The Lunas of Sparta, Tennessee are ready to get back into more racing. Father, Mike, and son, Michael are gearing up for more racing in 2015 while building a business that specializes in fabricating and more.
The father-son duo took time away from on-track racing in 2010 following the death of Les Luna, father of Mike. The elder Luna was a huge supporter of the family’s racing efforts.
“We basically quit racing after my grandfather died,” Luna recalled. “He was a big supporter of our racing. It wasn’t the same with him not being there. We basically parked everything and didn’t race for a few years.”
The duo has eased back into racing over the last year and look to do more in 2015. Mike Luna will be back behind the wheel of the TNT house car while Michael will be competing in crate and super late model events in his Swartz chassis.
Michael Luna stayed involved with racing during his time off the track as director of the Southern Regional Racing Series. The series saw small car counts and less track booking dates before Luna and race director Ray Tucker decided to shut down the series following the 2013 season.
“It was getting harder and harder to book tracks,” Luna stated. “Plus there was competition from Ray (Cook) and Southern All-Stars, it got to be hard to compete with that. I could call an owner about booking a date and they’d ask ‘what can you do for me?’ and I’d have to say I only have Josh Putnam and maybe another driver as the only ones following it. And it was hard to trust some of the track owners. Smoky Mountain (Speedway) was great, those guys were great to work with. Gar Dickson at Boyd’s was great to work with too. And there were some others. Some would tell you one thing and do something different.
“It also got to the point where I dreaded going. I was tried of getting cussed at every night. Most nights, only the winner was the only one happy and even some nights he would be mad too. I just thought it was time to do something different.”
That something different led Luna to start his own fabricating business. Luna had been building and working on cars since the age of 18. But his own racing, running SRRS, and family made it difficult to turn that into a business.
“I’ve always done it for people,” Luna said of building cars. “I’ve been doing it since I was 18. The timing never was right, I guess until now.”
“We really needed some kind of a dealer in this area. I built a couple of cars for Mark Martin last year and things have taken off from there. We are blessed with work right now.”
Luna is a fourth generation logger. The hard work and long hours led him to find a more enjoyable line of work.
“Logging is hard work,” Luna said. “It wasn’t much fun working from 6 a.m. until sun down every day. I told my dad I should so something else. I told him I ought to try my own business.”
The Luna Motorsports and Speed Shop has been growing as a fabricator and a dealer for both Swartz and TNT and even building some drag racing cars. He also just bought a printer and will start making wraps very soon.
