LEWIS CHASING HISTORY AT IDAHO 200 THIS WEEKEND

Source: Gary Lewis Racing/dp
Date: 07/30/2008

SNOHOMISH, Washington - Gary Lewis has been having the kind of success many in motorsports can only dream of. Including last weekend’s win on the ASA Northwest Series, the three-time late model touring champion has 19 main event victories since April of 2006.

Those results produced championships in 2006 and 2007 and allowed the Sunbelt Rentals race team to focus on selected events for this season. With five starts and the same number of wins the plan has worked so far, according to Lewis.

One goal the team set for 2008 was to win the Montana 200 and Idaho 200 in two straight seasons. Lewis gets the chance to complete the sweep on Sunday at Stateline Speedway with the running of the Idaho 200 presented by Napa Auto Parts.

Accomplishing the feat will be a tremendous challenge, Lewis explained.

“Our goal is to head into the Idaho 200 with a car that is prepared to the best of our ability and shoot for another win. This will not be easy by any means at all as you’ll have the best drivers from many different series at this race and we’re going to do our best to represent the Northwest (drivers) and just run the 200 on Sunday (and not run Friday or Saturday’s support late model races).”

Sunday’s race will be only the third time in Lewis’ career he’s taken part in a Stateline Speedway event, adding to the challenge he said.

“It’s been getting pretty hard to find out just how much practice we actually will have that day. If we don’t get much then it will definitely create a potential problem (in race preparation). The challenge will be running with some of the great drivers from the other series involved and see how things go. I want to run with the best because it’s the only way we’re going to get better as a team and as a driver.”

Lewis and his Frontline Security pit crew return to a .250-mile track one week after running the .675-mile Evergreen Speedway. Changes to the car while appearing to be monumental are actually very slight, according to the five-time 2008 winner.

“We only have so many evenings to work on the car,” Lewis said. “My Dad and I do most of the work during the week so we can only do so much. Luckily thanks to some very hard work by Mike Leary who owns Leary Racing Products and Shock Shop we have well prepared Penske shocks that work great at every track that we’ve raced so far.

“For the most part with some minor changes based on banking of the tracks we don’t have to change our Swift Springs that often and Longacre Racing Products makes some great spring rubbers for that spring that allow use to simply fine tune the car once we unload at the track.”

Lewis debuted a new late model chassis in the spring of 2007 and it has taken him to 12 of his 14 victories in just over a year period. Having confidence in the car has played an important role in the team’s overall success.

“Victory Circle Chassis makes one of the best chassis’ on the market today in my opinion so that gets us off to a great start to begin with. You do need to know what to do with the car though and that’s where the constant learning comes into play every time we go to a race with this straight-rail late model.”

Since 1998 Lewis has used a perimeter or straight-rail late model chassis from Victory Circle to achieve his championship and race winning success.

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