NASCAR Home Tracks
ANTICIPATED RETURN: Track, Teams Glad To Partner Up For East's First Visit To Gresham
JEFFERSON, Ga. - The drivers praised the facility. Track management beamed about having NASCAR back after a long absence. And fans stood and cheered vociferously from driver introductions right through the checkered flag.
Ty Dillon's victory in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East American Fence Association 150 Saturday night came in the first NASCAR race held at Gresham Motorsports Park since a NASCAR All-Pro Series event in July of 1996 and first race for one of its top series since 1987.
"They are starving for NASCAR here," said Dan Elliott, the track's general manager and brother of 1988 NASCAR Cup Series champion Bill Elliott. "It means so much to me because this track was built initially in '67 for NASCAR, and NASCAR had the equivalent of Cup races here and all the excitement that NASCAR brought to this area then. To have these races back here now means the world to me.
"Because the essence of this is that this track was built for NASCAR, the speed and the excitement, and we're bringing it back today with the K&N (Series)."
The track was purchased by Jim Gresham in 2008 and in July of 2009 it was repaved as part of a multi-million dollar renovation project. The results were stellar -- providing a place where NASCAR teams could not only race, but test. Sprint Cup Series teams, Elliott said, have been testing regularly at the facility and have booked every day this coming week to test.
"When we built it, we wanted to be able to run these cars here," said Max Gresham, Jim's grandson and driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota in the K&N Pro Series East. "That was the whole point when my family built this place -- they wanted to be able to run these heavy cars and have a good race with them. So they definitely accomplished what they set out and made their goal as."
The race was marked by several long red flag periods for clean up, mostly stemming from water on the racing surface. Still, despite the lengthy delays, the racing itself was largely entertaining.
"It's a really nice place. It's a lot of fun," said K&N Series veteran Eddie MacDonald. "It's fast. It reminds you of a smaller, not-quite-as-banked, not quite as fast as Bristol. Almost reminds you of that. It's a lot of fun. I love racing here."
The high-banked half-mile is most closely associated with Thompson International Speedway in Connecticut, a facility that's held numerous K&N Series and Whelen Modified Tour events over the years, MacDonald said.
"You don't have to use a lot of brake (entering the corners), and you get right back on the throttle pretty hard. It's nice to be able to go to a track like this where you drive it right down in the corner and stand right back on the gas to get off the corner," MacDonald said. "It's a beautiful facility. Everything here is really nice and put together."
"I knew that the cars were going to be exciting to watch here when we saw the testing," Elliott said. "Then to come in here today and see the (racing) that we've had, I'm so excited about it. I'm so excited about the whole thing -- the fact that NASCAR's back here, the K&N cars, the speed, the competition."
AGGRESSIVE DRIVING: Ruben Rovelo, who won the most recent NASCAR Mexico Series race, was relegated to a 23rd-place finish in the 25 car field after retiring just 64 laps into the American Fence Association 150 Saturday. Rovelo made contact with the Turn 4 wall.
It was just Rovelo's fifth career K&N Series start. He finished ninth in the season opener at Greenville Pickens Speedway in March.
"I love racing here, and I love racing in Mexico," he said. "But here, it's just a little more aggressive driving style -- always clean, always clean, just aggressive. (In Mexico) it's pretty much like driving here in America. It's just more aggressive.
"This is my fifth race here, and I'm very glad and grateful (for the chance)."
POINTS POSITIONING: Darrell Wallace Jr.'s hopes for a history-making K&N Pro Series East championship took a hit Saturday at Gresham. Wallace finished 15th after a late-race spin in Turn 4, while reigning series champ and current points leader Ryan Truex recovered from a couple of on-track scrapes with Kevin Swindell to finish seventh.
Wallace, who would become the first African-American driver to win a series championship, saw his deficit double to 66 points with just two races remaining.
REBOUND: Matt Kobyluck stood in his garage dejected in the hot afternoon sun, staring straight ahead and calmly saying that his backup car was as good as his primary car, that all of his cars are the same "because they come from the same place."
He backed up his belief at night.
After a cut right front tire in final practice destroyed his primary No. 40 Mohegan Sun Chevrolet, he hopped into his backup without a lap of practice, started at the rear of the field and finished fifth. The car is the team's New Hampshire Motor Speedway car and the same car, ironically, that won at Nashville in 2008.
NOTES: Ben Kennedy, the son of Lesa France Kennedy, made his K&N Pro Series East debut driving for a team owned by Cup Series driver Mark Martin. Kennedy retired early and finished 24th... Other drivers making their series debuts at Gresham were Michael Cherry, who finished fourth in the Revolution Racing No. 8, and Tyler Laing, who landed 11th in a Fadden Racing car... Sean Caisse made his first series start of the year and finished 13th in the No. 35 Waste Management Chevrolet... There were four red flag periods in the race, the longest delay of which was caused when two water barrels burst following contact with Julian Albarracin, covering the racing surface completely at the Turn 2 exit.
