[JessicaJ]

Walker Claims Montpelier for First Win of the Year
By Jessica Jenkins

On Saturday afternoon, Gage Walker made the almost two hour trip to Montpelier Motor Speedway for the midget racing portion of the night. He started second in the heat race and wheeled his #7x to first place, earning him a fifth place start for the feature. In the race he quickly moved up then bided his time before making the move with one lap to go, passing Justin Peck for the lead. Montpelier’s reigning track midget champion then drove away and claimed the win in his third event of the season to start the year off right!

Walker and his family-owned team often race at Montpelier to learn things they can apply to the bigger USAC events and that was exactly the case last weekend as well. Speaking more about this, the 18-year-old explained, “We mainly just wanted to try a few things with setup on the car that we didn't get to try last year and to see if it made the car any better, which definitely seemed to help.”

And of course it takes a lot of people to make a race team successful. Walker expressed his gratitude, saying: “I want to thank Spike Chassis, Impact, Walker and Sons, Wilwood Brakes, Team RAYPRO, Business Art Designs, my parents, Mike Hurst, and Dave Mikels for their help and support.”

Next up for Walker is the USAC Indiana Midget Series race on May 13th at Plymouth Speedway. For more information on this rising star, visit GageWalkerRacing.com, ‘like’ his fan page on Facebook by searching for “Gage Walker” or follow him on Twitter @GageWalker7.