The driver's seat will still be warm when Shane Gray and
the Gray Motorsports team roll the Big O Tires/Service Central Pontiac GXP out
of the trailer at Auto Club Raceway Pomona for the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA
Winternationals, the first race of 23 on the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series
tour.
The pretty Pontiac has been strenuously tested – on four
separate occasions, in fact – since the season-closer last November. The most
recent session occurred earlier this week at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor
Speedway with Pomona and the Winternationals just a stone's throw away.
"We had the race motor in for the last two runs we
made, and I think it went pretty okay," said Gray, who has been powered by
engines built in-house by Gray Motorsports since making his Pro Stock debut at
the 2010 Winternationals.
"Our engine program has struggled in certain areas,
and that is something that just takes time. But we have made progress in the
horsepower department, and we've been working hard on durability issues.
The car is really good, and I think we can go to Pomona
and qualify decent – we just need to see how we stack up against what everybody
else has done this winter."
Gray's return to Pomona marks the second anniversary of
his debut as a professional drag racer in the ultra-competitive Pro Stock
class. In his very first race at the venerable facility, Gray qualified 14th
out of the 23 drivers vying for a raceday start, and he won his first round of
eliminations. He put an exclamation point on his rookie season when he returned
to Auto Club Raceway that fall for the NHRA Finals and scored the first win of
his career.
"I guess you could say that we've had a little bit
of success in Pomona before," said Gray. "Those moments were great,
but that was then, and now it's time to concentrate on getting a good qualifying
position. If we can do that, then we can worry about trying to win that first
round and go from there."
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