[JessicaJ]

Walker Gaining Momentum at Macon Speedway in POWRi Doubleheader
By Jessica Jenkins

Despite a few little showers early on Friday, Macon Speedway’s first POWRi doubleheader was the perfect weekend for racing. Finally shaking off the rain that had plagued midget racing for a few weeks across the area, the stage was set for the teams to put on a good show. For Gage Walker it was a chance to build on the experience he has been gaining at the 1/5 mile track in central Illinois.

With a huge field of nearly 40 cars, Friday evening started off a little slow for the Indiana native as he finished fifth in heat #5 and only gained one position from his sixth place start. That sent him to the first semi-feature, lining him up third and needing to remain in the top three to advance into the main race of the evening. He wasted no time in moving into second place once the green flag flew and began closing on the leader. Wheeling a car that he described as being “really good and really fast”, Walker was “trying to play it safe just to get into the feature” in the closing laps and held on for second place. This lined him up 19th of 22 cars in the feature and he immediately set about passing cars, driving by three of them by a yellow on lap five. Another yellow a lap after the restart nearly involved Walker as two cars made contact and stopped in front of him, but he managed to skate through and was able to continue. That was the last caution in the 30 lap race, stringing out the field and allowing the leader to put car after car down a lap. He caught up to Walker with two laps to go and they staged a terrific battle with the 17 year old holding off the more experienced veteran at the finish line. When the dust settled, he had gained 7 positions to earn a 12th place result.

Reflecting on the final race of the night, Walker stated, “It’s hard to start in the very back, away from the fast guys. You want to be starting up there so you can catch onto their pace right off the bat and keep your momentum up to stay with those guys. But having to start behind everybody, it’s hard to get going and just took me awhile to get by that middle group of guys. With that long run, I just kind of kept running them down and just didn’t have enough time.” Speaking about the early contact, he explained: “I was running right behind another car, we were about 3 wide and the car in front of me kind of got caught on the cushion. I slid into him and the car behind me slid into me, so both the right left side nerf bars got bent up a little bit.” But other than that, Walker noted, “Everything was good for the most part.”

Returning on the 4th of July for the second night of action at the small dirt track, fireworks happened on track as much as they did in the surrounding cities. The day started off with a bang for Walker as he laid down the second fastest lap in practice before lining up 4th in the third heat race. He moved up to third by the yellow on lap 2 and held off some serious challengers through another yellow and the final 8 laps. With about 10 less competitors from the previous night and some big names having major trouble in their heat races, the young driver transferred straight to the feature after being one of the top 16 in passing points. He started just one position behind Friday night’s finish and gained two positions by the first red flag for another driver flipping on lap 2 to restart 11th. The action continued fast and furious as he nearly got collected in a wreck on lap three, making it past just before yet another driver flipped over. Pulling off from that restart, he was up to 9th and found a nice window to race in in order to survive the chaos around him. Two more cautions between halfway and ten to go showed him racing between tenth and eighth. Once they returned to racing, it did not take Walker long to march up nearly into the top five with a mix of well-timed moves and avoiding the problems that plagued half the field that took the green flag. After all was said and done, the charismatic driver claimed sixth position, his best POWRi finish at Macon Speedway and highest National Midget feature result.

Walker shared his thoughts on the way the feature went, stating how “the cars in front of me were all over the place and quite a few of them wrecked and flipped. Whoever could keep their nose clean the longest and the best was who survived. The car wasn’t right early on and I did some adjustments on the shocks under the long green and the car started to come in. I was starting to kind of catch them when the caution came out and then I was just grouped back up with those guys and I started throwing slide jobs and got by a few of them.

Reviewing other parts of his night, Walker shared, “The car was really good in practice. I had a really tough heat race, but the car was really fast there too.” And speaking more about the feature: “The car was good, but we have shock adjusters in the car, so when I was going around lining up before the race even started, I misjudged what the car was going to do. I changed a bunch of stuff on the shocks, but that didn’t work, so under green I got passed a couple times and realized it wasn’t working. I had to try and change the stuff back under green while I was racing, but that makes it kind of difficult.” Still, the highschooler said he had fun before revealing a first he experienced on Friday night: “I think it was my first ever real slide job I’ve done. That’s a big part in racing and then tonight, that’s really the main way to pass on a track like this. I pulled a couple of them off and got by a few cars that way, so it worked out. It was definitely fun, just tiring, trying to hold on to it. We are just on the verge of spinning out and wrecking the whole time trying to go fast.”

Next on the schedule for Gage Walker and his family-owned team is another back to back weekend of POWRi racing in Illinois July 11th and 12th at Fairbury American Legion Speedway Saturday and Belle-Clair Speedway on Sunday.

Learn more about Gage Walker and keep up with all of his races at GageWalkerRacing.com