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First
of Two Opportunities to Conquer Coeburn Coming up This Weekend
Statesville,
North Carolina (May 1, 2025) – Next on the 2025 agenda is a
month in relatively familiar territory for many.
Lonesome Pine Motorsports Park has hosted the Super Cup Stock
Car Series each of the past two seasons as well as some memorable
races in the mid-2010s and each of the first three years of the
series’ existence. This
year a pair of visits bookend the five weekends during May.
The most familiar
among the local fans may be a driver that does not have any past
SCSCS starts at the 3/8-mile oval but has many laps of competition
there. Mitch Gibson grew
up in Coeburn, Virginia, involved in racing as a teenager assisting
as a crew member for various nearby teams such as Henderson
Motorsports, Morgan-McClure Motorsports, and former NASCAR Xfinity
Series rookie of the year Danny O’Quinn during his time in the Pro
Cup Series. The
experience gained culminated with a 
Late
Model championship at his home track during their 2022 season.
Gibson finished second in one of the races during his SCSCS
debut weekend at Kingsport Speedway, putting him third in the
current standings early on, and would like nothing more than to
break into victory lane in front of friends and family.
The last time the
SCSCS visited Lonesome Pine was October 2024.
Petersburg, West Virginia’s Brent Nelson only needed to
turn in a respectable run to claim his long-awaited first series
championship but also wanted to enter the win column at the
challenging racetrack for the first time.
He did exactly that twice that night and after an up and down
but solid points day that puts him second overall so far to start
off 2025, Nelson will be hungry to return to his winning ways this
Saturday evening.
They will be
looking to catch up to Ben Ebeling early in the season after the
Hickory, North Carolina driver won both races at Kingsport Speedway.
The 2021 series champion has won at Lonesome Pine twice,
including in his first career start in 2016.
Lexi Arnold was
another driver that turned some heads at Kingsport, capturing the
Pole Award her first time out and hanging with the leader until
mechanical concerns dropped her out of the race shortly after
halfway. Lonesome Pine
will present a new challenge as the Johnson City, Tennessee has
never raced a stock car on this facility’s pavement, or any
surface that is not the Kingsport concrete, before.
Back to the drivers
with past experience, “ShoTime” Mike, who brought home a third
and fourth in his return to the SCSCS a couple Fridays ago, has
competed four previous times in SCSCS competition and even ran twice
with the old ASA series at the speedway before a handful of drivers
in attendance this weekend were born.
Warrington, Pennsylvania’s Mike Senica is scheduled to be
back in the Ashton Racing No. 57 at a track where he gained some
knowledge with a third-place result in the 2024 running.
Eric Barber, from Parkersburg, West Virginia, has prior
starts at Lonesome Pine too.
Will it be a mix of
new and familiar, inexperience or prior knowledge, in victory lane?
Spectator gates
open at 2:00 p.m. with racing, including the twin main events for
the Super Cup Stock Car Series as part of Nickel Drop Night for the
Kids featuring multiple local classes and a Fastor Pastor race
slated to begin at 4:00 p.m. General
admission is $15 at the gate with students (11-18) and seniors $12,
and kids 10 and under admitted free.
The facility will
also have their kart track open at 2:00 p.m. with more entertainment
for the kids in the midway that includes free popcorn and bounce
houses.
More information
can be found on the Super Cup Stock Car Series official web site supercupstockcarseries.com
with interactive updates throughout race days and in between
available on Facebook (search Super Cup Stock Car Series), Twitter
(@SCSCSRacing), Instagram (SCSCS_Racing), and https://www.youtube.com/SCSCSRacing.
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