RANDLEMAN, NC :: Ryan Wilson clinched his first NASCAR Whelen All American Series track championship on Sunday at Caraway Speedway by virtue of his fourth place finish in the Mid-Atlantic Championship.  Wilson finished the season with two wins on the season at Caraway Speedway.

“It felt really good,” Wilson said.  “A ton of hard work goes in to it.  We have a pit crew that works their tails off, family, sponsors, just a lot of work.  It’s good for it to finally pay off and win the championship.  We finished second and third before.  It feels good to finally win it.”

Wison scored two victories on the season at Caraway.  While the Randleman driver hoped for more victories, he ran consistently all season.  Wilson scored 14 top-five finishes, with eight of those finishes being podium finishes.

“We were super strong at the beginning of the season,” Wilson remarked.  “The first five or six races, we led the most laps in four or five of them.  We just couldn’t put a win together.  We were in the top three every week.  We had a slump in the summer but we were still in the top five.  Then, we have a win a couple months ago and, since then, we’ve been in a slump again.  We were strong in the last race though.  We got up to seventh at the start, ran around there for the first 100 laps then after the intermission, we tightened the car up and were awesome from there on out.  I did my best to stay out of trouble.  Other cars were beating and banging.  I raced with them but we had plenty of room behind us and our rival was behind us as well.”

Wilson also congratulated his main championship rival, Dan Moore, and thanked him for racing him clean during their hard fought championship battle.

“We had a good race with Dan Moore all year long,” Wilson stated.  “He was strong all year.  His team worked hard all year as well.  I want to congratulate him as well.  It’s just good to finally come away with a championship.”

Wilson also thanked DP Performance Engines.  Wilson’s championship at Caraway Speedway was his first championship of any kind since competing in go-kart racing.