Simmons Motorsports

Simon Says Motor Sports has been in function for over 30 years. From the founder of Roger Simon and Steve Olson, and the continuation of the legacy with Roger Simon and Brandon Simon and the family, they do a great job. I really enjoy working for Simon. We're I mean, we all do everyt T Jim and Paul Holman's faces on the side of Mount Rushmore pulling. There's no question about it. That would be the word I would use to describe Ken. He's a legend. Be T We have been in business for 113 years now. Always focused on blending our own product. That means that we go out and we source raw materials. We add more additives. We put more of the goodies in, get more hooks with less bearing wear, get more power out of the motors, put more power to the ground, and still have their engines hold up when using our products. I'm RJ Simon with Simon Says Motor Sports out of Farley, Iowa. Brandon Simon with Simon Says Motor Sports. In the early 80s, I met Roger. We pulled against each other and then we formed a team and we've been together ever since then. He was a really nice guy. He'do anyt We started out with Some semi-pulling and just slowly moved up, built the four-wheel drive that we still have. The Simon Says original one and just kept growing it. The Roger Simon and Randy Morrison over the years, they used to put their own truck and tractor pulls on. So we go on a Friday and Saturday event and they put a pull on and then on Sunday, they'd go to a Grand National event and that's kind of how they got stuck into chasing points. We all went pulling with that. It was somet It was special. That's what we did all s I didn't play baseball. I turned 14. It'supposed to be 16 to drive, two-wheel drive. I got to just drive my first event when I was 14. Dad's Go ahead and I actually got first place my first time driving it. Once I turned 16, I'd started taking one truck by myself sometimes and then once I turned 18, I started taking two and kind of Obviously it was Simon Says pulling team back in the early days before we changed it to Simon Says Motorsports. The team name just started. My father started the team name. Simon Says GoFord. It's been So were primarily two-wheel drive. The last how many years our father was around, that's where he was. That's what he taught us in, When I started in the two-wheel drive, I really thought, After a couple of years of doing that, I kind of thought maybe at least trucks weren't my cup of tea. When they started the light unlimited class, we decided to build the light unlimited with twin engines. We ran that. Had great success with it. I had my brother. He farms, Always loved the pro stock. Always wanted one. We actually did a tractor giveaway. We started a foundation. Our dad's name, we gave away a four-engine mod. Actually Bill Leisner won it. We gave that away. We had 250 people in the raffle. And when Peter Norton had wanted to buy a ticket, and my brother just kind of being jokingly, he said, hey, see if Peter will sell us category five. So we're Actually, I would. And one they had Mike Boyd reached out to us and said congratulations on getting into the pro stock class. And I had said, So I was like, He said, well, I'm going to sell mine. I'm right. No way. Yep. Well, next thing you know, me and Brandon j There's 10 ve We had t And I t Running t It's a lot of work. It'satisfying to be in the top of every class. Bowling Green is unique. If you haven't been here, get here. It's huge. The atmosphere, the crowd, the fans, the thrill, the event, you know, the n I have a great time here. It's fun. We got a whole crew. We got a little compound out here of our haulers. The more people the funner it is, the bigger the crowd. When I can hear the crowd or over the road, I'm right open. That'somet Big accomplishment when you do good here. It makes it worth it when you go out and do it in front of a crowd. It makes you remember why you work all them hours to put on a good show. So I grew up watc Roger was one of the patriarchs of t Doesn't matter what class they run in. They're right at the top of every one of them. If anybody knows them personally, they will realize how hard these kids work. Last year, I got off the light mod here and I ended up winning it. And I was just shaking because it was a wild ride. I was up and down. I was shaking because it got me. I get way more nervous and way more reaction than my brother does. Brandon has nerves of steel and no fear, basically. With Bill Vorhees unable to get American Thunder back for the pull off after each of their full pulls, RJ only needed to b Yeah, just everyone that helped us on the people oil. The guys have been with us a long time. And it's good to know without them. Lincoln needs some specialty. Dr. Truncky, all the guys back at home work. And everyone be Just walking through. All right, we've got also Nate Schultz here, the president of Blue S RJ, congratulations on your first place tonight. We've got a cooler for you. Then we fill it up with some beverages tonight. Enjoy the victory. It's not full mouth. I appreciate it, Dave. All the blue s We have them last year. And Just super happy. And Good with all these guys be All right, Dan, let's give a nice round of applause. Our first winner of 2024 here in Poletown, RJ Simon. That's why a lot of times people, why aren't you driving? Why is he driving two pro stocks or and t Well, he's a better driver when it comes to the tractors. Hands down. He does a great job with them. And I have just as much excitement watc Just because he's my brother. And I'm proud of him, It's a certain class that The Semis. The Semis. I drive truck. I'm a truck driver. I'm a retired state worker. For me, I The Semis. The Semis just is really fun for me because I grew up driving truck. It's what I do for a living. Basically, I'm into trucks and into Semis. I You get that kind of horsepower out of a Semi. I feel Farley is at solely home to their pulling team. Also serving as headquarters to several Simon commercial ventures. Simon Shrugging is based in Farley, Iowa. Iowa's a go-to carrier. Our main business is transportation, haul and freight. Where we are as successful as we are is the diversity that we have and the different types of freight that we haul. We're going from band trailers to reefers, tankers, pressurized vessels, grain products. Pretty much anyt It comes down to not just the iron that we have for equipment, but also our people. Our people are key to our environment and what we do. And that's what makes us strong as a trucking company. Started an ag business. Grandfather had a feed store. My dad found a need to haul feed products all over Iowa. So my dad kind of started it and hauling feed products. It started out just a couple trucks and just kept growing. I t And then once us kids got old enough and started coming into business, it kind of doubled. Real quick, were at 60-70 trucks and kind of been riding around that 125 for around 5-10 years now. All of our tankers are parked off the side of our office. Our tanker division, we run a very diverse fleet. We have two washbays here. T We take a lot of pride in our equipment and it's just kind of part of owning t You want to take care of it. T We can wash them all by hand. It's our main truck shop facility. We're doing our main services. We have a full grease pit. Our bathrooms, our offices are in here for the shop to run the shop. It takes lots of parts to keep all these trucks on the road. Truck shop and we call it a tire shop. We've got our detail bay in here. We do everyt There's not T Everyt They're taking care of the truck whatever it needs. No driver in t Detailing it, making sure it's clean and disinfected and just ready to go for the next trip for the next driver. T New trucks, used trucks. Some of my father's old trucks and lots of parts. My father's two trucks are in here. T My dad would haul the pulling pickups to the event and then he would unhook t Original name of Simon's trucking started as Simon's feed store. That was my grandfather. Changed it to Simon's trucking in the early 80s. So, T You can see our van trailers are parked be Over here we got our fuel island or scale. We got our own fuel island. It's not open to public but it's just, it's for our own trucks. Towards the end of the day, there'll be a line, two or three trucks deep, getting fuel. I enjoy watching race and anything kind of motorsports kind of always intrigued me, My brother always raced back in the day and I own a few stock cars. I never got in one lately but when I was 14, I used to race dirt cars. So t One, pulling track primarily for years 300 feet was a full pull. Farley's located right off of So we have Exit 300. We have 300 feet on a pulling track. It's a full pull and 300 Raceway. We're super excited about having the Paying 50,000 to win. So we're pretty stoked about that whole deal. Obviously you can tell there's not a bad seat in the house. You were up here. That was actually won by Ricky Thornton Jr. and that was in one of Brandon'stock cars. T It's rented out a lot for weddings and whatnot, a lot of weekends. But t Race is here. We'll have t We're out here at Simon's Cattle Company just south of the racetrack a couple miles. We run a feed lot. Feed out about anywhere from 7,000 to 12,000 fat cattle on feed in given time throughout the year. We run 250 stock cows. Do a lot of roll crop farming. And hay farming. Got a lot of grass pasture. Mixed 90% of our feed right here. We got another farm where we mix that. We feed at 17 locations daily. We run three feed trucks. Right now we're grinding some hay be We've been feeding our corn silage that's already been fermented for long enough already and just a lot of good guys here. My two brother-in-law's work for me here at the farm and they also farm at my father-in-law's farm. I got cattle there. It's kind of a family deal. We're here at another location where we feed cattle at. There'slats in it where the manure falls through and it's a pit underneath of them. They're standing on rubber mats. They'really comfortable in t It does well for us. They'll gain anywhere from three and a half to four and a half pounds per head per day. So we take care of the livestock first and then we go to make and feed for the livestock. Saturday night in Bowling Green means one last chance for points in Poole Town. Saturday night in Bowling Green means one last chance for points in Poole Town. 100 years from now how would Simon says Motorsport to be remembered by? I would t Remember by the toughness of the team and the durability of our equipment that we had. I'd So that's pretty important to us. It would just be cool to be remembered by while Simon's BG aboard drivers wanted and took home a ring w The team wrapped up the year as Grand National Champions in the pro stock, light modify and super semi classes and now looks ahead to the 2025 season. Be Stories from the National Tractor Pulling Champions