Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
With seven feature victories in the 11 events thus far this year, it seems Gary McLean is having yet another picture perfect season.
“I’d say for the most part the whole tour has done really well this year,” he commented. “They’ve had a lot of new teams that have come in and they’re working hard to get faster every week and we’ve had 20 cars. I think it’s going pretty good.”
Entering the final event of the Hoosier OSCAAR Modified season, McLean has clinched the series championship with a points lead of 92 points. For the driver of the No. 8 McLean Industrial Design and Fabrication Ltd./McLean Farms Modified, it marks his fourth straight series championship – an accomplishment that he credits back to the guys on the team. He commented on Friday at Peterborough Speedway that you can’t put a number on the hours that they spend working on the car.
“If you’re going to have a fast running racecar, every spare moment you have you put into the car and that’s what they do,” he commented. “We’re super privileged having Greg Gibson as the car owner/crew chief on this thing and he knows what he’s doing with it. So he gives direction and the guys work hard at it and it comes together, obviously.”
There’s only one thing to do – finish it off with a victory in the Autumn Colors Classic. McLean will start the 40-lap feature from the pole on Sunday virtue of winning the Chase for the Colors.
“With Autumn Colors, everybody wants one,” he said. “We’ve privileged to win it close to 10 times and I’d like to add an 11th for sure but with a racecar, you never know what’s going to happen. We’re lucky we’re starting on the pole. That keeps us out of trouble. We’ll have to see what happens.
“We’re spending the rest of the weekend like we’re qualifying, and show the fans what we’re here for.”
A veteran of the modified tour, McLean got interested in the division after winning some championships at the challenger/super stock level
“Uncle Brian and my dad were running modifieds at the time,” he recalled. “They were fairly new to Ontario was the modifieds. Basically, Brian couldn’t make it one night and asked me to take the car out one night and run the heat races one night and I thought, ‘Man, these things are blast’ so I had to build one. We went at and built one in 1993, and haven’t looked back since.”
McLean then took a step away from racing with not being able to afford it, before getting partnered up with Greg Gibson in 1999. Rick Woolner, a stand-out driver, was sick and asked McLean to take over the driving duties. Since then, Gibson and McLean have been working together ever since, having success along the way.
With many years of experience under his belt, it’s also no surprise that many other youngsters look to the veteran for advice. His biggest advice – there’s more racecar than they understand.
“For any rookie guy or girl coming in, work hard at these things,” he expressed. “You have to do your homework and figure out the chassis and then go out and learn. You’re not going to run up front the first night out because they are pretty tricky.
“We’re not far off the speeds of what the Super Lates are running and they have a lot more downforce to keep their cars stable. Our cars do not, and they really got to pay attention to that as a young driver with not knowing because when they get away, they usually cause a lot of damage in a hurry.”
