Shane Gray Readies New Camaro For Forthcoming Debut

With the infiltration of the sleek new Chevrolet in Pro Stock on the horizon, it would seem that the tried-and-true Pontiac GXP’s days are numbered.

Shane Gray, driver of the Service Central Pontiac, is one of several competitors in the class who commissioned the construction of one of the brand new machines for the 2012 season – this one from Jerry Haas Race Cars in Fenton, Mo.

Following the recent NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at the zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C., Gray took his first whiff of that glorious new-car smell when he put the first shakedown laps on the sticker-less new Service Central Camaro. On its first full pull to the quarter-mile, the Camaro recorded a 6.64 at 209 miles per hour.

Despite a very successful first test session in which the car “felt pretty good,” Gray and company have postponed its official debut in NHRA competition while additional laps are run to gain valuable data and sort the new combination. In the meantime, Gray will head to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals at the Royal Purple Raceway in Houston this weekend aboard his trusty Pontiac.

“We want to get a couple more days of testing in with the Camaro, so we’ve decided we better stick with old faithful for now,” said Gray. “The Camaro showed good potential, but we just don’t know the car well enough yet, and we want to be comfortable with it before we take it to a race. It’s tough to wait, but we want to do this the right way.

“For now, we will work with the tools that we have and see what we can make happen in Houston with our Service Central Pontiac GXP – that car is as comfortable as an old glove, and that racetrack has been good to my family in the past. I was with my dad [Service Central Funny Car driver Johnny Gray] when he made the first run over 200 mph in a Comp Eliminator A/Dragster there back in 1993, and it’s always special to go back to where something really exciting happened. You just feel like anything is possible.”

Gray has qualified the Service Central machine at all five races thus far in the 2012 NHRA Full Throttle series and has two round wins to his credit. Gray qualified 13th at Houston one year ago and fell in the opening stanza to Jason Line.