November 15th, Memphis Motorsports Park. Sean Murphy had a chance to win one of the largest payouts in Late Model history during Saturdays running of the ASA Late Model Kings Ransom 300 at Memphis. The 22-year old driver from Ft. Lauderdale, FL needed to win the third leg of the O’Reilly’s Triple Crown Challenge to secure the $100,000 bonus prize.

Steve Carlson who traveled from his home in Western Wisconsin had one thing on his mind and that was to be crowned the “King of the Short tracks” and in doing so, to block Murphy from the six-figure bonus. Carlson dominated the field of 30 of the best short trackers in the country to take home the crown and leave Murphy one spot short of the big payday.

Murphy qualified the #32 ASI LIMITED; Akzo Nobel; Spectrum Metal Chevy third out of 36 cars that took time on Saturday morning, giving him a great starting position for the 300-lap event on the three-quarter mile speedway. At the drop of the flag Murphy raced hard to hold track position while working a tight race car and was in the 4th position at the end of the first 100-lap segment when a competition caution came out for the teams to make adjustments and bolt on a fresh set of Hoosiers.

Sean continued to run strong keeping the #32 ASI LIMITED; Akzo Nobel; Spectrum Metal Chevy within the top-five throughout the second 100-lap segment though the tight condition still existed. Crew Chief Butch Miller made several more adjustments to improve the handling of Murphy’s mount during the second competi-tion caution following lap 200 and this allowed Murphy to work his way toward the front and contend for the big bonus but fell one spot short of catching Carlson whom had dominated after taking the race lead on lap 40.

“We just got beat by a faster car,” Murphy said. “We were pretty much tight all day. Butch kept working at it and we got it pretty decent at the end but there was no way to catch Carlson.”

Murphy was pleased with the effort of his SS Green Light team. "I have enjoyed running the SS Green Light guys again this year," he said. “I wish we could go race again next weekend.”

SS Green Light Racing crew chief Butch Miller could not say enough about his young driver, “Sean has done a great job for us over the last couple seasons. He drove a great race today, he gave us 100% and I mean 100%. I don’t think he made one mistake today.” Miller added, “We had the car too tight to start and I should have made one more adjustment to give him a shot at the win. Carlson just had everyone covered.”

The second place run was a solid finish to a great year for the SS Green Light Racing team who finished third in the 2008 ASA Late Model Challenge Series point standings following a fourth place finish in 2007. Murphy tied for the series lead the series with three victories and scored four wins overall.

The team will announce its plans for the 2009 ASA Late Model Series in the coming weeks.

Learn more about SS Green Light Racing at www.ssracingonline.com.

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