Last Saturday, Brett Gilmore broke a nine-year winning drought at Grandview Speedway in Pennsylvania. The victory came in is family’s No. 7 made famous by his late grandfather Charley and father Kenny.
(For more on Kenny, read “Kenny Gilmore: Words of Race-Winning Wisdom”)
That win nearly a decade ago came in a different number, the 00. Gilmore had raced in the modified class before moving into the sportsman division, driving his family’s No. 7.
Last year, Gilmore competed with an open engine. He and his father sold that engine to buy a crate power plant.
“Driving in the modified division, I learned a lot,” said Gilmore, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. “The sportsman cars don’t have enough horsepower — it all boils down to the driver’s skill. This year, I have been keeping my nose clean and trying for some good finishes. There is no pressure this season. We’re having fun and that’s why we won.”
Charley Gilmore had a reputation for running up top on the track, near the wall. Brett Gilmore never ran the top of track … that is until Saturday night.
“Everyone seemed to file to the bottom of the track, so I decided to go where they are not,” Gilmore said. “I had to get around them somehow. In victory lane, I told my dad that it wasn’t me that was driving, it was Grandpa. I’m going to have to try running up there more often now.”
Brett Gilmore will go into the record books as the driver who brought the family No. 7 back to victory lane.
“I’m honored to run the No. 7,” sad Gilmore. “We’re doing what we Gilmores do. We love racing, and we show up at Grandview Speedway weekly. My dad was so excited to see the No.7 back in victory lane. As I went across the scale, I could see him jumping and yelling ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
