05/10/2026
I teased this on my personal page Friday night, I suppose it is time to update the racing page.
Nolan Gross has been busy this spring pit crewing for an ARCA team and a USF 2000 team so we didn't have a chance to shake down the car before we hauled it to Corrigan Oil Speedway on Friday for our first race. This was also our first time racing at this track. Fortunately Corrigan has practice sessions before qualifying so we were able to make sure the car was running well and make a few adjustments before qualifying. We ran into Scott Weasal Casaday and he gave Nolan a little advice on how to navigate turn 3&4. Armed with the advice of a Corrigan regular, Nolan ended up qualifying 5th out of 36 cars. We were still 3 tenths slower than the fast cars. This is pretty typical for us, we do pretty well considering what we have under the hood, but we just don't have the power to challenge for quick time.
Corrigan is now running two features instead of a heat race and a feature. Our first feature was the first race on the track, if you can call it a race. The first feature was absolute chaos. There were 5 cautions and all of the action happened right in front of Nolan. Our night could have been over before it even started, but somehow Nolan managed to avoid any damage 🙏. On two of the incidents he put the car sideways to avoid a wreck, and on another he darted to the infield. I don't know how he did it, but he kept the car clean. They ended up stopping the race for exceeding the time limit with only 3 laps completed! I was ready to pack up and go home rather than risk more of that mess, but Nolan's finishing position in the first feature meant he would be starting near the front in the second. At least he might be in front of the chaos if it ensued in the second feature.
For the second feature he ended starting outside pole because a few drivers opted to drop to the tail after extensive repairs. When the green flag dropped he settled into second place for a few laps. For some reason the leader pulled off the track, leaving Nolan in the lead with the fast qualifier on his tail! He held his own for a few laps before the caution flew for debris on the track. I thought for sure Randy Moore would get the jump on Nolan on the restart, but somehow Nolan ended up back in the lead and never looked back! He definitely wasn't the fastest car on the property, but he drove an almost perfect race, turning consistent lap times and managed to keep the lead long enough to grab his first ever feature win 🏁!
I couldn't be more proud of how he handled the night, he kept himself out of trouble when it mattered and he drove great laps when he had open track in front of him!
It was awesome to look over in the stands and see Scott and Misty Casaday cheering Nolan on! Misty even showed us the way to the winners circle because we had no idea where it was. Honestly we never thought we would need to know 🤣. We sincerely appreciate your support ❤️.
Finally, we would be remise if we didn't thank Kelly Hollister for helping us through the years, and of course our sponsors for helping us get to the track: Paul Davis Restoration of West Michigan and Alto Automotive!
