8/4/2007
Sprint Source
Gray Pockets $2800 in O'Reilly USCS Dixie Speedway Sprint Car Nationals
Woodstock, GA – Defending O’Reilly USCS National Champion, Terry Gray from Bartlett, Tennessee ran his 2007 series feature win total to six by winning the 8th annual Dixie Sprint Car Nationals main event Saturday night at Dixie Speedway in Woodstock, Georgia. Gray led every lap of the finale before one of the largest crowds to ever watch a sprint car race at the famed and historic challenging 3/8 mile D-shaped track. Gray took home a hefty $2800 paycheck for his efforts on the evening for his fourth career win at the speedway. He also won the Lucas Oil Power Dash and finishing second in the Butlerbuilt Second Heat race.
Gray’s fortunes for the evening continued when Engler Machine and Tool First Heat winner Daryl Smith from Riverview, Florida drew a four in the K&N filters Pole Award drawing. This inverted Smith who was the 2006 East Bay Raceway track Champion to the outside of the second-row for the main event and for the start of the feature race and placed Gray, a five-time series Champion, on the pole with second-year Chattanooga, Tennessee sprint car driver Shane Nelson to his right
Gray’s fortunes for the evening continued when Engler Machine and Tool First Heat winner Daryl Smith from Riverview, Florida drew a four in the K&N filters Pole Award drawing. This inverted Smith who was the 2006 East Bay Raceway track Champion to the outside of the second-row for the main event and for the start of the feature race and placed Gray, a five-time series Champion, on the pole with second-year Chattanooga, Tennessee sprint car driver Shane Nelson to his right.
Gray responded by leading every lap of the main event while the battle raged for the runner-up spot. Shane Nelson raced his number 88z into the second position in turn one and maintained that spot until lap eleven when Butlerbuilt Second Heat race winner Randy Helton from Palmetto, Georgia took away the runner-up position and chased Gray in pursuit of his first O’Reilly USCS career win. Nelson slide back into the third position and chased the two lead cars for the next thirteen circuits from the third position as Gray and Helton streaked away from the field.
By lap twelve, two hard-charging eighteen year-old Hoosier Tire young Guns, Andy McElhannon from Nesbit, Mississippi who started twelfth and Tyler Godwin from Tampa, Florida who started eleventh had blasted their ways to fourth and fifth places respectively. On lap twenty-four McElhannon got past Nelson for the third position.
At the finish-line two laps later, it was Gray advancing tio the winner’s circle with Randy Helton in the runner-up spot for his career-best O’Reilly USCS feature race finish. The young gun McElhannon grabbed the final podium position in third place. Shane Nelson crossed the line in fourth and Tyler Godwin rounded out the top five.
Veteran USCS racer Jeremy Scott from Franklin, Georgia headed the next group in the final running order with a sixth-place finish. Another veteran, David Thorman from Greenville, South Carolina was seventh. Daryl Smith recovered to eighth place after going to the rear of the field on lap nine. Matt Stegeman from Tampa, Florida finished in the ninth position and O’Reilly USCS Rookie of the Year candidate, Nick DeFeo rounded out the top ten.
After an extended caution period caused by Jake Mc Lain’s liquid-charged engine failure on lap twenty-four, the scheduled 30-lap feature race was concluded after 26 laps with a green-white-checkered flag dash to the finish due to curfew constraints.
Gray won the evening’s 6-lap Lucas Oil Power Dash. Daryl Smith won the Engler Machine and Tool First Heat Race. Racin’ Randy Helton won the Butlerbuilt Second Heat Race. Andy McElhannon garnered the events Huggins Cams Hard Charger award for his charge from the twelfth starting position into third place. Nick DeFeo was awarded the Robison Racing Products Rookie of the Race. Gray snagged the K&N Filters Pole Award after Smith drew him to the pole in the K&N inversion draw. The eighteen year-old McElhannon was also recognized as the Hoosier Tire Young Gun of the Race, which is awarded to the top-finishing driver under twenty-five years old..
The next O’Reilly USCS event is at Southern Raceway www.southernraceway.com in Milton, Florida on Saturday night August 11th. The event awards O’Reilly USCS Southern Thunder regional series points.
Submitted By: Adam Ulrey