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King Puts a Close to an Eventful Rookie Season

experienced racers on the tour.

King's first start of the 2010 season came at Hickory Motor Speedway, a track that in 2009, King had driven his Late Model Truck to victory lane and in this first start of the season it was obvious from the drop of the green flag that he'd be a contender. Racing in the top five for much of the race, but unfortunately he found himself getting run over coming down for a restart late in the race, thus ending his stellar run prematurely.

King wasn't about to let himself get down as he knew he could now contend for top fives and even put himself in a position to win races. That was never more evident than in the young drivers second start of the season as he took to the concrete, Kingsport Speedway for the first time in his career and quickly put himself in the mix. Soon after the green flag dropped, King asserted himself as the leader as he looked to keep the ultra-competitive UARA-STARS Series field in his rearview mirror.

King performing like an aged, matured veteran held off a former series champion through several late race cautions and picked up the victory in just his third career start in a Late Model Stock Car. The win, at just 14 years-old made King the youngest driver to ever win a UARA-STARS Series event and the only rookie driver to post a win in the 2010 season, on the toughest touring series in all of racing. King seemingly had arrived, as he picked up the win and was well on his way to not only winning the Rookie of the Year award, but also looked to be an early contender for the series championship.

The win would be King's only triumph of the season and as quickly as he had became a winner, he found himself and his team with bad luck on the horizon. Those usual "rookie" growing pains were now showing, just not in the way a usual rookie feels them. Most rookies find themselves racing for position near the back of the field and making mistakes and crashing out of races, but not King, who every week raced up near the front of the field. Often he qualified in the top five and nearly every race in the top ten only to have mechanical failures and other competitors cost him chances at great finishes.

King endured nearly every type of mechanical failure that a driver could imagine this season and when his car stayed together he unfortunately found himself a victim of other drivers mistakes. Despite all that King went through, the young driver still managed to rack up two top five finishes and six top ten finishes in 15 races that he competed in this season on the UARA-STARS Series tour to go along with his lone victory.

King's rookie season will be one that the young Denton, NC driver will not soon forget and wrapped it up with an eventful run at Ace Speedway in the season ending FallOut Invitational 150. King was solid in practice for the non-sanctioned race at Ace and after a dismal qualifying effort the young racer was unable to miss three accidents in front of him, but rallied to finish on the lead lap in tenth position.

It wasn't the ending to the season that King had wanted, but it was a solid run in only his second start on the 4/10 mile track and like the entire 2010 season, it was a learning experience for a young driver with a bright future.

"Wow, that's pretty much the one word to describe my season," said King with a smile. "We didn't get all the finishes that we had wanted and expected when the season started, but it's hard to complain when you pick up a win in your rookie season."

King knows that while everything didn't go the way he had expected that the season wasn't a loss, because of how much he and his team learned this season.

"This season was full of ups and downs and while sometimes it felt like there were more lows than highs, I know that I learned a lot," continued King. "Everything that happened this past season taught us something from the win , to getting caught up in someone else's mess , to breaking a weld and crashing out. It was a huge learning experience that hopefully will prepare us better for 2011 and keep us in contention for wins more often."

King is now working on his cars as he prepares to get them ready for the 2011 season as well as developing a schedule and working on sponsorship development.

"I can't wait to get back on track next season, but right now we've got a lot of work with getting both our cars ready to hit the track again and working with our current sponsors and some new ones. I can't thank the guys from Carson-Dellosa Publishing enough for coming on board with us late in the season and for all the businesses who jumped on board this season."

Clint King is a talented young racer and a great spokesperson for his sponsors and with a little luck next season he'll get the finishes to back up the on-track performance and get the chance to showcase his sponsors more often.

Clint King Motorsports is supported by Warehouse Designs Inc., Carson-Dellosa Publishing, Lakeside Village, Fishbyte.net, MX3, Pistone LTO Chassis, Butler Built Seats, Circle Racing Wheels, CV Products, DJ Safety, Auman Motor Company, Shell Rapid Lube in Thomasville, NC and CEPrint Solutions. For more information on Clint King visit http://www.ClintKing.com or contact Clint King Motorsports at (336) 472-0289, ext. 22.