Adam Gray Wins Reliable Welding & Speed Late Model Rookie of the Year Honors at Stafford Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — One year after winning the Late Model championship at Monadnock Speedway, Adam Gray moved to the Late Model division at Stafford Motor Speedway and outdueled John Kasper to win the 2009 Reliable Welding and Speed Rookie of the Year award. Gray missed an event during the 2009 season, but still accumulated enough points with 5 top-10 finishes during the year to take the rookie title by a scant 4 point margin over John Kasper.
“We had some really good parts, some really bad parts, and some mediocre parts to the season this year,” said Gray. “We definitely had a learning year. Coming from Monadnock where I won 6 races and the championship last season, it was a little frustrating at times this year, but we learned a lot. We started off the year with some basic ideas and we had people helping us out with the car setup, but it wasn’t until we took the car to Bob Fill later in the year that we really seemed to hit on something. I think that we will be a force to be reckoned with next season.”
The 2009 season started off slow for Gray and his #97 Meadows Motor Car team as they had one top-10 finish in the first four races before a heat race crash eliminated them from race #5. But the second half of the 2009 season breathed new life into the team, and they scored three top-10 finishes in the last five events of the year and were leading comfortably when a blown engine relegated them to a 25th place finish during the Sept. 25th event.
“Our goal this year was a top-10 in points, but I think that a 15th place finish for us as a rookie team is a pretty respectable finish considering how our year went,” said Gray. “As hard as it is for me to admit as a driver, I made some mistakes driving this year, but the crew stayed behind me all the way. Having their support like I did this year I think was our strong point. Without the crew, we couldn’t have finished where we did this year. We were racing against John Kasper, who had experience at Stafford in the DARE Stock division. I had only seen the track once before this year, so all in all, I think we did pretty well for our first year together at Stafford. If the motor didn’t break during the second to last race of the year, I think we could have had a win, but we really enjoyed racing at Stafford this season.”
Gray’s finish to the 2009 season along with the chassis help they received from Bob Fill has the entire team chomping at the bit to get back to the track.
“We’re really looking forward to next season,” said Gray. “I feel like with everything we learned this year, we can get a couple of wins and finish pretty high in the standings next year. We struggled with the car being tight all year long and Bob [Fill] really helped us out with that. If we could go back and do things over, I think we’d have taken the car to Bob earlier than we did to get the chassis tuned up. But now we have a season under our belts, we won’t be shooting in the dark when we come back next year and we definitely have something to work with.”
Gray will officially be crowned the 2009 Reliable Welding and Speed Late Model Rookie of the Year at the 40th Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony on Friday, November 20, 2009 at the La Renaissance Banquet Facility in East Windsor.
For more information about the Champions Awards Ceremony, or to order tickets, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR