Thomas Grady
Over The Top Motorsports

Racer Biography

Thomas first drove Dad’s Jeep in fall of 2003 on off-road trails.  He entered his first Rock Crawl    Competition at Rockport Off-Road Park, Rockport, Illinois, on October 15, 2005.  He was 9 years old at that time.  He finished in 2^nd place in the Stock Class, competing against all adults.  Father, Alan Grady, after many years of successful competitions turned the steering wheel over to his son. 

In 2006 Thomas was featured in CRAWL Magazines June issue and was noted a prodigy in the sport of rock crawling. He also competed in the RRock Rock Crawl Competition series in Hannibal, MO with many good finishes.

The 2007 Rock Crawling season was a productive year with many good finishes and TV interviews.  He has been interviewed by local news reporters and was highlighted on Fox News in the Morning in Indianapolis.  The Speed Channel program, Lucas Oil On the Edge, also interviewed and filmed Thomas at the Arkansas, Wisconsin Arena Trucks Rock Crawl Competition. 

In the 2008 season Thomas focused solely on legends class in the Midwest RROCK   Series at Hannibal Rocks. With a 1^st, a 2^nd, and two 3^rd place finishes which enabled him to place 3^rd for the Midwest Championship. Thomas` jeep was on display at the BFGoodrich trailer as the featured vehicle at the Indianapolis Jamboree. Also while at Indianapolis Thomas was on Live TV for FOX news in the morning.

In 2009 Thomas again focused on the RRock  rock crawl series, and did very well despite  some breakage issues , FINISHING  3^RD,1^ST,3^RD AND 2^ND  AND FINISHING THE SERIES IN 2^ND PLACE. After the RRock series was completed Thomas  entered in to another type of off road racing  high speed arena racing and woods racing through the MOROC series, At the Hot springs, Arkansas event he finish in 4^th place  after a broken motor kept  him from completing the last two stages. HIS driving had earned him enough respect that one of the    super modified drivers Tim Taylor, offered his custom rock racer to drive on Sunday, after 20 minutes of parking lot practice Thomas was able to finish 3^rd place. The MOROC event in October was a high speed woods race, Thomas finished 1^st place on Saturday and 4^th place on Sunday.       

For the 2010 season Thomas makes the transition from rock crawling to high speed off-road racing.

For 2010 Thomas had a new challenge with a custom built racecar. His new racecar would be an Ultra-4 style racecar. Unfortunately it would not be completed for the first Outlaws race a 50 mile endurance race. So Thomas entered the race with his old leaf sprung Jeep competiting against 10 other top of the line custom built Ultra-4 cars and drivers like Derek West and Brian Shirley. Thomas was able to finish in a respectable 5^th place at his first endurance race.

For the first race in his new racecar he attended the first Rock Jam rock race and finished in 4^th place in a brand new and untested racecar. After that he went to the second Outlaw Series race and about 2 miles into the course he hit a stump and tore the passenger side knuckle off which ended his racing for the day. He then went to the second Rock Jam race, winning both heat races and finishing second in the feature race. After the end of the Rock Jam race the team would have to travel 8 hours that night to Seymour, MO for a MOROC race the next morning in which he would finish in third place for the day. At the MOROC U.S. finals he finished in 1^st place on both Saturday and Sunday which enabled him to finish 1^st for the series. For the last race of the year he entered the Badlands King of the Hammers Qualifier knowing even if he won he wouldn’t qualify because of his age. After three hours of racing for 91 miles only stopping for a fuel stop he finished in 5^th place for the first long distance race in his career. All of Thomas` racing has been against adults.