Mooresville, NC 7/26/12– It’s hard to find a race or type of car these days that short track crew chief Gary Crooks, owner of Crooks Racing Inc., would be considered a rookie, but that was exactly the case for Crooks in the 2012 Oxford 250 race at the famed Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, Maine. Gary, in his first Oxford 250 event with the ACT type cars, lead young Austin Theriault to an impressive third place finish in just his second career Oxford 250 start.
The crew chief and driver combo, who also compete at the super late model ranks for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Brad Keselowski, kicked off the day with a bang winning their qualifying heat race and earning a sixth place starting position in the thirty-nine car starting field. Crooks would then go to work behind the scenes as tire strategy was a major factor come for the 250 lap race going forward. Teams were only allowed eight tires of their choice for the race; with most choosing the typical combination of four lefts and four rights Crooks played the wild card and went with six rights and just two lefts.
With just two left tires to go the entire 250 laps Theriault did his part in riding and saving his tires all the while moving up to the second place position. A lap 138 yellow brought the field to the pits for service; once again while most chose to change four tires Crooks made the call to change two right side tires and also swap the left side tires. Theriault managed to hold on to a top ten position until a lap 208 yellow allowed the team to pit for their last set of right side tire for the sprint to the finish.
After the stop theMaineyoungster lined up close to the twentieth car in line due to lap down cars being mixed in ahead of him. From thereAustindid an amazing job according to Crooks of wasting no time getting through the lapped traffic and then battling for position amongst the leaders.
“Austindid exactly what I wanted him to do leading up to that last pit stop and then he did what the kid is best at and raced his way to the front getting through the traffic. It’s not easy getting through traffic when you have a fast car, but he played it smart and kept his cool and made his way to the front,” said Crooks when speaking of Theriault’s march through the field.
With five laps remainingAustinmade his way to the third position and then pushed his machine to the max to close the gap and have a shot at the win, but the lack of cautions in the closing laps killed the strategy for a potential battle for the victory.
“The strategy we had was a good one but the cautions just didn’t fall our way,” addedGary. “Who would have thought that in theOxford250 we’d see just three cautions all day? A third place finish is a bit bitter sweet for me really because I really feel we had a car that was winning ride and the plan of attack that could have won. Overall though it was nice to work withAustinin my first 250 with these types of cars and get the finish we did.”
Interested in the services Crooks Racing provides? If so visit his website at www.crooksracing.com or contact Gary directly at 704.224.6672 for more information. For website, business, and public relations related issues contact Chris Ragle with Tex Motorsports Marketing at 940.393.3167 or cragle02@yahoo.com.