By Gary Thomas
Antioch, CA – April 5, 2010…Battling through adversity on Saturday night Placerville, California’s Andy Gregg was able to persevere through various obstacles and bring home an eighth place finish in the feature at the Antioch Speedway with the traveling Golden State Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series.
Gregg was coming off a less than hoped for outing at his home track of Placerville Speedway the previous week with GSC, where he qualified fourth fastest overall to begin the night and ran second in his heat race, but finished 18th in the main event. “We were definitely disappointed after Placerville because we ran so well with GSC last year there and I really want to get a win with them in front of my hometown crowd,” said Gregg. “In the feature at Placerville we just missed the set-up a bit and I had a hard time getting around the cushion and that made it pretty difficult in traffic because when you race with these guys you have to be perfect.”
Putting the Placerville event behind him Gregg and the Guts Racing team ventured to the Antioch Speedway for the second round of action with the Golden State Challenge Series this past Saturday. A 22-car field was on hand for the night’s festivities and going out 17th in the qualifying order the 30-year-old driver cut the 12th fastest lap of the evening aboard the Dale Miller Plumbing & Septic, 7-Industries, River City Alarm Inc. No. 16x Maxim.
“We didn’t end up qualifying like we hoped to and with GSC you have to be up there in the top-eight because the dash is so crucial,” Gregg said. “All of us drivers felt bad for the fans because of the long delay from hot laps to qualifying so that definitely wasn’t any fun to have to sit around for so long and wait. It was a pretty long delay and we never like to see stuff like that happen, because it really does mess up the flow of the night and it’s no fun for the fans to have to sit around and see nothing on the track.”
Gregg then lined-up from the outside of the front row in the third heat race, but contact while battling for the lead resulted in him spinning to a stop off the second corner on the opening lap. Restarting at the tail he quickly moved back into the fifth and final transfer spot and began to work on good friend Willie Croft for fourth. Running the high line around the 3/8 mile dirt oval Gregg let it all hang out and hounded the rear of the red No. 29 sprinter looking to find a way by. With the laps winding down Gregg blasted to the top of the speedway in turns three and four and made a great move to get by Croft and score fourth at the checkered flag.
Starting in the sixth row for the main event Gregg hoped to move his way forward early, but was involved in a three-car incident on lap three, which forced him to the work area and having to start at the tail end of the field. The former Golden State Challenge Series Rookie of the Year would restart the race and spend the rest of the feature battling with a number of drivers and after 30-laps of racing would cross the stripe in eighth place at the helm of the Circle Racing Wheels, King Racing Products, Roughcut Construction No. 16x mount.
Although wanting to finish a little better in the main event, with the way the night went Gregg was happy with the end result. “Some people might not be happy with eighth but taking the night as a whole into consideration we’ll take it,” he commented. “I want to give big thanks to my crew because I had to go to the work area a couple of times after the incident early in the race and they kept digging to get me back out on the track. I was able to work the high-line pretty good during the night and it was nice to be able to get back up to eighth by the finish. I have to thank all my sponsors as well and everyone who supports this team because without them we wouldn’t be out here.”
Up next for Gregg and the Team Guts Racing No. 16x will be this Saturday’s Golden State Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series sanctioned Chris & Brian Faria Memorial at the Groppetti Automotive Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare. Last year Gregg made a pair of GSC starts in Tulare and tallied a career best fourth place finish at the 1/3 mile clay oval in April. “The last couple of weeks haven’t gone exactly as planned, but we’ll keep at it and try to get this car up front on Saturday,” Gregg said. “I’ve always enjoyed running at Tulare and we were pretty good last year when we raced there so hopefully we can keep that up this weekend.”
The front gate will open at 5pm this Saturday with Reserved Grandstand seats costing $18 and General Admission Bleacher tickets being just $15. Other drivers expected to be on hand will include two-time King of California and current GSC point leader Jonathan Allard of Chico, 13-time King of California Brent Kaeding from Campbell, defending Silver Dollar Speedway champ Bobby McMahan of Elk Grove, ’04 King of California Jason Statler of Grass valley, Scotts Valley’s Evan Suggs, defending GSC Rookie of the Year Kyle Larson of Elk Grove and more.
For pictures and more info on Placerville’s Andy Gregg log onto http://www.7industries.com/