Darius Grala (born July 7, 1964 in

Słupsk Słupsk (; , ; formerly german: Stolp, ; also known by several alternative names) is a city with powiat rights located on the Słupia River in the Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland, in the historical region of Pomerania or more specific ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

) is an

endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from an ...

sports car racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing is ...

driver. He is currently racing in North America and living in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. In 2007, Grala was one of the founding instructors for Supercar Life. In 2006, Grala was one of the founding instructors of the Ferrari Driving Experience. He continued working with Ferrari in 2007. In 2005, while driving for the BMW Southard Motorsports team, he won the

Grand-Am Grand-Am Road Racing or Grand-Am was an auto racing sanctioning body that was established in 1999 to organize road racing competitions in North America. Its primary focus was the Rolex Sports Car Series, an endurance racing championship series. ...

Daytona Prototype Sportsman of the Year Award. Grala has been a Daytona Prototype driver since the class debuted in the 2003

Rolex Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...

24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layo ...

. In that first race he ran in the top five through most of the night until a mechanical failure in the fifteenth-hour took him out of the race while running in second place overall. On June 22, 2003, Grala had his first podium finish in a Daytona Prototype at his home track in Watkins Glen, New York. Prior to the introduction of the Daytona Prototype class, Grala competed in the

GTS class. He got his first Rolex Series win in the GTS Class, also at

Watkins Glen International Watkins Glen International, nicknamed "The Glen", is an automobile race track located in the town of Dix just southwest of the village of Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. It was long known around the world as the hom ...

. Before racing in the Rolex Series, Grala competed in the Ferrari Challenge. The three-year effort netted multiple wins and pole positions, and culminated with Grala being crowned the 2002 North American

Champion A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...

. He is the owner of NASCAR Xfinity Series team

Fury Race Cars Fury Race Cars, officially styled as FURY Race Cars, is an American race car manufacturer and professional late model and stock car racing team. The company was founded in 2016 by Darius Grala, Tony Eury Jr. and Jeff Fultz, all championship-winn ...

. His son,

Kaz Grala Kaz Edward Grala ( ; born December 29, 1998) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 26 Toyota Supra for Sam Hunt Racing. The Boston native is the youngest NASCAR ...

, races in the series.

External links

* * 1964 births Living people Polish racing drivers Sportspeople from Słupsk {{Europe-autoracing-bio-stub