J&M is short for Jim and Marty. Marty Bomba is my partner and co owner in this racing team. J&M has been around for over 6 years now but really didn't have the name until the beginning of the 1998 season.

Starting out in 1996, everything started out with answering a classified add for someone selling a Pure Stock car for $500. A good deal, I thought. The car was a slightly used 1972 Buick Century. In other words "a boat". But it had a motor in it and a roll cage to. Everything you will need to go racing was already in it. All it needed was a little color and a number.

The first time on the track we were the slowest car in the field. But hey, it was our first year and we started out knowing nothing at all! I mean this car was PURE STOCK! We didn't finish to well in points our first year.

At the end of the 1996 season we decided to junk the Buick and build my 1979 Cutlass into our new race car. Like, where were you going to find junk yard parts for a '72 Buick any way.

The Cutlass was a good car to me. A $500 buy and I drove it everywhere for one year and never had any problems. But since then I had bought a 1987 Ford Ranger. We had the racing bug pretty bad, and we needed to update our program. So apart came the Cutlass. We had gotten the Cutlass built on time, but we needed a motor and missed the first 2 weeks. See, the motor in the Buick turned out to be a 305. We needed a 350 to really move this car.

This was going to be our second year at Lorain County Speedway. We all felt really positive about this year.Talking to some of the front runners can really help out a second year rookie! Our first night back out there payed off big time. I won my first race ever! It was a heat race win, but damnit, I won my first trophy!

1997 was another learning year for J & M Racing, but in this business you learn something new all the time! We had a new, lighter and a faster car. It was almost like starting over. The car was competitive. I finished the year off 6th place in points. Not bad for year two. I had two heat race wins, one second place feature, and one feature win. And countless 2nd and 3rd place finishes. The awards are few, but i'm happy with them. Isn't that all that matters?

At the awards banquet for Lorain County Speedway in November of 97', all the talk among the drivers was "are you moving up next year?" Meaning, are you staying in Pure Stock, or moving to Street Stock. By the way, the Pure Stock division was lowered to a Bomber division. The name alone scared me. That to, I wanted to learn how to drive a race car, not a circle track "demo car!" That night I made up my mind. We are going from a 3/8th mile track to a 1/2 mile track in Sandusky. That track being Sandusky Speedway. At Sandusky, you get paid to race. No more $5.00 trophies for me!