by greg mACPHerSoN
Wins in the final two events of 2013 secured the 2013 Quick 32 Sportsman Series title for the team of Wilson & gray. (below) bill Wilson (left) and rob gray (right) accept their championship hardware from bruce mehlenbacher (middle) at the 2013 year-end banquet
Quick 32 SportSman champS T
wilSon & gray Share the dutieS, the driving... and the glory
he Top Sportsman team of Wilson & Gray had a great season in Quick 32 Sports-
man Series competition in 2013, winning its first championship in the popular drag rac- ing series. “Our season went great,” said Bill Wilson,
who is teamed with Rob Gray. The two co- own, co-drive and co-crew chief the opera- tion. “Everything went better than expected.” The 2013 season was the fifth for the
Quick 32 Sportsman Series, which is pre- sented by NAPA Auto Parts and competes at tracks in Ontario and Michigan. The Ingersoll, Ontario-based team, which
has been together racing for 22 years, missed the season opener at Martin, Michi- gan. And although they qualified second, with Wilson driving, for the second race of the season, the team was eliminated in the semi-final round. But at the series’ next event – the second
of three races on the Cayuga Dragway of Toronto Motorsports Park – Gray qualified third and went all the way for the team’s first of three final round wins. He eliminated Quebec’s Tom Orr in the
Top Sportsman final, before taking out Top Dragster driver Lance Orr – who also hails from Quebec – to capture the event final. The next event, at Cayuga, was not as
fruitful, however. Gray qualified the Cava- lier ‘door’ car third, but was a first-round casualty. But for the final two races, both of
by bill meHleNbACHer 18 //
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which took place at Grand Bend Motorplex, the team was unbeatable. In the first - with Wilson driving – the team took the Top Sportsman win over Michigan’s Jeff Har- rington, and then eliminated the Top Drag- ster finalist Jim Rubino of New York for the overall victory. Wilson & Gray repeated their success at
the season finale, qualifying second with Gray in the driver’s seat. He went rounds to meet up against and beat Darrin Grubb of Pine River, Ontario in the Top Sportsman fi- nals. After that, he met up with and defeated Rubino, once again, to win the team’s third race of the season. “Our goals for 2013 were to qualify higher
in the field… which we did. We wanted to hit 200 miles per hour… which we did. And we wanted to win some races… which we did,” noted Wilson. The team’s Cavalier is capable of runs
down the quarter-mile in the low-six-sec- ond range, at speeds just over 200 miles per hour. The Cavalier is a Jerry Bickle Race Cars
product and is powered by a 706-cubic inch engine with Speedtech nitrous assist and Enderle Fuel Injection. The power goes through a Powerglide transmission. Wilson and Gray both act as the crew chiefs when the other is driving. Les Bodin, Kurt Wallace, Chris Muttton, Noah Hathaway, Heather Eidbo and Kayrn Benner make up the rest of the team. •
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