Since the 2007 season ushered in the month of September, Paul McMahan and the No. 20 Tony Stewart Racing/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle team have been busy competing on the black dirt of Northern California’s dirt tracks. But as this weekend’s 54th Annual Gold Cup Race of Champions draws closer, McMahan and the No. 20 team only have their sites set on the $50,000 paycheck that they’ll be mining for at the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Calif.
The high-banked, ¼-mile clay oval of the Silver Dollar Speedway is easily considered McMahan’s home track. Having grown up in nearby Elk Grove, Calif., McMahan honed his skills in the presence of the state’s rich sprint car history and legendary competitors. This weekend, preliminary action will begin on Thursday with McMahan taking to the track for Friday’s preliminary event.
In his last Gold Cup finale appearance on Sept. 9, 2006, McMahan finished fifth in the A-main event. Daryn Pittman was victorious in the race.
In 59 WoO races this season, McMahan has earned two victories, 11 top-five finishes, 31 top-10 finishes and seven quick time awards. He enters this week’s events ranked eighth in the WoO Sprint Series championship standings with 7,814 points. McMahan trails series leader Donny Schatz by 747 points.
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.
Quotes from Paul McMahan, driver of the No. 20 TSR/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle:
Obviously, the Gold Cup Race of Champions is a big event on the WoO schedule. What makes Silver Dollar Speedway and the event such a cornerstone of winged sprint car racing?
“To win the Gold Cup is every California-born dirt track driver’s dream. Growing up in California, racing at Chico and winning the Gold Cup is what you work toward as a sprint car driver. When you race for a while, you realize that winning at tracks such as Eldora Speedway, Knoxville Raceway and Williams Grove are also very important parts of a career, but you never forget or lose the desire to win the Gold Cup. Silver Dollar Speedway is such an awesome little race track. It’s not high-banked by Midwestern standards, but for a California track it’s got some great banking. It changes every time you run on it. Some nights it can be sticky, others it’s really slick. You really have to stay on top of how it changes throughout an event. It’s a very demanding little bullring. If we can win the Gold Cup this weekend, it would mean everything to me, especially to be able to do so for my family, Tony Stewart Racing, Bass Pro Shops and Chevy. Winning a title like Gold Cup Champion is every driver’s dream.”
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