Story by: Andy Marquis ~ [email protected]

Copper Hill, VA(October 11, 2012) – Philip Morris may not have raced the entire season, but he didn’t skip a beat at open testing for the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300.  Morris was on the top of the official time chart, a place he’s familiar with.  Now, Morris is hoping to finish the deal and collect his third grandfather clock.

When someone talks about late model stock car racing, it’s hard to overlook Philip Morris.  Morris, with four national championships in the NASCAR Whelen All American Series, can easily be considered one of the greatest drivers in late model stock car racing.  However, at the start of the 2012 season, Philip Morris found himself without a ride for much of the season only months after winning the national championship in 2011.

The Philip Morris situation overshadowed the otherwise uneventful South Boston 300.  Morris sat out most of the season, but he would return in August.  Morris feels he has a huge disadvantage entering Martinsville because he hasn’t had seat time, but that Martinsville could be an equalizer.

“We’d like to win this race again,” Morris, a two-time winner of the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300, said after open testing.  “We haven’t won it enough times.  I feel good about this race.  I feel like we’re finally on a level playing field with everybody else.  We’ve given up the whole season and going to the racetracks now, just seems like you’re trying to make up so much that you can’t.  When we come to Martinsville, I feel like we’re the same as everybody else and whatever we do, whatever hard work we come up with, whatever setups we come up with, we’re going to be equal to whatever everybody else can come up with.”

Morris won the national championship last year, but mechanical gremlins sidelined him in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers, once more extending the ‘National Title Curse’.  This year, that ‘curse’ could bite one of Morris’ main rivals, Lee Pulliam.  Pulliam won the race last year with a last lap bump-and-run on Matt McCall.

But at open testing, Morris wasn’t thinking about that.  He was just excited to be back at Martinsville, hoping to bring home another grandfather clock.

“It feels good,” he said.  “The excitement’s here at Martinsville.  I can’t wait.  I can’t wait to see what we come up with.  We seem to have hit on some good setups today.  Certainly, the car’s running fast.”

A season that started with uncertainty and turmoil for Morris could end with him, one of late model racing’s greatest drivers ever, holding the $25,000 check for winning the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300 at Martinsville Speedway once more.