Page 55 - NM Spring 2018

By Connell R. Miller

Shortly after our sport of drag That got her dad involved in what a “better mousetrap” paid off in
racing began, people started became his own lifetime of racing, the creation of the ProJack line of
looking for ways to commemorate with Kim and her brothers growing various types of lifts that are now
their car, team or a particular event. up in it. in use by every full-time NHRA
In the early days it was a T-shirt, team and many of the sportsman,
embroidered jacket or bumper Gary Marjama, Kim’s dad, in nostalgia and street car racers.
sticker. The scope of racing the 1980s worked part-time on Even a number of NASCAR teams
souvenirs has expanded immensely Darrell Gwynn’s dragster. His use the ProJack lift systems in their
ever since, with screen-printed job at the races was to put the car shops.
T-shirts still at the foundation but on the jack stands, a sometimes
hundreds of additional different laborious process that always had When it became time to decide on
items now ratcheting it into a him thinking of a better way to a career, Kim knew the only thing
mega-business. Coffee cups, mugs, accomplish the task. After a couple that she wanted to do was work for
koozies, banners and signs, hero of years his determination to build Continued on next page
cards, racing photographs, hoodies,
halter top shirts, gloves and used
signed parts and tires are just a few
of the items for sale by many of the
race teams; some even sporting a
separate trailer just to transport
their souvenirs from race to race.

One of the newer items to be
presented to our fans (actually of
any type of motorsports as you’ll
read) came about as one of those
“lightbulb-clicks-on” moments a
little over a year ago by a member
of an old family of drag racers, Kim
Marjama-Cervelli. Kim’s life in the
sport goes back two generations to
her grandfather who used to race
in California back in the ‘50s and
‘60s. Eventually the family moved
to Minnesota, where he continued
to race all around the Midwest.

Spring 2018 Nitro Madness Magazine 55