[JessicaJ]

Walker Rallies to Decent Finish in Plymouth
By Jessica Jenkins

One weekend after finishing 3rd at Montpelier Motor Speedway and attending the Indianapolis 500, Gage Walker stepped back into his USAC National Midget for a double header at Plymouth Speedway. Unfortunately Saturday’s schedule was washed out by storms, but that did not stop him from a decent showing on Friday night.

What did slow Walker down a little was a mechanical issue that prevented him from getting on track for practice and nearly made him miss qualifying. Thinking back over the early problems, the Indiana native stated, "We went out for our practice and the car wouldn't fire. We changed a few things in the little time we had before I had to go out for qualifying and it wouldn't fire in qualifying either. It ended up being the pickups for the car were switched around backwards, which wouldn't let the car start." With repairs made, Walker continued, "Luckily, USAC let us go out again to redo my qualifying run and I ended up 18th, which I wasn't too disappointed about considering I didn't get any practice."

Finishing 5th in his heat race, the 17-year-old lined up 18th for the feature and nearly charged into the top ten during the closing laps, winding up 11th. Walker explained, "I got off to a slow start, making a few mistakes and losing a few positions. The track was completely dry slick and everyone was running nose to tail around the bottom of the racetrack. I finally went to the top and started to make it work. I kept working at it and made it to P11 with the remaining time I had. Overall I was happy with our run considering the bad luck we had at the beginning of the night."

With the second night of racing washed out, Walker and his #7 team now set their sights on Macon Speedway this Saturday night. To wrap up POWRi’s Illinois Speedweek, he will head to Belleville on Sunday.

Also, Walker’s redesigned website just went up, you can find out more about this talented young driver at www.gagewalkerracing.com.