Summer is coming to an end for 16-year-old Michael Pope and he hopes that this week brings him several firsts. It will be his first day of school on Thursday, August 3rd and his first win could come along two days later as the Georgia Asphalt Series heads to Lanier National Speedway (GA).
The Lanier race is one of the biggest races on the GAS calendar all season and it is part of the “Saturday of Speed” event at Lanier National Speedway.
“This weekend, we’ll be at Lanier for the Saturday of Speed,” said Pope. “We will be racing along with PASS South and it should be a pretty good day of racing.”
The first race of the GAS season was held at Lanier earlier this year and Pope was able to bring home a top-20 finish. He hopes to be able to better that finish with a win this visit.
“I am really looking forward to going back to Lanier. The first race of the year we were there and during practice we had a really good car. We had Augie Grill down there helping us out. I kept wanting to get the car looser because I came from the Legends car and I tend to like my car on the looser side.
“I had to adjust to driving the car tight and that really helped it a lot when we tightened it up but we just didn’t have a good race because the driver wasn’t in near enough good shape.”
Because of school, Pope won’t be able to get up to Lanier Speedway until late Friday night. There is an open practice on Friday, and he will have to let someone else take the wheel of his #44 in order to get it prepared for Saturday’s race.
“We have been working on being prepared for Lanier,” added Pope. “Mr. Ronnie Sanders is going to practice my car on Friday because I will be in school, so hopefully he will be able to get it set up good and we should have a pretty good shot to win.”
The Georgia Asphalt Series race will get underway at Lanier National Speedway on Saturday August 5th with racing action getting started at 7 pm.
For more information on Michael Pope please contact Amy Hayes at (704) 455–2051
