By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
When you’re the youngest driver in a Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway, you’re pretty young.
Dawson Cram made his series debut in Monday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at 16 years old. Though he entered the race with no race experience in the series, the youngster crossed the finish line on the lead lap in 17th spot.
“This is an odd short track,” Cram said. “All the other tracks I’ve raced on are quarter-miles and this is a half-mile. Quite a bit different than I’m used to.”
Falling off the lead lap twice, Cram was able to earn the free pass twice to stay in the top 20. More than anything, the Mooresville, North Carolina native was thrilled to drive side-by-side with some series champions.
“Sometimes on the restarts I was like, ‘Wow, I’m running with Johnny Sauter and Matt Crafton. This is really weird,'” he said. “Restarts really helped in the back to get back into the field and race with some guys.”
Cram is accustomed to tracks even shorter than the half-mile of Martinsville and had a lot to learn in the 250-lapper.
“The race was different than what I’m used to running. These guys are really fun to race with,” he said. “They’ll try not to tear you up, but I could see they getting aggravated — I tried not to aggravate any of them being my first start trying to earn respect.”
To join restarts, it was the opening pit stop for the first-timer than saw a big issue early.
“I have to apologize to whoever I hit on pit road,” he said. “I hit one of my crew members on accident, it was my first stop ever. I have to thank my dad, my uncle Clint who crew chiefed for me, Josh Williams, he really calmed me down, really helped me out.”
Leaving his first weekend looking toward the additional short tracks on the 2018 season, Cram feels more prepared to attack that next challenge in the Truck Series.
“We raced good, raced clean,” he said. “We brought it home 17th, that’s a good solid finish. We were shooting for 20th. We went down a couple laps, but we were always in that lucky dog spot. All around a great race, I learned a ton. I’ll be back for the next short track hopefully with my approval.”