PASS Sportsman Series: Dan McKeage
White Mountain Motorsports Park Race Preview
THE STORY
GORHAM, Maine – Dan McKeage of Gorham, Maine, heads to one of his favorite tracks on the circuit when the PASS Sportsman Series holds a 75-lap event at White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock, N.H., on Sunday, August 4. McKeage, the 2010 PASS Sportsman champion, sits third in the series standings with one win and three Top-5 finishes through four races. McKeage will be part of a two-car team effort this weekend at White Mountain as his father, Lyman McKeage, returns to the seat of the No. 38 after taking the last several weeks off from driving. Dan McKeage finished second in the most recent PASS Sportsman visit to the high-banked quarter-mile at White Mountain Motorsports Park, where he also recorded a win in 2007.
THE FACTS
WHO: Dan McKeage, Gorham, Maine
TEAM: Naughty 40 Racing No. 40 Top Gun Construction Chevrolet
CREW CHIEF: Dan Bubar, Windham, Maine
BEST CAREER FINISH AT WHITE MOUNTAIN MOTORSPORTS PARK: 1st (Sept. 2007)
LAST RACE AT WHITE MOUNTAIN MOTORSPORTS PARK: 2nd (August 2012)
WHAT: PASS Sportsman Series 75
WHERE: White Mountain Motorsports Park, North Woodstock, N.H. (.25-mile oval)
WHEN: 2 p.m., Sunday, August 4
PASS Sportsman Series
LAST RACE: July 20, Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Maine (8th)
NEXT RACE: September 15, Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Scarborough, Maine (.333-mile oval)
CURRENT POINT STANDING: 3rd
DID YOU KNOW?
Dan McKeage won the 2010 PASS Sportsman Series championship.
Dan McKeage also won the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series track championship at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway that same year.
Dan McKeage is the current point leader in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Pro Series division at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway with one win this season.
Dan McKeage finished second in the only PASS Sportsman Series visit of 2012 to White Mountain Motorsports Park.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
DAN McKEAGE, Driver of the Naughty 40 Racing No. 40 Top Gun Construction Chevrolet, On racing at White Mountain Motorsports Park: “I love it there. It’s one of our favorite tracks. The last couple of times we’ve been there, we’ve run just OK, but some of the times before – three or four races at the end of the season we were pretty good. We went three times with a gear that we’d run at Beech Ridge, and we still finished seventh. Ever since we made the changes to the gear, we’ve had pretty good luck.
“When you have a good car at White Mountain, it’s really fun to drive. It’s got really nice scenery around the track, and it’s a good place to bring the kids and camp out. It’s a race track, they’re all fun, they all have their quirks that make them a challenge – but White Mountain has always been a favorite one to go away to. It’s a lot different than a Beech Ridge or an Oxford. It’s got banking and a lot of grip.”
On what the team found after a disappointing run at Oxford last time out: “Usually, even at Oxford, we don’t really have a nice pit slab, so we do a lot of stuff at the shop. When we get to the track, we leave the car pretty much alone. In practice, we were really, really good. In the heat race we were still OK – but in the feature it was really, really bad. We found out we had a spring that went bad on us.
“We’d gotten carried away with our setup and gotten a little too soft with it. Hopefully, at White Mountain, we’ll have decent balance in the car. We changed all four springs, and they’re all for the better. We probably could have done it weeks ago.”
On what you need to be successful at White Mountain: “You need the one thing that’s really the only thing our car has lacked all year – you need good drive off the corners. If anything, you should be a little bit underpowered so you can really flat-foot off the corner. I hadn’t been able to touch the throttle before.
“Usually, our car really gets in an turns good through the center of the corners and then lacks a little drive off, but at Oxford, when the green flag dropped, I was along for the ride. I think we’ve fixed that.”
UP NEXT
Dan McKeage joins the PASS Sportsman Series for a 100-lap event at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 15… Mckeage won at Beech Ridge to open the season back in May.