Myrtle Beach, S.C. (June 20, 2009) – Clay Rogers and A.J. Frank may be close friends, even neighbors, but relationships are irrelevant on the race track, as Rogers out-performed Frank for his third victory this season in Saturday night’s Grand Strand 250 presented by Black’s Tire & Auto Service at Myrtle Beach Speedway.

“We’ve been friends for a long time and we used to be teammates,” Rogers said about Frank after recording his third career victory at Myrtle Beach Speedway. “It’s great to see him have a great run like that and, of course, he had my old championship crew chief calling the shots for him. I knew he would be tough tonight; he was good.”

Even though Frank out-qualified Rogers, earning the outside front row starting position while Rogers had to settle for third, there were several side-by-side battles between the close friends throughout the event.

“I felt like our car was really good on the long run, but I didn’t really know what pace to run,” Frank said after his second start this season.

“Clay and I had a blast. That was so much fun racing with him. He is one of my best friends and it is irreplaceable to have moments like that with your friend. We have done that a lot. He just always ends up winning.”

Rogers led six times for 86 laps in his C&C Boiler Sales & Service Chevrolet Impala, while Frank set the pace on four occasions for 49 laps in his Mac Hill Racing Chevy Monte Carlo. The other top lap leader was Michael Ritch in his Smith Paving Inc./Fountain Graphics Monte Carlo. He led three times for 50 laps before having to settle for ninth, three laps down in the 250-lap race.

“We are excited!” said a jubilant Rogers, who averaged 86.417 mph in the race slowed for 33 laps by five caution periods. “Man, they put good race cars on the race track, cars that are reliable. They’ve got great equipment. They spend the money where they need to. They got good looking race cars, and I just need to thank everybody involved for letting me do it.”

Brandon Ward fought a tire rub on his One Source Solutions Mac Hill Racing Chevrolet Monte Carlo for the last 25 laps, but managed to nurse it home to a second-place finish, 8.484 seconds behind Rogers.

“We didn’t have anything for Clay; he was good,” Ward said. “I felt like we did (have something for him) until we got into the wall. We got into the wall a little bit on the back straightway, so that hurt us some. We tried a new setup with this thing earlier today [Saturday], and it worked really well, but we didn’t have what we needed. I feel like we are going to be a lot better in the next couple races, so we are looking forward to that.”

For 16-year-old Kyle Fowler, who made his Pro Cup debut, it was a frustrating night as he finished 23rd in the 24-car field.

“We had a good start, running on the high line and saving tires,” Fowler said. “Then on about lap 40 there was a caution and I went to shift from third to fourth and it wouldn’t go into gear. Something was broken on the transmission. We dropped down to the bottom trying to get it into gear, and it wouldn’t come into gear, so we just decided to pull it into the pits to see if we could fix it. We figured out that the linkage was a little bit wound up, which is probably what our problem was.

“It’s unfortunate. I know we had a pretty good race car and probably could have finished (in the) top 10. We will go back next weekend at Lanier (Raceway in Georgia) and see if we can do better. Hopefully, we got all the bad luck out of the way.”

Lucas Ransone was the top finishing rookie, taking sixth, while Ronnie Souder had to settle for 15th.

Caleb Holman earned the pole with a lap of 21.440 seconds/90.336 mph, but it was downhill for the Abingdon, Va., driver soon after the green flag waved. However, the Food Country Chevrolet driver was still able to pull off an eighth-place finish.

Drew Herring, whose sponsor Black’s Tire & Auto Service was the event’s presenting sponsor, had a rough day and fell out of the race early. Herring had nowhere to go when Frank’s Concrete Express Chevrolet spun on lap 190. Frank limped away with minimal damage to his car, but Herring was sidelined with front end damage to his Ford Fusion.

Next on the USARacing Pro Cup Series schedule is the June 27 event at Lanier, Ga. Check www.usarprocup.com for the latest news and updates.

GRAND STRAND 250 presented by BLACK’S TIRE & AUTO SERVICE
MYRTLE BEACH SPEEDWAY, MYRTLE BEACH, SC
OFFICIAL RESULTS 6/20/09
Start Finish Car Driver Laps Remarks
Position Position # Finished
3 1 54 s Clay Rogers 250 Running
5 2 56 s Brandon Ward 250 Running
2 3 65 n A J Frank 250 Running
13 4 O6 s Bobby Gill 250 Running
16 5 O7 n Matt Lofton 250 Running
10 6 OO s R Lucas Ransone 249 Running
19 7 31 s Justin Boston 249 Running
1 8 75 s Caleb Holman 248 Running
14 9 52 n Michael Ritch 247 Mechanical
12 10 28 s Billy Bigley Jr 247 Running
9 11 23 s J P Morgan 247 Running
4 12 22 n Derek Kale 246 Running
15 13 13 s John Gibson 246 Running
11 14 68 n Allen Purkhiser 246 Running
22 15 75 n Ronnie Souders 244 Running
21 16 O2 n Tyler Young 242 Running
23 17 O4 s Larry Barrett 239 Running
6 18 22 s Drew Herring 188 Accident
7 19 7 n Gary St Amant 172 Mechanical
17 20 73 n Jeff Agnew 81 Mechanical
8 21 1 n Brett Butler 70 Mechanical
24 22 28 n Wally Smith 60 Mechanical
18 23 4 s R Kyle Fowler 32 Mechanical
20 24 3 s Dana White 21 Accident