2015 Granite State Pro Stock Series Season Preview
The Granite State Pro Stock Series will open their season with the Icebreaker at Thompson (CT) Speedway Motorsports Park on April 12. The series will head into its fourth full season.
The schedule will consist of 12 races. Claremont (NH) Speedway will host its first race since the inaugural event in 2011 on Friday night April 24. Hudson, Monadnock, and Star will host the series twice. Granite State will visit Speedway 51 (formerly Riverside) and White Mountain Motorsports Park once. For the second consecutive year, the series will support the ISMA Star Classic at Star Speedway on September 12.
The season finale will be the series debut at New London-Waterford (CT) Speedbowl October 24th.
“I’m thrilled to be going to NLWS,” promoter Mike Parks said. “We’re going to do 150 laps to crown the 2015 champion. Hopefully it works well and we can do two in the future. The southern New England market is a place we’re working on really hard.”
The series has had 65 to 68 competitors the last two seasons. Parks believes that the average car count will be 24 to 28 per race. Many drivers from throughout New England have registered including 2013 champion Mike O’Sullivan and his brother Tommy. Larry Gelinas is planning to contend for the championship.
Barry Gray made changes over the winter, including returning to his former paint scheme on the No. 29 car. Gray is looking forward to the series return at Claremont, where he raced fulltime in a Late Model and a few Pro Stock starts. Gray has won two of the last three events at Monadnock.
“We’re always good at Monadnock,” Gray said. “We would have won the first race up there, but circumstances didn’t permit it. There’s a lot of good tracks on the schedule. I like traveling. I like the different tracks and the different setups, so it’s a lot of fun.”
The series will get two practice sessions on Saturday morning followed by qualifying heat races on Saturday afternoon with the 40 lap feature race on Sunday.
Sources: Matthew Wiernasz/YankeeRacer.com