Nationwide Series Fans Thankful for Wimmer’s Career Change

As a teenager, Scott Wimmer was at the top of his game, though it wasn’t in stock car racing. It was in competitive skiing.

 He placed 13th in the Junior Olympics at age 14. However, it would only be one year later, in 1991, that his true calling would beckon. After winning his first short-track race at Wausau Speedway in his native Wisconsin, Wimmer’s sports career went from icy slick to asphalt slicks.

Now Wimmer, 32, is at the top of his game as driver of the No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Along with teammate Jeff Burton – fourth on the all-time series win list – he captured the 2007 series owner title for Childress.

He’s won six times in NASCAR Nationwide Series competition, including this past March at Nashville Superspeedway. His best championship finish came in 2002, when he finished third. Wimmer also has started 106 races in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition thanks to his successful years in the Nationwide Series, and finished third in the Daytona 500 in 2004, his first start in the “Great American Race.”

The kid from Wausau, Wis., grew up racing against fellow Badger State NASCAR greats Matt Kenseth and Dick Trickle, finding success in every racing series that he competed in. His most memorable moment came in 2002 after winning the annual memorial race held in honor of his uncle, Larry Detjens, for the second year in a row. Trickle was the last driver to win that race twice in succession.

Wimmer won 17 times while racing around the Midwest in the 1990s. He won local and regional championships in late-model stock cars and competed in the Hooter’s Pro Cup Series before making the move to NASCAR.

His favorite track on the NASCAR circuit is Dover International Speedway, the site of his first win in 2002. However, the glamour and glory of NASCAR can’t take away from Wimmer’s love for short-track racing, where he got his start. He loves Indiana’s Winchester Speedway, describing it as “the most historic track in the Midwest.”

He says his father is his role model and source of inspiration. “His work ethic and what he has gone through to get where he is. I hope to have that same work ethic,” he said. “If I weren’t a race car driver, I would be working with my dad in his construction business.”

Wimmer’s respect for his dad is a testament to the immeasurable value he places on his family. As for his family’s feelings toward him, Wimmer jokes, “Some of my family members have been calling me ‘Dave’ for a long time, because I have a gap in my teeth like [David] Letterman.”

He and his wife, Jody, have one son, Hayden. In his spare time, Wimmer enjoys hunting, fishing and hanging out with his son.