McMahan Look to Find Victory Lane in WoO Sprint Series Doubleheader

by Misha Geisert

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — When the No. 20 Tony Stewart Racing/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle team rolls into Tri-City Speedway this Friday night, driver Paul McMahan will be feeling very much at home. While the black dirt of Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, Ill., is a long way from his home state of California, McMahan has found success at the newly reconfigured 3/8-mile dirt oval.

McMahan collected the first of his two A-main event victories at Tri-City on Sept. 16, 2000 in World of Outlaws (WoO) Gum-Out Series competition. He picked up his second A-main win at the facility on June 22, 2003. The track was a sweeping half-mile circuit until a recent reconfiguration transformed it into a 3/8-mile semi-banked speedplant. Since joining Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) earlier this year, McMahan has found success on 3/8-mile tracks, having won at USA Race Park on March 4.

Saturday’s WoO Sprint Series event in West Memphis, Ark., at Riverside International Speedway, will mark the first time the series has competed at the quarter-mile facility since 1981. McMahan has never raced on the track’s “gumbo” clay, making him an unofficial rookie for this Saturday’s event. The last two WoO Sprint Series races at Riverside were won by Steve Kinser on March 28, 1981, and Sammy Swindell on Aug. 1 the very same year.

McMahan and the No. 20 TSR/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle team enter this weekend’s racing action ranked 11th in the WoO Sprint Series Championship standings. The team has earned one top-five finish and five top-10 finishes thus far in 2007, putting McMahan only 339 points behind series leader Donny Schatz. The team has also won one B-main and one dash event in 16 races.

Pit gates and grandstands will open at 4 p.m. CDT at Tri-City, with qualifications set to begin at 7 p.m. Racing is slated to start at 8 p.m. Tri-City Speedway is located in Pontoon Beach, Ill. Take I-270 to Exit 4, travel a half-mile south on SR 203, then east. Tickets for Friday’s race can be purchased by calling 800-617-9077. The official website of Tri-City Speedway is www.triecityspeedway.net.

Pit gates will open at noon CDT for Saturday’s World of Outlaws Sprint Series event at Riverside. Gates will open to the fans at 4 p.m., with hot laps scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m. Riverside International Speedway is located in West Memphis, Ark. Take I-55 to Exit 4 in Arkansas, travel 0.3 miles south, 0.2 miles east on Broadway, then south on Legion Road. The official website of Riverside International Speedway is www.riversideinternationalspeedway.com.

Race fans can also listen to all the action from this weekend on the DIRTVision.com cybercast, as well as on the DIRT Radio Network. Visit www.DIRTVision.com for more information on all the features, including updated results from each night of racing, as well as a chat room to interact with other fans listening to the action.

The WoO Sprint Series will also return to television this year beginning with the series’ first broadcast on SPEED on May 13 at 2 p.m. EDT. A total of 20 races will be televised either on SPEED or ESPN2, including the World of Outlaws SuperClean Summer of Money Series. ESPN2 will broadcast eight races beginning June 17 through August 5. All show times on ESPN2 will begin at 12:30 p.m. EDT. For a complete television schedule, log on to www.worldofoutlaws.com.

Quotes from Paul McMahan, driver of the No. 20 TSR/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle:

You’ve done well at Tri-City Speedway in the past. Is there anything unique about the track that works in your favor?

“Tri-City Speedway reminds me of Calistoga Speedway at home in California. Before they reconfigured it, it was dark, fast and usually laid rubber. It was usually dry-slick and I am really at home on that type of track. We’ll probably approach this weekend’s event with the same base setup we most generally use, but we know that we’re going to have to modify that to work with the track as it changes. We’ll most likely have to run a different gear in order to compensate for the shorter configuration but I think we’ll have a pretty good race car out of the box. I’m looking forward to returning to Tri-City this week. We didn’t compete there last season due to some bad weather and the unexpected passing of National Sprint Tour Series promoter Fred Brownfield. It would be great to get our first win the season for Bass Pro Shops and Chevrolet at such a fun track.”

Are you excited to visit a new track – Riverside International Speedway – this weekend?

“From what I’ve been told about Riverside, it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’ve heard that it’s a riverbed racetrack, that the ‘gumbo’ clay it’s made from is a very heavy, sticky clay, which means it will most likely stay sticky throughout the night. The weather, being on the river, can really play into how the track changes throughout the night. If this is true, it will probably be a lot like Petaluma Speedway in California. It sits on the water, too, and it’s usually rough and tacky. I love a rough, sticky race track and can’t wait to see if the stories I’ve heard about Riverside are true.”

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