Story by: Langley Austin ~ [email protected]
Thomasville, NC(April 14, 2011) — Silly Season in short track, Late Model Stock Car racing has certainly begun and it’s in full swing.
By now you’ve read the story on the split at Fat Head Racing between Ronnie Bassett, Jr. and Nick Hutchins, apparently they weren’t the only ones looking to make a move this week. The deal at FHR was cut and dry, Hutchins felt that he was being doubted and wasn’t trusted, Yelton felt that he wasn’t getting the job done and thus things changed and changed quickly.
Everything seemed to be rolling along just fine at Clint King Motorsports as over the winter, team owner, David King hired veteran crew chief, David Adams. Together they decided to switch to FDJ Motorsports chassis, built essentially two brand new cars, freshened their engine program and began steadily getting driver, Clint King ready to do battle for his sophomore season in the UARA-STARS Series.
After a successful test, Clint hit the track for his first race of the season as the season opened at Hickory Motor Speedway for the UARA-STARS Series. Clint was solid in practice, but had some issues in qualifying, but knew that he’d have a great race car come race time. His race expectations looked to be correct in the opening laps, but soon enough he found his car had some handling issues and he finished 24th after being involved in a crash. Those problems were later found to be in the rearend, but his teams confidence had already been crushed and things could easily unravel from here.
Clint King Motorsports collectively made the decision not to race in the next UARA event at Concord, which was rained out anyways. Then they had all intentions of traveling to Motor Mile Speedway and competing, but according to the team owner, it’s more about not having a seat for Clint to race in, than anything else.
“We were waiting on a seat,” said David King via phone interview. “We actually just got it this past week, that held us up more than anything from getting to the track and racing. Clint(King) had simply grown out of the seats we had for him and we had to get a new one and it simple took longer than we wanted.”
No matter the reason, the lack of racing was wearing on the team from Clint itching to get behind the wheel to his crew chief, Adams, who had been used to racing on a regular basis. To date the team still hasn’t hit the track again, but they were less than a week away from heading to Richmond International Raceway to test for an upcoming start for Clint on the 3/4mile track.
Needless to say on Wednesday when Adams entered David King’s office to discuss his resignation, it caught him by surprise.
“It caught me a little off guard,” explains David King. “I had begun to notice though that the focus he had when he came here wasn’t there anymore and I simply thought it was because we were on a limited schedule and not racing. He’s used to racing every weekend and we weren’t, because of the seat issue.”
Adams had nothing bad to say about Clint or David King, just felt like the time was right to make a change.
“I left of my own choice,” said Adams. “I sat down with David(King) and we discussed it and today is my last day working at Clint King Motorsports. We’ve got two cars ready to go to Richmond and my timing could have been better, but I just felt that there were some issues that couldn’t be resolved.”
Adams says that he has a lot of respect for Clint and that he wished things would have worked out differently, so that they could still be working together.
“I think Clint is an exceptional talented driver and we’ve become friends,” explained Adams. “It was nothing to do with him or his father, there were simply some problems there that I couldn’t work past. I think a lot of was because we got a late start with the new cars and didn’t get to test much. We were embarrased when we left Hickory, even though we knew we had a good car.”
Clint was also suprised by Adams departure and was a little confused about the timing with what he considers his biggest Late Model Stock Car start at Richmond International Raceway coming up a little over a week from now.
“Honestly, it was a huge surprise to me,” said Clint in a phone interview. “We’re a little more than a week out from my biggest Late Model Stock Car start in the Denny Hamlin Showdown and we’re without a crew chief.”
Clint also says that there was no warning.
“I don’t really understand, I don’t really know the circumstances behind him leaving. It wasn’t something I expected as Tuesday night we were talking on the phone about things for Richmond and on Wednesday on the way home, my dad called me and said that David(Adams) had resigned.”
Adams feels confident he has left the team in a good position with two cars almost completely ready to go to Richmond International Raceway, which they’ll need as not only will Clint drive his primary car, but NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, Joey Logano will drive Clint’s back-up car.
“Plans changed and things changed at Clint King Motorsports,” explained Adams. “However, now we have two cars almost ready to go to Richmond and the team is in a good position. I’m leaving them with good stuff to work with and Clint’s a class driver.”
Adams didn’t want to get into the specifics of the issues he felt he was fighting, but he did expand on why he decided to leave.
“They were going in a different direction from our original plan and the deal with Venturini came up and they had to do that,” stated Adams. “The Late Model Stock Car program was limited because of the financial burden of the ARCA deal, but Clint needs to do that to continue to move up.”
The changing plans and their performance at Hickory in March weren’t enough to make Adams feel the need to leave, but the logistics of his ride to Clint King Motorsports and higher gas prices gave him something to think about.
“The logistics turned out to be the biggest problem for me,” continued Adams. “It was a 50-mile drive from my house to their shop and at first it wasn’t a big deal. After a while it began to wear on me and it became as much of an issue as anything with the gas prices going up so much recently.”
Logistics may well have been a problem according to Clint’s father and team owner, David King.
“Logistics was the biggest deal, I think,” explained David. “It was a long drive to the shop, gas prices are still climbing, the Yadkin River Bridge project traffic and late nights getting home can work on a guy. He was probably spending a third of his paycheck in gas and that had to have an impact.”
Logistics, a bunch of small issues at the shop and a promising relationships between a young driver and a veteran crew chief all came to an end. So what’s next for these guys?
“I hope I get some calls,” concluded Adams. “After our performance at Hickory, I’ll be surprised if my phone rings, but I hope people look at the long term success and not one race. I had over 30 wins with Doug Godsey and others and could have won more with Clint, we just didn’t get to race.”
Neither of King’s have any ill feelings toward Adams and wish him the best, but they’ve got another task in front of them getting someone in the Clint King Motorsports shop for the long haul.
“We’ve got great support here,” concluded Clint King. “Family and friends are helping, but we’ve certainly got to find someone to crew chief this deal. We’re looking for a short term or a long term or even a short term that might turn into a long term deal. This threw us for a loop, but we’ve been here before and this will only strengthen us.”
“We’re actively seeking crew chief,” added David King. “We’re just getting ready to race on a more consistent basis and now we’ve got to find someone to help us. We’ve got Scott Murphy, who’s coming to the shop and helping in the interim to get us up and rolling. He’s a family friend and has helped us a lot through the years.”
“We’re also going to rely more on Frank Deiny and his FDJ Motorsports program to help us at the track, especially at Richmond. I had a long talk with Frank(Deiny) this week and he knows we need him now more than ever and I think he will help us all he can.”
