready and they’re all front-runners,” Kiemele said.
“I’ve got a car for every track – Orange Show, Irwindale and Las Vegas – and I’ve got a new Spec motor for Irwindale. This is a great deal for someone who’s thinking of maybe moving up in class and wants to test the water first, or someone who needs a car for one race or a whole season, and our rates are really reasonable.
“We need about three days’ notice. Mostly it’s just a matter of fitting the driver in the car at our shop in Riverside. We prep the car and we crew it. All they have to do is arrive and drive.”
For more information on the opportunities available at Unlimited Motorsports, contact Rob Kiemele at 909-553-6130.
