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Photo courtesy http://www.stevesracingphotos.com
Andy Gregg races to best career Golden State Challenge Series finish at season opener
By Gary Thomas
Placerville, CA – March 29, 2009…Racing at his home track against the top 410 winged sprint car drivers in California on Saturday night, Placerville's own Andy Gregg drove to his first career podium finish with the traveling Golden State Challenge King of California Sprint Car Series.
Gregg, who captured the Rookie of the Year award with the Golden State Challenge Series in 2004, has steadily pushed his way towards the front of the field whenever he has competed with the club over the last couple seasons. Last year also saw Gregg score his career 410 sprint car victory when he captured a main event win during weekly competition at the Silver Dollar Speedway in June.
Making his first start of the season aboard his own Guts Racing No. 16x machine Gregg was very happy to be able to come out and score not only his first podium finish with the Golden State Challenge Series, but also his first career top five with California's premier 410 winged sprint car organization. "It feels really good to come out here and put this car on the podium with these guys tonight," said Gregg, who tallied finishes of eighth and 10th in the two GSC events at Placerville last season.
Gregg began the evening by timing in 11th quickest in qualifying and then drove the Guts Racing, Dale Miller Plumbing, Myers & Sons Drywall sprinter to a runner-up finish in his heat race. With a couple drivers not making it out of their heats it gave the Placerville driver a chance to compete in the dash and he took advantage of it by scoring a third place finish to put him in the second row of the main event.
The 30 lap season opening feature for the Golden State Challenge Sprint Car Series saw a very fast race track for drivers to deal with. It made for some intense moments in traffic, but passing chances were tough to come by in the open track due to the locked-down conditions. Gregg settled into fifth for much of the early stages and started to dice it up former GSC champ Jason Statler around the midway point. He looked to the inside of the 00 machine a couple of times, but couldn't get the momentum to complete the pass.
Things changed on lap 18 however, as the two leaders collided in turn one causing them to have to pit during a yellow flag and moving Gregg up to third in the running order. When the green flag came back out he had to fend off the strong challenges of Evan Suggs and Tim Kaeding, but Gregg was calm, cool and collected and proceeded to hold off Kaeding over the final couple of laps to drive off and take the checkered flag in third place.
Gregg received a loud roar on the front straightaway after the races during post race interviews and was visibly humbled and ultra-excited to have finished on the podium with the Golden State Challenge Sprint Car Series. "I was hoping to get a victory tonight but a third place finish in front of my hometown crowd is really cool," Gregg commented. "We had the car working pretty good in the main event and hopefully this will be a sign of things to come for us this season."
Next up for Andy Gregg and the Team Guts Racing No. 16x will be this coming Saturday's season opening points race at the Marysville Raceway Park in Marysville, CA. The team will be looking to get the ASCS 360 engine tuned up and make sure everything is good to go in an attempt to possibly compete at the Short Track Nationals in Arkansas during the month of October.
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"The Hurricane" Andy Gregg scored his first career podium finish with the Golden State Challenge King of California Series on Saturday night at his home track of Placerville Speedway. Photo courtesy http://www.johnsracingphotos.com
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