Story by Chris Roy
The NELCAR Legends returned once again to the Mini Magic Mile and there was a new face in victory lane as Tom Gray scores his 1st NELCAR Victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS). Gray is now one of three NELCAR legends drivers that has made the trip to victory lane. The other 2 are Shaun Buffington who has won 7 races at NHMS and, Anthony Flannery, who won the 1st Mini Magic Mile race in 2010.
The thunder showers that were forecasted for the day never came and it was blue skies as the legend cars rolled onto the track. Gray recalls, “The track at first was a little loose, but as we put more rubber down it was getting a lot better.” The 18 car went out in the second heat and took the checkered flag, placing him on the outside pole for the feature.
The 23s car of Buffington was on the pole after winning the 1st heat race and his teammate Gray in the 18 car, was beside him for the start of the feature. About midway through the race coming out of turn 4 the 3 car spun the 23s car. Both cars restarted the race at the tail end of the field. Shaun’s comment on the incident, “He moved me in the heat race and he moved me in the feature. I don’t get upset. NELCAR will do something about it. It happened, you go to the rear. It’s the same rule at every track. We came out with the points and we will get ready for the next one.”
Buffington had recovered from his earlier spin with the 3 car and had made it from the back of the pack, all the way to the 4th with only 2 laps remaining. On the last lap the 23s car was able to get around the 38 car of Matt Bourgoine, and finished the race in 3rd. The 18 car held off the charge from Evan Beaulieu as they drove out of 4 and down the front stretch where the checkered flag flew and the victory belonged to Tom Gray.
Gray recalls seeing his TSM teammate racing to the front, “We got to the green white checker, I saw the 23s coming, I said we better giddy-up. Though I got to give credit to Evan (Beaulieu), he ran me clean. He tried a couple moves on the outside on a couple of the restarts. He gave me the room and I got the spot but, that’s Evan. He is going to run you clean as much as he can. I’m just glad to be racing up here and stealing the win! I have had a second place car a few times here and being 1st is pretty nice!
Shaun commented on his teammates 1st win, “It’s well deserved. He probably should have won the last two races here. He was as good or, if not better, than my car. He works for hours at the shop at night. He does all his own work on the car, so don’t let him fool you. Just because he’s an old man doesn’t mean he doesn’t do his own stuff! It was well deserved. I was the first person to congratulate him. I told him it was coming and he got it.”
Safety is always an issue when working on the cars as Tom explains why. “My business partner, his kid was 21 years when he was working on a car in the garage and his parents were in the house. First time he used a creeper his car was on the jack stands. Then he took the wrench and the wrench came out and he kicked the jack stands, because the jack stands have pins in them. The car came down and killed him. If we can avoid this by writing an article, because too much of this is going on and we take it for granted. Since Christian died… at the garage we make sure that Shaun is there, I’m there and we are not working on the car alone. We put the pins in, we do a lot of stuff now, so it’s always on our mind, I want to put it on someone else is mind.”
