By Paul Joiner
(Babersville, Fl 2/11/2011) Young Phenom David Gravel showed his toughness the past two nights at the 40th annual Dirt Car Nationals the past two nights with finishes of 3rd and 13th. The opening night for the All Star Circuit of Champions at Volusia Raceway Park saw the youngester set the 6th quickest time out of 39 cars and finish 5th in his heat to qualify for the dash. The J&J Chassis JRC Transportation with IGA machine would finish 4th in the dash, the same position he would start the feature.
On a slick but fast track with many of the top Outlaw teams behind him, Gravel would run a terrific race. Second place starter Kraig Kinser would set a blistering pace for much of the race with Gravel picking off the 3rd place starter to run a closing 3rd. With 22 of the 30 laps down Kinser would shred a left rear tire moving Gravel up to the runner up position. When they reset the field, Gravel would find himself 5 lap cars behind the new leader Sammy Swindell. At the drop of the green flag the 89g machine would begin picking off lap cars.
During the passing a slight hesitation let the 3rd place running Craig Dollansky slip by on the outside relagting Gravel to 3rd which is where he would finish. An excellent performance against some of the top sprint car drivers from around the country.
“We were really strong tonight, Rob (Hart) gave me a terrific set up for the track conditions.” said a smiling David Gravel. “During qualifying I knew we had something for these guys. I kinda slid back in the heat and during the red flag Rob told me to go to the high side of the track which is what I did and allowed me to pass 3 cars and transfer. We had a 2nd place car no doubt, Sammy was just hooked up but when you have traffic one small slip can let a guy by you. I am real happy we are off to a real strong beginning to the season.”
Night number 2 would find Mother Nature presenting conditions that would make the track lightning fast. The old track qualifying record would be eclipsed by 27 drivers with Paul McMahon setting a new track record and making Volusia the fastest dirt half mile in the country. Gravel would qualify 14th out of 37 cars and start 3rd in his heat which is where he would also finish.
Track conditions stayed consistant right up to the feature yielding a very fast race track. The young Connecticut driver would start 9th when the green flag dropped for the 30 lap main event. Throughtout the race Gravel would run in the top 10 until the track began to roughen up heading into turn one. Searching for a smooth part of the track and a qucik line, Gravel surrendered 4 spots relegating him to 13th with 4 laps to go, and he would eventually finish in the same spot. The ran went green to checkers with out incident.
“I just couldn’t really find the line that the car wanted.” said Gravel. “I am not real disappointed though, the track was really really fast and it made it a bit tough to pass. It got real rough in turn one and if you hit a rut the car would take off on you. We held our own and were able to pick up quite a bit of ground on Tim Shaffer tonight. This track has been tough on us the last few years and so it kinda owed us.”
The team now prepares for the next 3 nights with the World of Outlaws where David’s best finish is a 7th twice. The team would also like to let fans know that if your not following David on twitter do so now. The 200th follower will receive a FREE David Gravel T-Shirt and the 500th a pair of tickets to their choice of an All Star Circuit of Champions race.