Gold Crown Nationals Improve Each Night for Gage Walker
By Jessica Jenkins

When Gage Walker pulled into Tri-City Speedway on Thursday, he was ready to tackle whatever came his way. It was set to be a busy weekend at the 3/8-mile Speedway located near Granite City, IL as USAC's Gold Crown Nationals brought in a lot of the sport's top stars for three full nights of racing.

Night one got off to a rough start towards for Walker the beginning of the first heat race after he rolled off fifth. As the young driver described, "I got a pretty good run around the outside on a couple guys and they kind of got together. One of the guys bounced and went towards the wall, collected me in it and tore the front end out of the car." His team immediately set to work repairing the car and missed their entire qualifier while scrambling to get ready for the Feature. The scheduled B main was scrapped due to not having enough cars after the qualifiers. That meant the Feature was moved up and Walker's red Impact/Spike Chassis #7x was ready just in time to roll out for the main race of the night. The 18 year old recalled, "It took us down to the very last second, [but] we got it fixed and made it out for the Feature. But we didn't have any time to make any adjustments or anything at all, so we just kind of were running in the feature mid-pack." When the long night came to an end, he had moved from starting last all the way up to fourteenth.

The next night when they returned to the dirt oval, everything started off a little more smoothly. However, with the addition of sprint cars to the schedule, the track handled differently as Walker explained that "the track got really wide. It was pretty much polished off right on the wall." He placed eighteenth fastest in hot laps and started from fifth in the first heat once more. He surrendered one spot to finish sixth and looked to the first qualifier to gain passing points. That proved to be difficult though, as he started from the pole and claimed fifth place by the time the checkered waved. That slated him to start sixteenth in the Feature and the larger track continued to be a hindrance as the bigger teams with more horsepower took off. No cautions flew in the 35 lap race to regroup the field and a new record was set for quickest race when it all wrapped up in under ten minutes. When the whirlwind slowed after the race, Walker wound up right where he started. Afterwards he shared, "I started almost right in last, made my way up a little bit and the race went green to checkered. I didn't have time to make it up very far." He then added, "We were alright, the car was decent."

On Saturday for the final night, Walker's family-owned team threw some different setups at it in hopes that being tighter would enable him to run a quicker pace. It worked and he used ideal weather/track conditions to pace tenth fastest overall in hot laps. With passing points at a premium, his seventh place starting spot in heat two set him up for gaining as many as possible. He immediately took off to the high side and claimed one spot on the first lap then another on lap five to finish fifth. When the green waved for the second qualifier, the 2013 USAC Ignite Midwest Dirt Midget Champion didn't let the typical single file racing hold him back. He threw everything at it that he had and on lap six was challenging for second spot. As the racing spread out more, he held off a charge from fourth place in the final laps to finish in third, right where he had started.

When it came time for the Feature, Walker lined up in eighth spot and was put in the middle of a three wide battle at the start before taking back to the high side once he was clear. Nearing a quarter of the way into the race, a red flag waved for fence repair in turn 1 after a car flipped into it. As the red flag continued to stretch the schedule later and later into the night, crews attended to their cars and drivers were allowed to climb out. Once the race finally restarted with 8 laps complete, Walker started from the eighth position and moved back to the high side to take seventh. Through the next twenty-five laps and two yellows, the high school graduate battled hard, but found it difficult to keep up with the higher powered competitors. A final yellow with only a few laps to go gave him one more opportunity and he took full advantage. Restarting 13th, a handful of cars ahead of him got bottled up on the inside line and he sailed by to claim tenth spot. A spirited battle to the line with the driver in eleventh finished with Walker being nipped right at the line. When the weekend was over, he went back home to Indianapolis with an eleventh place finish. Walker shared, "I had a lot better starting position tonight, started more toward the front. I was off to a pretty good start, just kind of maintaining and feeling the car out. And then towards the middle of the race, we started to drop off. We went more extreme with our changes and it wasn't working too well in the middle of the race, but then it really started to come on the last quarter of the race and I made some time back up. We had a caution with about three to go and I got by four or five guys on the top in the last three laps, so our finish was a lot better tonight."

Looking back over the whole weekend, Walker recapped, "We struggled the past couple nights. I think we definitely figured it out tonight. We had a little bit better luck with our pill draw for our heat race, were able to get some passing points in the heat and were able to get some in the qualifier too. It put us in a pretty good position for the Feature. The car was definitely feeling a lot better tonight. We just tried some new things, went a little bit more extreme with our adjustments and it seemed to work a lot better."

Next up for Walker is the Kokomo Klash this Friday, October 14 at the Kokomo Speedway. His last appearance at the Speedway during Indiana Midget Week didn't go so well and he is looking forward to returning and experiencing redemption. For updates during races and more pictures from last weekend in Tri-City, you can 'like' him at Facebook.com/GageWalkerRacing. Also, check out GageWalkerRacing.com and follow him on Twitter @GageWalker7.


Results in a nutshell:

Night 1
Heat 1
start: 5th, finish: 9th
Qualifier 1
start: 11th, finish: DNS
Feature
start 23rd, finish: 14th

Night 2
Heat 1
start: 5th, finish: 6th
Qualifier 1
start: 1st, finish: 5th
Feature
start: 16th, finish 16th


Night 3
Heat 2
start: 7th, finish: 5th
Qualifier 2
start: 3rd, finish 3rd
Feature
start: 8th, finish: 11th