Greeley Automotive Machine Builds Championship Power

[jjamros]

Most engine shops are built around a staff that has first-hand racing experience. But few can match the levels of championship success and diverse experience that the staff at Greeley Automotive Machine has. Located in Greeley, Colorado, and run by Bruce Yackey and David Gee, the high-horsepower engines coming out of this shop are designed and created with a winning combination of track-proven experience and cutting-edge technology.

Greeley Automotive Machine co-owner, Bruce Yackey, celebrates another win

Bruce Yackey started gaining his experience at a very young age. As a small child he enjoyed watching his dad race. Even though his father retired from racing when Yackey was still young, he had been bitten by the race bug. Yackey would end up spending much of his youth at his uncle’s automotive repair shop where he started grinding camshafts when he was just 14-years-old.

In 1989 Yackey started driving at his home track, Colorado National Speedway, and quickly won his first Colorado National track championship in the Sportsman division. A year later he made the switch to NASCAR Late Models. All combined, he has amassed an impressive grand total of eleven championships throughout various divisions as he moved up through the ranks.

In fact, it was an on-track failure that made the three time NASCAR Colorado State Champion a COMP Cams® customer for life. When talking about the experience, Yackey said, “Well it’s kind of a funny story. I was racing in Phoenix at PIR in 1990. I had a set of COMP Cams® lifters in my car, and I had one fail. There was a COMP® representative at the track when it failed. So I said, ‘Hey I want to see you.’ Instead of getting a cold shoulder or getting told I had messed something up, I got excellent service. That made me a customer for life. From that point forward, I never looked at another cam company. Turned out, it wasn’t even a COMP® failure that was the problem, but they still took care of me.”

While Yackey continues to find success in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, he isn’t the only one familiar with racing at Greeley Automotive Machine. From drag racers to street rodders, you would be hard pressed to find a staff member who didn’t have hands on experience. Co-owner David Gee is now retired from racing but has won multiple championships in a Grand American Modified racing career spanning forty years.

Cylinder head porting is just one of the services offered at Greeley Automotive Machine

It’s that diverse knowledge and hands-on experience that sets Greeley Automotive Machine apart. For example, drawing on their own experiences with distributor gear wear and damage to oil pumps, the staff found a way to take the load off their own high volume pumps and eliminate distributor gear wear. Having experienced the problem first hand, they found a solution for their own vehicles, and now they offer that solution as a service for everything from circle track to marine engines.

According to Yackey, the work at Greeley Automotive Machine is split down the middle – half performance engines and half stock repair work. As a man who truly enjoys working on engines, he appreciates both sides of the work. As he is quick to point out, “Our shop focuses on whatever we can do to earn a living.” This philosophy has led the guys at Greeley Automotive Machine to collect faithful customers from all areas of motorsports, including a handful of truck and tractor pulling customers, as well as competitors in the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb, which takes place just a few hours south of Greeley, in Colorado Springs.

With a Superflow 901 engine dyno and a Superflow 800 chassis dyno featuring Windyno software, Greeley Automotive Machine has all the equipment needed to turn their years of combined experience into power plants with massive amounts of horsepower. While custom building engines is one of the primary activities going on in the shop, they also do old engine and restoration work. They recently finished work on a 1934 Flathead V12 Lincoln and a 1930 Hudson Straight 8.

Greeley Automotive Machine’s Superflow 901 engine dyno

Even though engines built by Yackey and his talented staff show up in just about every division at Colorado National Speedway, including his own NASCAR Late Model division, when asked what has been the biggest achievement for Greeley Auto Machine, Yackey modestly replied, “Just that I’ve been able to grow the business with money we earned doing engine work. We’ve won a lot of races and championships, but that’s the small picture.”

Greeley Automotive Machine recently expanded by adding a showroom that proudly displays COMP Performance Group™ products. Yackey comments, “They’re easy to sell because COMP® does a great job with engineering, marketing and quality. People already know the name, and I know the products and what they do. So it’s a perfect fit. I’m really excited that the COMP Performance Group™ is expanding to include more than camshafts and valve trains because all the products fit my business. I’m also glad to see their product development is continuing just because internal combustion engines are something I really enjoy working on, and I just like being able to further my knowledge in the development of these engines.”