Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Michael Gold takes over CASCAR Sportsman rookie lead

By Don Brooks, Whitlock Motorsports

Peterborough, ON August 21 2005: After only a few laps into the Parkhill Excavating 100 at Peterborough Speedway on Saturday night, rain forced officials to postpone the balance of the event until the next day. But for Michael Gold, that race will be remembered firstly as a real struggle to net his 6th place finish and secondly, as being good enough for him to take the lead in the chase for 2005 Rookie Champion of the CASCAR Power Water Sportsman Series.

“I hate that Ron (Lethbridge #95) had such a bad day. I’d much rather take the Rookie lead by good performance” said the 22 year-old university student from Sault Ste Marie, ON. “But our day was pretty bad too. I’ve only been here once before, and that was last year. We had to go off notes today since the engine developed a noise after about 3 laps of practice and that was all the practice I got. Then the guy ahead of me in qualifying overheated and I had to run those two laps in the oil-dry.”

Nonetheless, the young gun placed the Whitlock Motorsports-prepared #97 Compass Imaging Group / Clarica Dodge in 9th spot on the starting grid. Throughout the 100 lap event, he maintained his pace, dodging two big wrecks right in front of him and managing to keep it straight without losing position.

“If you ask me what a worse handling car could be, I’d be stuck for an answer” said Gold. “Without any practice, we just weren’t very close on setup. It was loose in and had a bad push going out. It was not a fun day, but we did manage to stay focused and salvage a decent finish.”

Brad Graham earned yet another pole in his HB Material Handling Dodge, and led the race until lap 72 when he got tangled up in a lap-car incident. Graham recovered for third, while Mike Alquire netted another podium in 2nd and Shawn McGlynn notched his first-ever CASCAR victory in his Ford Taurus.

“Winning the Rookie of the Year title is our #1 objective this season” said Gold. “I feel bad that Ron crashed today but I’m four points ahead of him and the Rookie title is now mine to lose in that final race at Kawartha Speedway next month.”

NEXT EVENT – The final PowerWater Sportsman Series race of the year takes place on September 17 at Kawartha Speedway – also near Peterborough, Ontario. That will be the last CASCAR events of the season for both the Sportsman and Super Series divisions and will decide all final 2005 championship positions.

For more info about the Power Water Series and CASCAR, see www.cascar.ca

For more information about Dave Whitlock, see www.whitlockmotorsports.com

For more information about Michael Gold, see www.goldracing.com

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