(3/24/2019)
The father and son team of Joe and Robert Gallaher comes into the 2019 racing season looking to once again pile on the wins and podium finishes. Gallaher Racing was a force to be reckoned with last year, claiming 7 wins and over 20 total Top 10’s before Robert had to bow out of the points hunt late in the season.
While his father Joe didn’t find the same success in 2018, the team made a move in the offseason to switch Joe from a Camaro, over to a new metric Medieval Chassis built to the Ocean Speedway rule specs. Robert himself had switched to a metric chassis this past season, and with the immediate success he found, the move to transition Joe over to a metric was a no brainer for the team.
Joe has already been to 1 practice session and 1 race with new car. The team was happy with the 30 or so laps they got in at Antioch last week, which lead to hauling the car down to the KCRP dirt track this past Friday for some racing action. While the car felt extremely competitive, the team’s main goal was to just get some solid laps in, so Joe held back throughout the race to avoid any unnecessary repairs.
Though Joe has only run roughly 60 laps on the new chassis, he is already raving about the improved handling, saying “the new car is much smoother and more obedient to drive. It’s not a arm wrestling match like my old car, she turns much easier” and “smooth is fast”. When asked if he was happy about the change, Joe answered ““I will be happier if the better results are there this next year compared to last year.”
Though last year brought a bit of a learning curve with the new style of chassis, Robert Gallaher is confident that the team’s speed and consistency will be much better out the gate in 2019. “We learned so much last year on the metric chassis’ setup and I know this year we will be much faster and more consistent right out of the gate. I learned some things the hard way in 2018 that Joe won’t have to learn thus hopefully speeding up his learning curve on the metric chassis. We have a firmer grasp on the setup this time around and it will show from Night 1. My car will be the same as we finished the Pat Pettit with a huge win and second place with the best field in Northern California minus some improvements we made for consistency and reliability. We made changes for the Petit to test for 2019 and they worked, moving forward we are better, faster and smoother. It will be tough to beat us every week.” commented Robert.
The team’s main goals for this season are to pick up as many main event victories as possible, and hopefully couple those with 2 solid points finishes. If Gallaher Racing has anywhere near the speed they had in 2018, this should be an easily obtainable goal.
Gallaher Racing is set to make their season debut at Ocean Speedway this Friday night, weather permitting.
Gallaher Racing would like to thank all of their sponsors and supporters, including:
Gallaher Company
1 Hour Drain
Tire Time
Express Car Wash
Yeti Coolers
Coors
Snap On
Built by the Captain
DRC Motorsports Media 