Concord, N.C. (September 5, 2009) – Eyes have been gravitating towards J.P. Morgan and his Phil Morgan Pottery Chevrolet in recent weeks and a top five finish in the first USARacing Pro Cup Championship Series event may gain him more attention. Morgan came back to his home track of Concord [N.C.] Speedway for the BF Goodrich Tires 250 and finished fourth on Saturday night.

“We wanted a better finish and I think we could have had a couple of spots if it had stayed green. Racing hard is one thing, but I’m not going to dump anybody just to get more spots,” commented Morgan. “It was a great points night for us, obviously we wanted to win one here at our home track, but we’ll take fourth and go to Iowa.”

Morgan started the race in the seventh position and was not too happy with his car in the first half of the race. Shortly after the halfway mark the team elected to make changes, take tires, and the car soon came back to life.

“The car was bad to begin with, we just couldn’t get it to hook up like we wanted to,” said Morgan. “After we came in for tires, the car really came alive and we started picking off spots one by one.”

Henderson Motorsports Release

Johnson City, TN. (September 9, 2009) – Henderson Motorsports announced Wednesday morning that due to excessive travel expenses they will not be attending the September 19th Championship Series event at Iowa Speedway. For sponsorship opportunities with Henderson Motorsports please contact:
Caleb or Lindsey Holman
holmanl@goldmail.etsu.edu
(276)-608-3812

Henderson Motorsports Team Release, By Lindsey Holman

Concord, N.C. (September 5, 2009) – USARacing kicked off their four race championship series this past weekend at Concord Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. As the driver and owners points were reset for the championship races based on regular season point standings, teams turned up the heat hoping to redeem themselves and still have the chance to come out on top with the 2009 series title.

Henderson Motorsports along with driver Caleb Holman left Langley Speedway a few weeks ago sitting 7th in the regular season points standings and after Concord Saturday night they had moved up to 5th with only seventy-eight points between them and the series points leader Clay Rogers. Holman earned extra points throughout his consistent 8th place run at Concord by picking up the http://Strutmasters.com Pole Award, laying down a lap time of 16.640, and also grabbed the Halfway Leader Award leading 74 laps throughout the BF Goodrich Tires 250.

John Gibson, driver of the #13S MitiGator/Spray Paint & Equipment/RF85 Ford Fusion brought home his fifth top ten finish in five races with the USAR Pro Cup Series, bringing home 6th place in the Concord 250 at Concord Speedway in Concord, NC on Saturday, September 5th.

While the weather cooperated, I-Card scoring did not, as it was up and down for most of practice forcing teams to manual timing. Towards the end of practice, the Gibson Motorsports team felt good about the car's set up and during qualifying it was right on the mark with John qualifying 10th in the field.

The race itself was quite a battle for the Gibson Motorsports team with John developing a bad vibration during the first lap of the race and after losing a lap early in the race when he was spun by a competitor after being tapped from behind on the front stretch. John was able to keep the car out of the wall, but it meant several pit stops to change tires and make adjustments. These adjustments paid off and during the next caution, John received the Lucky Dog putting him back on the lead lap.

Brett Butler and the No. 1 LoanMax team are off to a strong start in the USAR Pro Cup Championship Series after this weekend. Qualifying 18th for the Concord 250 at Concord Speedway, Butler would end up bringing the LoanMax Chevrolet in for a 9th place finish.

Running in the top five most of the night, it was looking as though the LoanMax car was going to have an even better finish.

Butler had the freshest tires on the track and he was using that to his advantage to stay towards the front of the field. However, penalized for jumping a restart Butler had to take the LoanMax car to the back of the lead lap. This would have him restarting in 11th place.

Benson, North Carolina, Racer Third in USARacing Pro Cup Series Championship Points

With the regular season of USARacing Pro Cup Series competition in the books, Drew Herring set his focus on the last four races of the season, the Championship Series, in hopes of claiming his first Pro Cup Series Championship. That title chase started at Concord Speedway (NC) this past weekend, and after 250 laps of racing, Herring was able to drive his #22 BTS Tire & Wheel Distributors Ford Fusion to a second-place finish and, more importantly, put him third in series points, only 50 points back of the leader.

After just missing the pole position by one spot, Herring started the race from the outside pole and paced himself during the long event. After making pit stops, Herring worked his way slowly back up through the field to the rear bumper of series points leader Clay Rogers. Even though he had a few opportunities to take the top spot from Rogers on some late-race restarts, Herring settled into second until the checkered flag flew.

Rockingham, N.C. (September 8, 2009) – Six of the top 10 drivers in the USARacing Pro Cup Series point standings were among the dozen competitors who traveled to Rockingham Speedway Tuesday to participate in a day-long test in preparation for the Oct. 10 Aaron’s 150.

Standings leader Clay Rogers, who is seeking his third Pro Cup title, tested, as did third- place Drew Herring and fourth-place J.P. Morgan. Other top 10 drivers who worked to perfect their cars on the 1-mile track were Matt Lofton, Jeff Agnew and rookie Lucas Ransone. Rounding out the dozen who tested were Kyle Fowler, Derek Kale, Hickory Speedway winner David Wilson, Tom Hessert, A.J. Frank and Bryce Walker.

No official times were kept, as the teams worked to perfect the handling of their cars on the historic track.

By Lou Lauer, http://www.USARfans.com

With the Championship battle at stake, Clay Rogers made the race-winning pass on Jeff Agnew with around 75 laps to go in the Concord 250 and stayed out in front of the mayhem behind him to claim the first of four USARacing Championship races. Coming into the race, the 2-time Pro Cup Champions held a 15 point margin over Brandon Ward and add 20 more to that gap after the points were tallied. It would be the fourth win of the 2009 season and 21st of his career.

Rogers started the #54s JCR3 Racing C&C Boilers Chevy Impala from the third position and took the lead for the first time on lap 57 when he passed pole-sitter Caleb Holman. Pit stops a few laps later during a caution flag, would have Rogers surrender the best view on the track.

From an 11th place restart position on lap 122, Rogers relied heavily on his motor to get him back to the front. At one point, he told his crew "This motor is amazing. When it reaches a certain RPM, it just takes off."

But it would take more than just a strong piece under the hood to get past the rest of the best field of short-track drivers around. Skill and a bit of luck would be needed to bypass and then distance himself from the field - a field intent on keeping the race interesting.

In 1957, there was a movie called "12 Angry Men". It would seem that Saturday night at Concord Speedway was the long-awaited remake of the classic. The added tension and intensity of having only four races to get the job done, coupled with a brilliant full moon over North Carolina seems to have caused a few people to get a bit angry!

Here's an interesting new promo video produced for the USARacing series that we ran across in our web searching. It would appear to be geared towards BFGoodrich tires.

http://streetmuscleaction.com/?p=1462

And another short one covering repairing chassis'

http://streetmuscleaction.com/?p=1382