DATE OF BIRTH: FEB 9, 1997

HOMETOWN: HUDSON, NEW HAMPSHIRE

A super late model racer from New Hampshire, Derek Griffith made a splash in the ARCA Menards Series in 2020. He dominated the ARCA Menards Series East opener at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway before a late-race restart allowed Sam Mayer to go on to victory, but that put Griffith on the radar. He earned seven top-10 finishes in eight starts in the ARCA Menards Series in 2020, with a best finish of third in the season finale at Kansas Speedway.

Racing career

In his early years, Griffith raced at Hudson Speedway in New Hampshire, running four-cylinder cars. While in the kids’ division at Hudson, Griffith was nicknamed “The Rock Star” for his long-haired appearance.
He moved up from four-cylinders to super late models (SLMs) in 2012 and ran full-time in the Granite State Pro Stock Series in 2014. He won the 2015 GSPSS championship. In 2016, Griffith returned to the GSPSS, won the DAV Fall Classic at Seekonk Speedway and claimed his first career Pro All Stars Series (PASS) win.
Griffith claimed two PASS North victories in 2017.
In 2018, Griffith won the PASS North Icebreaker at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, and claimed the PASS national championship.
In 2019, He acquired a new Fury Race Cars SLM chassis to race at the Snowball Derby.
Griffith also took part in the Kulwicki Driver Development Program in 2019, and won Oktoberfest at Lee USA Speedway.
Griffith scored the cumulative title at the 2020 World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna Speedway . Chad Bryant Racing later signed Griffith to make his ARCA Menards Series East debut in the season-opening Skip’s Western Outfitters 175. The drive came after Griffith meeting with CBR crew chief Paul Andrews through the Kulwicki Driver Development Program. He won the pole for the race. After finishing second in his debut race, Griffith and CBR secured enough funding to run a full East schedule in 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CBR and Griffith discontinued their full-season East effort after one race and started running part-time in the national ARCA Menards Series. He continued racing super late models in 2020, winning Granite State Nationals at Claremont Motorsports Park in September. A weekend after that, Griffith won the Freedom 300 and associated $10,000 paycheck at Lee USA Speedway. He also continued to make appearances in the Granite State Pro Stock Series.
For 2021, Griffith remains in ARCA for another part-time schedule, and moved from Chad Bryant Racing (which closed down and merged their ARCA operations into GMS Racing for 2021) to Venturini Motorsports. He drove their No. 55 Toyota in two races, which were the season-opener at Daytona as well as Kansas in May.