Wilson Leads 75 Laps En Route to Fifth-Place Pro Cup Finish

HUNTERSVILLE, NC (May 21, 2013) – Sixteen-year-old Reid Wilson could see the signs of a season turn-around coming as he and his Reid Wilson Racing team prepared for the May 17 MAHLE 250 at Tennessee’s Kingsport Speedway.  What he actually got in the 250-lap affair was a head-turning effort that saw his No. 66 Bojangles Chicken ‘n Biscuits Chevrolet qualify up front, lead 75 laps ahead of a strong field of competitors before bringing home the North Carolinian’s first top-five finish of his rookie Pro Cup season.

“I think a top five, remembering that I’m a rookie, is a really good result,” said Wilson.  “At the same time, I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t finish quite as good as the car and the team deserved.  I’m really excited that we are disappointed with a fifth, because that means we have a lot going for us.” 

Wilson qualified fifth and raced inside the top five for much of the first half of the MAHLE 250.  He moved his way up to third before the competition caution at lap 125.  A halfway redraw put his No. 66 on the pole for the stretch run to the checkered flag.  

Once up front, Wilson proved that he had a car capable of staying there.

Mooresville, NC 5/20/13- It took two green-white-checker attempts to get the finish of Friday night’s MAHLE 250 at the Kingsport (TN) Speedway in the history books, but it was well worth it for the fans that braved the two and half hour rain delay. Clay Rogers took his #16 Lamb & Robinson Ford Fusion to the outside of Mark McFarland on the final lap of the race to score his third win of the season in the first three events of the 2013 X-1R Pro Cup Series season schedule.

After an extended wait for rains to pass through the area, the third race of the 2013 CARS X-1R Pro Cup Series finally is in the books!  Despite leading the majority of the race in his first Pro Cup race since the 2010 season, veteran Mark McFarland saw his hopes of a win disappear on the last lap of the MAHLE 250.

When the field took the final green flag, and a green-white-checker situation at that, Clay Rogers made a last lap pass on the outside to take the win away. It was Rogers' 3rd straight win to start the 2013 season and the 33rd of Rogers' Pro Cup career.

A complete race report will be coming soon.

Unofficial Results - MAHLE 250, Kingsport Speedway, May 17, 2013

1)  #16    Clay Rogers
2)  #56    Gus Dean
3)  #8       Mark McFarland
4)  #41     Rusty Skewes
5)  #66     Reid Wilson
6)  #2       Brady Boswell
7)  #21     Eric Gerchak
8)  #23    J.P. Morgan
9)  #15    R.S. Senter
10) #59    Coleman Pressley
11) #80     Blake Jones
12) #1      Dalton Hopkins
13) #53    Joey Jones
 

Speed is There, Now Wilson Hoping to Put Total Package Together in Mahle 250

HUNTERSVILLE, NC (May 14, 2013) - Two races into his rookie season in the CARS X-1R Pro Cup Series, 16-year-old Reid Wilson has run the gamut of first experiences. He has raced wheel-to-wheel with some of the most accomplished drivers in all of short track racing. He set fast time in qualifying for his second-ever Pro Cup start last month at Hickory, becoming the second-youngest pole winner in series’ history behind only Joey Logano. He was also quick in the Pro Cup practice rounds at South Carolina’s Anderson Speedway two weeks ago before that event was rained out.

Now as the series turns to Kingsport Speedway in Tennessee for the Mahle 250 on Friday, May 17, Wilson is hoping to build on his early-season highs such as the ones in Hickory and Anderson. Doing so will put the mechanical issues that plagued his Reid Wilson Racing team at race-time in the first two events of the season far in the rear-view mirror.

“We’ve worked all that stuff out,” said Wilson as he and the team prepared the Bojangles’ Chicken n’ Biscuits No. 66 Chevrolet for the Kingsport event. “We knew for sure that by the time we got to Anderson, we weren’t going to have any problems. At Dillon (in the Pro Cup season opener) and Hickory, the first two races of the year, we kind of knew something was coming. We’d get to the racetrack, find something and know that we couldn’t fix it until we got back to the shop. Now, everything is as good as we need it to be and we’re ready for Kingsport.”

Mooresville, NC 5/13/13 – After getting washed out at Anderson Motor Speedway two weeks prior, the drivers and teams of the X-1R Pro Cup Series will turn their attention to the track deemed the “concrete jungle”, Kingsport Speedway in Kingsport, Tennessee. The Friday night event will be the series first of two visits to the 3/8^th mile concrete track throughout the 2013 season. Unlike the first two events of the season, where series regulars battled amongst themselves to decide a race winner, this weekend’s MAHLE 250 will see at least a pair of area regulars make their bid to take home the $10,000 winner’s check. Blake Jones, driving for last year’s winner Wade Day, and Coleman Pressley, son of track owner Robert Pressley, have both filed entries with plans to give series regulars a “run for their money” once the green flag waives.          

Episode # 8 of The Roll Cage. This week's featured guest is Rusty Skewes, driver of the #41 Ford for Top Gun Motorsports.