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East Coast hard chargers Scott McPherson and Darryl Grimson showed plenty of fight last Saturday night (January 21) at Kwinana's Quit Motorplex in Western Australia, but during the fifth annual Australian Late Model Nationals event the pair was struck down by engine failure.
McPherson and Grimson terminated their engines during the 25-lap title final while they were both placed inside the top 10. After qualifying an impressive seventh (actually tied for third place with several other drivers) McPherson was sitting in fifth after seventh laps before his 410ci Chev gave up the ghost and that spelled a premature end.
While Grimson was hampered by fuel issues throughout both of his heat races and therefore was forced to qualify for the final via the B-main and did so by placing second. In the final Grimson started towards the back of the 24-car field and was in fifth place by the 20-lap mark before the engine of his # 62 Chev 415ci powered United Realty - Liverpool sponsored Monte Carlo let go, which cut short a promising run.
“I was quite confident that we had a good enough car to finish on the podium as at the time of the engine failure I was closing in on the cars ahead of me,” said Grimson. “Earlier in the night we struggled with fuel issues, which were sorted out by the B-main. It's disappointing to come over here and be hit by these issues, but at the end of the day we showed a lot of pace, we just simply didn't have lady luck on our side.”
Like Grimson, McPherson was pleased with his performance up until when the engine decided to self destruct in the # 7 Metalcorp Steel / Better Trailers supported Pontiac GP.
“Our team came over here to finish inside the top 10 and everything was going to plan up until then,” recalled McPherson. “It's disappointing to finish things the way we did, but that's racing. We worked on the setup during the night and were quietly confident in the changes that we had made for the final.”
McPherson and Grimson, despite their misfortune, were happy with how the trip went along and hope to return for next year's event.
“I cannot speak highly enough of everyone that made this trip a reality and they made us very welcome,” said McPherson. “The Motorplex is arguably the best Speedway venue in Australia and a number of tracks should take a leaf out of their book in regards to how they conduct things over here.”
Special thanks must go to Wolf Container Transport, along with Brian Chalmers from BCM Marketing, the entire Quit Motorplex staff and Super Sedan driver Keith Sims from the Sims Group for all their efforts in enabling McPherson and Grimson to represent the East Coast in the 2006 Australian Nationals.
-Ends Release-
East Coast Late Model Association media enquiries Daniel Powell - Redline Media
Phone: 0246 832464
Mobile: 0439 639 992
Email: Daniel@redlinemedia.com.au
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