“We had great practices,” said Gresham, who timed in second in the Friday morning test session leading up to qualifying later that day. “The guys were really excited and everyone was looking forward to the race. Then the bottom kind of fell out of things.”
Gresham’s dreams of winning the 42nd-annual event began to go south in qualifying Friday evening when cold conditions and a loose racecar knocked him from the ranks of contender for the win to a spot in the last-chance qualifying race.
“Qualifying was a big disappointment,” said Gresham, who timed in 39th in the massive 58-car field that tried to make the race. “We were second in the first practice Friday and really confident in getting into the show and running well in the race. Then we went out for qualifying and everything kind of went south.”
Gresham and his team regrouped Saturday morning and were poised to make a run at one of the final four Snowball Derby starting positions awarded in the 50-lap Last Chance event. Unfortunately, the Griffin, GA teenager wasn’t on the gas long after the drop of the green flag as his window net came down on the second circuit.
“That was the first time that ever happened to me and it really dumbfounded me,” Gresham stated. “I held it up for a lap or two and then we got a caution. I tried to put it back up and I was really close a couple of times. I thought I had it once, but then I hit a bump on the track and it knocked it loose again. There was nothing I could do by come into the pits to get it hooked back up.”
That’s where things took a terminal turn for Gresham.
“As I was leaving the pits, the rear end came out of the car,” Gresham stated. “I don’t think I left real hard. It just spit right out in pieces on pit road. That ended it for us. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be for me to make my first Snowball Derby this year.”
While his initial Pensacola Derby weekend didn’t turn out to be what he had hoped, Gresham’s 2009 racing season was anything but a disappointment. Two American Speed Association Southeast Asphalt Tour event wins early in the year and four solid showings in the Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR Camping World Series East division highlighted the campaign for the young driver.
“We had a great season, regardless of what happened here this weekend,” said Gresham. “We ran third at Iowa Speedway and notched an outside pole and eighth-place run at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the Gibbs car and our Gresham Motorsports team won early in the year. We added a couple of people to our team this year that really helped us. They had a big influence and overall, I think we had a great year. We were blessed to have the success we had with both the Gibbs car and our own effort. I can’t wait to get going again next season.”
To learn more about Max Gresham and Gresham Motorsports, please log on to www.greshammotorsports.com.
- Gresham Motorsports Press Release