16-year-old Michael Pope is on a hot streak this season. It started off with his fourth place run at South Alabama Speedway in Opp and continued on to a top-fifteen at Watermelon County Speedway in Cordele, Georgia. Now, he can add another top-ten finish to that list, as he brought home a ninth place result, coming at his favorite track of all, Peach State Speedway (GA).
“It was really good to be able to get a top-10 at Peach State,” said the excited Pope. “When we started off the car was really good but really loose. We came in and put two rounds in the sway bar and let some air out of the right rear and that tightened up the car a little bit too much and the front tire started chattering and we started falling back.”
Pope was consistently within the top-15 all night long and at one point in the race, he was able to wheel his car up to the second position. It appeared as though may be a threat to eventual winner Matt Hawkins, but that did not work out.
“That was awesome to be running up there. My spotter told me right when he told me that the leaders were firing he told me I needed to jump on the outside and right when he said that I jumped on the gas and I got up to second and that was awesome to be running up there.”
Traffic proved to be the problem of the night, more specifically lapped traffic, as Pope had to fight his way through the lapped cars to maintain his positions all throughout the night. Fighting through the traffic, allowed the leader to extend his lead and Pope fell back to the ninth position.
“There were a lot of close calls especially when the lapped cars got in the way,” added Pope. “I had to go right through a couple of accidents that they were involved in and it was pretty scary at times.
“I really have to thank my team. They did awesome on our pit stop and I owe them a big thank you. It is just so great to be able to bring home a top-10 finish, and hopefully we can keep our streak going.”
Michael Pope’s and the GAS Series next event is Saturday, July 8th at Anderson Motor Speedway in Anderson, South Carolina.
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For more information on Michael Pope please contact Amy Hayes at 704-455-2051
