WATERTOWN, Conn.—June 4, 2013— The calendar may say there are still a couple of weeks of spring left, but for all intents and purposes, summer is here. For David Gravel and his fellow World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series competitors, that means it’s the heart of the season and the time they look forward to most each year. Beginning this week, the series will race 11 times in a 25-day period at 11 tracks in nine states.
The month of June will continue for Gravel on Wednesday, June 5 in the FMR Racing/JRC Transportation/Model Craft J&J under the Bill Rose Racing banner at Kokomo Speedway. He’ll then head west to 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa on Friday, June 7, followed by a visit to Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., for the FVP Outlaws at Lakeside event on Saturday, June 8. This four-race stretch will conclude on Sunday, June 9 at I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Neb., and the running of the NAPA Auto Parts Outlaw Showdown.
Gravel will be making his debut at Kokomo Speedway, which is a quarter-mile bullring in north central Indiana. He finished a season-best second on a quarter-mile at Tri-State Speedway in Indiana back in April. The native of Watertown, Conn., also raced in Indiana on Memorial Day, finishing eighth at Lawrenceburg Speedway, earning the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award, after lining up 19th. Gravel currently leads the standings in the chase for the Indiana State Championship, which is being presented by AllenBooth.com, and will reward the driver with the most points earned in the three races in Indiana this year with a $500 bonus.
“Kokomo is a place I’ve wanted to race at for a long time,” said Gravel. “They have one of the best non-wing weekly shows in the country and always have a very racy surface. We’ve done pretty good in Indiana this year and it would be neat to wrap up this Indiana State Championship and earn a few extra bucks. We’ll certainly give it everything we got.”
The East Coast racer will also be making his first start at the three-eighths-mile 34 Raceway, which will be hosting the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series for the first time since 2009 and just the third time ever. Gravel has raced once in the state of Iowa this season, finishing 11th at the famed Knoxville Raceway last month, after starting 25th in that contest.
“We’ve raced at a few three-eighths-miles this year that we can compare it to and Tyler (Swank- crew chief) has been there so that always helps,” noted Gravel. “Just as like all the other places I’ve visited for the first time this year, I’ll try to make the most of hot laps and watch the track throughout the night to see how it changes.”
Lakeside Speedway will mark another track that Gravel is making his inaugural appearance at. The flat half-mile will be one of two stops in Kansas for the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series this season. Gravel has made six starts on half-mile tracks this year, recording a trio of top-10 finishes, including seventh-place showings at the legendary Eldora Speedway in Ohio and Perris Auto Speedway in California.
“The main thing at a place like Lakeside is track position,” he shared. “We’ve been working hard to improve our qualifying package and that’s the key on the bigger tracks. We have to qualify better and get ourselves in the dash to give ourselves a shot at being in the top-five and contending for wins. The competition is so tough that it’s pretty hard to come from further in the field and get into the top-five.”
The trip to I-80 Speedway, a semi-banked, four-tenths-mile, will be Gravel’s first-ever visit to Nebraska. He has made one start on a track that size in 2013, with that coming at The Dirt Track at Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend, finishing 13th.
Entering this weekend, Gravel has raced at 12 tracks for the first time in 2013 and will add four more to that list in a span of five days. He is currently seventh in the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series championship standings on the strength of 12 top-10 finishes, of which four are top-five performances.
Keep up-to-date with David Gravel and DDR Motorsports by visiting http://cts.vresp.com/c/?ShortTrackRacingPR/638eaf9da2/573ed91d45/db7c38ccc4. Follow David on Twitter @davidgravel89g and like David on Facebook.
