From 1971 Chevelle to 2019 Camaro, Sterling’s Kramer loves to drive fast
MORRISON» NHRA pro stock driver Deric Kramer is defined by a 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, a car he rebuilt at age 15 in 2000 so he could drive it to Sterling High School once he obtained his license.
The muscle car was owned by his father, Dave Kramer, who drove it while attending a Minnesota high school in the 1970s. Dave sold it as a senior in college to pay for tuition but bought it back when he began his first professional job and was transferred to Sterling.
He wanted to pass the car on to his son.
“I started to make some money, and I wanted it back,” the elder Kramer said. “So I started tracking it and I found it — it went through two guys after I sold it and it got to the third guy and he was going to sell it because the rear end was out of it and it was smoking. So I bought it back and put a rear end back in it, and when Deric turned 15, we completely went through it.”
The father and his son needed to rebuild the engine. But the deal was, Dave would order the parts and Deric would be the mechanic while Dave ran the family business — operating two northeastern Colorado ethanol plants and one in Nebraska.
“I made him do the whole thing himself,” said Dave Kramer, who operates ethanol plans in Sterling, Yuma and Bridgeport, Neb. “He did it all.”
That ’71 Chevelle became a fixture at Sterling High’s parking lot and — while Deric said he never raced it at a drag strip — it became his first race car. He became a racer, and 17 years later the Colwill orado native has become a hotshot in pro stock — thanks to the financial backing from American Ethanol.
Kramer, who was second fastest among 17 entries after Friday’s qualifying sessions of the 40th Mile-high Nationals at Bandimere Speedway, owns his American Ethanol Camaro, and his father serves as the team’s general manager. The family business and American Ethanol are an ideal marriage for two parties interested in the same thing, and the drag racing part of it has taken off.
Kramer, 34, qualified No. 1 at the previous race in New Hampshire and won the race before that at Chicago. He has been racing pro stock since 2012, but all three of his career wins have come since the start of the 2018 season — since the team aborted its engine-building program and began leasing motors from high-powered KB Racing.
KR Racing drivers Jason Line and Greg Anderson are now his partners in an alliance similar to what Denver-based Furniture Row Racing had with Joe Gibbs Racing in NASCAR up until this season.
“They supply the power for our car,” Deric Kramer said. “Jason come over and tune the motor. As far as everything else goes, we run our own program. We set up our car the way we feel it should be set up, and we go racing. But they want us to look good as well. If we’re way back in the weed,s they’ll kind of rein us back in and say, ‘We should probably go this direction.’ “
Kramer has a career pro-stock record of 38-85, but he is 32-26 since joining forces with KB Racing, including 8-6 this season heading into Sunday’s eliminations at Bandimere.
“Year in and year out, they’re always competitive, and some of the best competition out here,” Kramer said of KB Racing. “That’s where we wanted to go. We knew we were making good runs with what we had. We just knew what we had wasn’t good enough. Once we had some power that was good enough, we knew we would come out here every weekend with a car that could potentially win every race.”
He added: “Our motto around here is, if we don’t screw up four times, then we’ll win on Sunday. It’s that simple.”
Kramer and Co. will be the hometown favorites Sunday. Deric appreciates the recognition from his hard work since working on that ’71 Chevelle.
Heavy rain spoiled Saturday’s qualifying sessions, but Kramer came within a hood ornament from obtaining the provisional pole Friday.
“We watched the footage from (Friday’s) Q2 session, and as soon as we ran a 6-second pass the crowd just erupted,” he said. “It was great.”
Mike Chambers: mchambers@denverpost.com or @mikechambers