Chris Windom racing update 2007-05-09

Chris Windom Wins At Lawrenceburg; Looks Forward To USAC Midgets

(INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - May 9, 2007): 16-year-old Chris Windom, of Canton, Ill., finally got rid of some of the bad luck that has been nagging his Windom Motorsports Team and broke through with a win at Lawrenceburg (IN) Speedway last Saturday, while also tallying up two other top-eight feature finishes at Gas City (IN)/I-69 Speedway (8th) on Friday and Kokomo (IN) Speedway on Sunday (7th).

Windom is competing full-time in the USAC National Sprint and Midget Car Series divisions, which were making an appearance last weekend at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa, but due to age restrictions at that track which dictate that drivers have to be at least 18 years old, he was not allowed to race.

Windom sure made the most of the situation. The teenager showcased his dirt-track skills on Lawrenceburg's renovated banks, taking the win from some of sprint car's most storied names.

After moving from his seventh-place starting spot into fourth throughout the early stages of the Lawrenceburg's sprint feature, a late-race yellow flag gave Windom the opportunity to think about options for the last laps, and he decided to move low on the track where no one had raced the entire night with much success. Windom used patience, maturity and that low line to fight off challenges from Matt Westfall and Shane Cottle to lead the last two laps of the race, sticking his name in the record books as a race winner early in the 2007 season.

"I'm so happy to get our first win so early in the season," Windom stated. "We've had a lot of bad luck during the first part of this season, so it's really good to have everything come together and get an early win. We definitely ran a smart race and made the right choice to go down low (on the track), which gave us the win -- it was a line that not many other drivers were attempting. We basically ran low for the first 10 laps of the race. The top-five guys were all running together during the first part of the race, and I was running right with them up front, but I wasn't gaining any ground, so I went up top. Then there was a late-race yellow. Because I wasn't making any progress on the track, which had really slicked off, and with the race winding down, I decided to go back to the bottom with about two laps to go, which gave me the lead.

"We've been fast enough to run up front this year - we've just had bad luck. But this win really brought my confidence up, and I'm really happy we have had some success so early in the year. Hopefully, the momentum from this past weekend keeps up for the USAC Midget race this coming weekend at Haubstadt."

USAC's third National Midget Car Series race of the season will take place at the highly regarded Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Ind., on Saturday, May 12th, which will give Windom a chance at putting some more points on the board for that series in 2007. Windom scored and eighth-place finish earlier in the year at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix, Ariz., during the opening round of the USAC National Midget Car Series schedule.

Saturday's Haubstadt race is co-sanctioned by POWRi, and a 30-lap feature is slated on the 1/4-mile dirt oval. The race is USAC's first for Midgets at Tri-State Speedway since Lonnie Caruthers won there in 1980. It kicks off the 2007 "Toyota Challenge," which continues May 26 and June 16 at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Ind.

"I think driving Sprint cars is harder to handle than Midgets," Windom explained. "So making the switch from driving Sprint cars all spring to the Midget this weekend will be easier than going the other direction. I've run Haubstadt probably five or six times in a Sprint car and have almost won there -- we've had a second- and third-place finish. Haubstadt is probably one of my favorite tracks we run on in Indiana."

Before heading to that southern Indiana track, Windom and his winning Sprint car team will make a return trip to Gas City (IN)/I-69 Speedway on Friday night for the King of Indiana Sprint Series (KISS) season opener. Windom was third in KISS points in 2006.

The Windom Motorsports Team will also return to Kokomo (IN) Speedway on Sunday for a doubleheader race, competing in both the Sprint and Midget portions of the "Jack Hewitt Classic Qualifier" that day, where feature winners for both divisions will be locked into the "Jack Hewitt Classic," to be held on Thursday, May 24th.

WINDOM LAWRENCEBURG WINNING POST-RACE QUOTES:
"I'm so happy to get our first win so early in the season. We've had a lot of bad luck during the first part of this season, so it's really good to have everything come together and get an early win. We definitely ran a smart race and made the right choice to go down low (on the track), which gave us the win -- it was a line that not many other drivers attempted in order to move up. We basically ran low for the first 10 laps of the race. The top-five guys were all running together during the first part of the race, and I was running right with them up front, but I wasn't gaining any ground, so I went up top. Then there was a late-race yellow. Because I wasn't making any progress on the track, which had really slicked off, and with the race winding down, I decided to go back to the bottom with about two laps to go, which gave me the lead.

"We've been fast enough to run up front this year - we've just had bad luck. But this win really brought my confidence up, and I'm really happy we have had some success so early in the year. Hopefully, the momentum from this past weekend keeps up for the USAC Midget race this coming weekend at Haubstadt.

"The win helps our program in a lot of ways. The better I do this year, the better attention and exposure I'll get, which will help me advance in my career. It will be a good deal as long as I keep finishing up front."

KOKOMO SPEEDWAY POST-RACE QUOTE:
"Doing well this past weekend has been a great confidence builder. We were running with the leaders both Saturday at Lawrenceburg and Sunday at Kokomo, and it was just a toss up as to who took the better line in each race as to who was going to win. At Kokomo, I qualified second and was running second in the race with Jon Stanbrough up front, and we had pretty much checked out from the rest of the field. Then we got into lapped traffic. We could have picked either top or bottom, and I chose a low line again, when the guys I'd been running with up front all night like Shane Cottle, Dave Darland and Scotty Weir decided to make a run for it on top, which was definitely better. I didn't realize how close we were to the end of the race and didn't have any time to recover. Stanbrough eventually won, and I congratulate him on a fight to the finish. When you can run with guys like Jon, (Levi) Jones, (Dave) Darland and (Scotty) Weir, that shows how strong of a team I've got.

-credit: www.chriswindomracing.com