History
Founded by Navy engineer Jim Julson in 1975, Jimco Racing has evolved from crafting hobby-level, one-off race cars into to an award-winning one-stop shop for professional racing teams.
The first Jimco chassis was a class 9, 1200cc single seat car for both father and son to campaign. With what was at first just another race team quickly became more. With the sleek lines of the car and the success on the race track, Jimco soon had a following of both good drivers and talented fabricators and mechanics.
Robbie Pierce, who bought Jimco in 2018 from the Julson family, has been around the off-road racing industry for decades. He's owned other race component manufacturing businesses that were suppliers to Jimco, such as Mastercraft Safety and Impact Racing Products. Pierce is also an Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Inductee for his innovations and commitment to safety in off-road motorsports, and also developed mass-production methods for welding titanium golf club heads and aerospace components.
Pierce's experience isn't just in fabrication and safety equipment, however; he's also a competitor racing a Trophy Truck (a 900-horsepower, tube-chassis, off-road racing machine).
"There's a little area here in East County San Diego, out in Santee, that's like the 'Gasoline Alley' of off-road racing," he says. "It's pretty hard to be born and raised in this area without being involved in off-road racing in some fashion. When I started my first company back in 1981, I was literally about a block and a half away with my welding shop."