Dirt
THE AUTHOR (LEFT), WITH
JAMES PATTERSON
Fuelin’
Around
Former VP Racing Fuels exec Jim
Kelly enjoying new career as author
By Nate Van Wagnen
When Jim “J.K.” Kelly retired
from his management position
at VP Racing Fuels late in May
2015, he could’ve taken up the
typical retirement activities: golfing, boating,
fishing, traveling, etc. That’s not to say he hasn’t
done those things, but when his management
career wrapped up, his career as an author was
just getting started.
Kelly, who first started working in motorsports
in the ‘70s as a photographer and writer for Super
Stock & Drag IlluStrateD (no relation to this
Drag IlluStrateD), wrote his first novel, Found
In Time, towards the end of his time at VP. His
early retirement allowed him the time to indulge
his rekindled passion for writing. Kelly released
two more books since then, all while serving as a
marketing consultant for VP and spending time
with his family.
Found In Time and its sequel, The Lost Pulse,
are military thrillers with a science fiction twist.
But Fuelin’ Around, Kelly’s second of the three
books, is the page-turner for readers with an interest
in drag racing and motorsports in general.
It’s a memoir of sorts, with Kelly looking back on
his path from a teenaged gearhead to an executive
who traveled the world selling racing fuel to
everyone from weekend warriors to legends like
John Force. Kelly tells the history of VP’s rise to
prominence alongside his own, describing the
growing pains and achievements that both he and
the company experienced along the way.
Earlier this year, Kelly spoke with Drag IlluStrateD
to talk about his books, his future plans
and his push to encourage racers to read not just
his books, but more books in general.
You spent 28 years working as a regional manager
for VP. Before that, you were a writer and
photographer for magazines like SS&DI and Car
Craft. What inspired you to get back to writing?
I’ve always had a passion for writing. I was
doing it through college, did it for Super Stock &
Drag Illustrated and some of the other magazines,
but once I got the job first with DiGard working
with [Darrell] Waltrip on the NASCAR circuit,
then jumped in with Steve Burns at VP, there
just wasn’t enough time in the day to focus on all
the passions, between the work
and the travel I was doing. Then
as the family started to come
along, there just weren’t enough
hours in the day. So I really had
to put that off to the side.
I did have the ability to
quench my thirst for writing
to a degree because VP was so
small at the early stages that we
didn’t have a marketing department.
The managers drummed
gas, drove trucks, wrote PR,
worked trade shows, did everything
and anything.
It wasn’t until after I had
been at VP for close to 30 years
that to a large degree the feeling I had was that
we had built the engine, built the race car, built
the track, built the series and it was doing its
thing. I wasn’t getting tired of the challenges, I
was getting tired of the road. What I had seen
was my children, who had put up with my nonsense
of always being gone and doing the things
I was doing, they were now grown and starting
to make babies of their own. My wife’s health
was a little bit of an issue as well. That’s when
I got a sense that it was time to get back into
something else.
I always had a couple books in mind. I always
wanted to write, I just didn’t have the time to
focus on it full time. When I did decide to retire,
I was able to sit down at the word processor.
How did you get into publishing novels?
The first one just flowed. I went through the
whole process of going through queries. Writing
a book and then getting an agent to pick it up and
getting a mainstream publisher to pick it up is
almost like trying to qualify for the Daytona 500.
The problem is, instead of having 50 or 60 cars
trying to make a 42-car field, there are a million
writers trying to fill a hundred or a thousand slots.
After going through that process of writing
query letters and all that nonsense, I decided
to self-publish. That’s something that Amazon
and some other companies have
allowed writers to do. The first
book came out, got great reviews
and was very successful.
It’s pretty rare to find books
about drag racing. What would
you say to the people who find
your book, but might be on the
fence about sitting down and
reading it?
I asked a couple racetracks
last year if they would carry my
book in their gift shops. The
Sprint Car Hall of Fame carries
it. Some of the other tracks carry
it. But one of the guys at a track
where a lot of Drag IlluStrateD readers race at, I
asked him to put a half-dozen books in his gift shop
and see if people buy them. He said, “Racers don’t
read.” I was kind of taken aback by that.
The response I had in racing to all my books
has been very good, but I hear a lot of “I’ve seen
your book, I’ve heard it’s really good, but I haven’t
read a book since high school. So sorry, but...” So
I would encourage people, if they have the time,
to read more. Kindle is a great thing. Audible is a
great thing for the racers who are going down the
highway and can’t read because they’re driving.
Get an Audible thing and listen to a book that
way. It’s a tremendous world out there. DI
26 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated.com Issue 158