Glenn Gault Jr.

Lake Erie Speedway held its annual long distance race on Saturday July 18th and Glenn Jr joined the field of 28 Late Models running for 150 laps after a 12 lap heat race. A race of this length requires a lot of preparation starting way before the car gets to the track. It continues on the day of the race with the team at the track from early in the morning on race day. As it gets closer to race time each of the practice sessions are very important. Weather conditions on Saturday were more similar to a Saturday in September than July so car handling was completely different.

The Heat Race was set by pill draw and Glenn Jr was set to go out in the 3rd of 4 Heats in the 6th position in a 7 car field. The top four finishers in each of the Heat races would then go on to redraw prior to the Feature on the front stretch for the top twelve starting spots. In the Heat race Glenn jumped up to the 4th position early in the the short 12 lap Heat. He held that spot steadily until the closing laps brought the back of the field charging. Glenn battled hard for his position and at the checkered flag was scored 5th.

So with the car still not handling as it should, the crew went back to work with more changes. When the lineup was posted Glenn Jr was set in the 18th spot to start the feature.
The Feature started shortly after 9PM despite some threatening skies and a light rain that quickly passed. Glenn Jr started 18th, and as a veteran driver knows in any long distance race the name of the game is to be there on lap 150. So the mind set is much different than a normal 40 lap feature where time is of the essence and racing hard would be called for. Here the opposite is true, patience and persistence will get you much farther than running hard and fast. Glenn Jr. did just that and hung on to his position in 18th through the first 4 caution flags. By the caution on lap 49 he had gained 3 spots into 15th and by the competition caution on lap 75 he was in 12th.

Glenn restarted 12th and continued to work on the positions in front of him one at a time. One more caution flag slowed the racing on lap 132 and Glenn had made his way up to 8th. The rest of the race ran caution free and Glenn ran a great race to checkered finishing unofficially around 8th. Despite the many changes made to the car it was not an easy drive for Glenn Jr and he showed his skills as veteran driver to bring home a well deserved top ten finish. Even though it wasn’t sitting in victory lane, it certainly felt like one for the driver and the team.
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