Jason Holt prepares his car in the O'Keefe shop for the next Gas City race.
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On Saturday, the LOK Enterprises cars both had Main Events to run. Don, who ran a heat and main on opening day, was in the K Main. Meanwhile, Jason Holt had qualified for the pole of the E Main in the second LOK Enterprises Midget.
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During the season, Don has worked with Jason on car setup for Jason's Wingless Sprinter at Gas City Speedway. Jason enjoyed his best career season with 9 top ten finishes in 13 starts and a third place point effort. Quite a season for Jason. From my visit last year, I could see that he is quite a racer with a bright future ahead of him. Look for him to grab a victory this season.
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I'm sure Don will post on his web page what went down. I'm guessing he scratched from the K Main to focus on Jason's E Main run. A front row spot meant Jason could transfer up at least one race, and he would do just that with a third place finish. From there, Jason came from the last row to sixth in the D Main, missing a transfer by just one spot. Still, he was in the first half of a field of over 200 cars. All in all, not a bad job by Jason and the whole crew.
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But it gets more interesting. This all star field saw previous winner Tony Stewart winning a B Main to get into the show, but the win went to none other than Damion Gardner ahead of Dave Darland, Shane Cottle, Bryan Clauson and Jon Stanbrough. All five hail from the state of Indiana, and Gardner has actually relocated to Don's hometown of Pittsboro.
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I recall meeting Damion and his father back in the mid 90's at Antioch. He was racing a Nor Cal Dwarf Car back win Nor Cal and Pacific Coast were having some classic battles at Antioch Speedway. He was a star in the making and won the NCDCA Dwarf Car championship a couple years later. He became one of the stars of SCRA (Top 5 ranked) and went on to win a CRA Sprint Car championship. He is rapidly climbing the ladder to an eventual NASCAR or IRL ride, and this could be the biggest win of his career.
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Congratulations Damion.
