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Photo by Graph X Designs
Jason Statler recognized at GSC banquet for 4th in final points
By Gary Thomas
Oroville, CA – January 8, 2008…Showing perseverance is very important in the highly emotional sport of auto racing and not many defined the word better in 2007 that Los Gatos driver Jason Statler. The former Golden State Challenge Series champ had more than his fair share of tough luck this past season, but through it all he remained positive and was rewarded on Saturday night at the Feather Falls Casino for his fourth place finish in the final series standings.
Despite parting ways with another team in early June, Jason ended up missing only two Golden State Challenge Series events in ’07. After not running the special Monday event in Medford, Oregon on June 11, he was able to compete for a couple different teams at the annual Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway in Washington. If things weren’t tough enough for him already, he ended up being involved in a pair of accidents during the two prelim nights that wrecked a pair of cars, neither incident of his making as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time during each of them.
It could have been easy for him to call it a season and get ready for next year, but that wasn’t going to happen as it showed just how much Jason cares for the sport. Coming back down to California he was a little down on confidence, but through the hard work of various people, himself and long time Statler Racing crew chief Mark Bristow, the Statler Racing 00 made its return to the track on the final weekend in June. Jason was able to finish out the Golden State Challenge season in his own car and the final six races of the year saw him tally five top eight finishes, including a pair of top five’s.
Jason spoke about the season this past Saturday night in Oroville at the year end GSC awards banquet: “I’m pretty much going to forget about the first part of the year,” he said. “When you go through tough times you really find out who your friends are and we were fortunate to have a lot of people help us out. My wife and my parents were very supportive of everything and I couldn’t have gotten it all squared away without the help of my right hand man Mark Bristow & my whole team, Dave Rios of DF Rios Construction, everyone at Kaeding Performance and the various teams that let us borrow their truck & trailers to get to the track when we didn’t have anything to use.”
He also showed appreciation for everyone who lent their support of himself and the team during the ’07 season: “I want to thank all of our sponsors for their untiring support of the team and all the fans that came by and said nice things to us,” Jason commented. He continued, “The fan support really means a lot when it comes to the mental aspect of the sport and we’re fortunate to have some great people involved. I think we have a good package for this upcoming year and we’re looking forward to getting it started.”
Jason’s final stats with the Golden State Challenge Series show eight top five finishes, 18 top 10’s, five heat wins and one main event victory. That main event win just happened to come during the annual Salute to Walter T Ross at the Calistoga Speedway on Memorial Day weekend and marked his first career 410 win at the storied ½ mile speedway. For 2008 Jason will look to come back stronger than ever and you can bet that he will be hard charging as always in the Mark Bristow tuned machine.
For more info on Jason Statler & the DF Rios Racing team log on http://www.statlerracing.com
www.sprintcarchallengetour.com
www.placervillespeedway.com
www.stocktondirttrack.com
www.thunderbowlraceway.com
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