Huntersville, N.C., December 10, 2008 - Joey Coulter beat the best Late Model Stock Car competitors in the Carolinas and Virginia when he drove his Tempest Cycles/Darrell Gwynn Foundation Chevrolet to victory in the Dec. 7 running of the Thanksgiving Classic at North Carolina’s Southern National Raceway Park.

The 200-lap, $10,000-to-win race marks the first major Late Model win in the 18-year-old Florida native’s career. Coulter qualified eighth among the 33 starters.

“The car was really, really good,” Coulter said. “Randy (Renfrow, crew chief) had an awesome setup. We didn’t get the qualifying run we wanted, but the car was fast. In the first half we just tried to stay out of trouble and see what we had.”

Staying out of trouble is a tall order among such tough competitors, and Coulter was spun early in the race and had to work his way through the field after restarting 28th. But by the 10-minute halfway break he was among the leaders again.

“The car was perfect,” Coulter said. “Randy just made a small air-pressure adjustment and told me to go out and win the thing.”

When the checkered waved, Coulter appeared to place second on the field, though he was charging and had the leader in his sights. He learned he’d won the race when he heard the track announcer state that the lead car was penalized one lap for an on-track incident not involving Coulter.

“I was excited,” Joey said. “It just proves that you need to keep racing. You never give up when you’re running second or third, because you never know what might happen. You have to keep yourself in the best position possible, because anything can happen on the racetrack. I was gaining at the checkered and think if I had a few more laps I could have challenged him. When we heard we’d won we started jumping up and down and celebrating, and people were looking at us wondering why we were so happy.”

A few minutes later they knew why Coulter was happy, as he walked off with the five-foot trophy, incentive enough to do more Late Model Stock Car racing in the future.

“I like racing the Late Model,” Coulter said. “Everywhere you go there are 10 to 15 heavy hitters. It’s fun racing, and it’s good racing.”

Be sure to log on to www.JoeyCoulter.com for more information about this promising young driver’s racing endeavors.

To learn more about team sponsor Tempest Cycles please visit www.TempestCycles.com.

Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on The Southern Motor Racing Forum OR Send the Editor an E-mail!