ES: Dover: Max Gresham preview

Gresham "Can't Wait" For High Speeds

GRIFFIN, GA (September 22, 2010) -- "I'm a speed junkie. I can't wait to go to Dover and race this weekend."

That's how Max Gresham described how he's looking forward to Friday's Sunoco 150 [Max%20Trophy%20%201300.jpg] NASCAR K&N Pro Series East event at Dover International Speedway. The race on the famed 'Monster Mile' in Dover, DE will be the season finale for the NKNPSE division and should prove to be a test for Gresham and the rest of Friday's 30-car starting field.

"We've been at some fast places this year, but nothing like what we're going to experience at Dover this weekend," Gresham stated of the one-mile Dover all-concrete oval that features nine degrees of banking on the straights and a steep 24 degrees of banking in the turns. "I'm looking forward to the high speeds in the corners. I can't wait to feel what it's like going a 150 miles an hour in the corners. I'm pretty excited about Friday's race."

Gresham and his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota have been near the top of the speed charts on the division's bigger tracks all season long. At the 7/8-mile Iowa Speedway oval, Gresham earned one of his two K&N victories this season. Last weekend in the K&N race at one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Gresham sat on the outside pole - led early -- and was running fourth only to be saddled with a disappointing 24th-place finish after a crash on a late-race restart.

"We've really been good on the larger tracks," said Gresham, who also won the K&N race at South Boston (VA) Speedway this season. "I like going fast and I'm sure the new car we are bringing to Dover this weekend will do just that. It's an old JGR Cup chassis that has been reconfigured and had a NASCAR K&N body put on it. It used to be a Tony Stewart piece, so you know it is a good car. The guys at JGR work long and hard on these cars and I expect this one to be one of the better pieces I have ever driven. I'm really confident we'll have a good car this weekend at Dover."

Gresham, a 17-year-old Woodward Academy student, is seventh in the 2010 NASCAR K&N championship points chase, just 24 markers out of fifth heading into Dover. While the championship is out of reach for Gresham and his JGR mates, a victory at Dover would give them a division-high three wins this year.

"We've had a really up and down season," said Gresham. "We started off really strong with wins at South Boston and Iowa. That felt great. Then we started having some bad luck and all of a sudden, it's the last race of the season and we haven't accomplished all the things we would have liked to. We had strong runs all year. It could have been a championship season without all the bad luck. This Joe Gibbs Racing team definitely gave a championship effort all season long. I'm sure that effort will be there again this Friday when we take the green flag at Dover."

-source: maxgresham.com