Gaines focusing 2024 on pavement events

(Aaron Skillman photo)

By Ken de la Bastide

Alexandria resident Clayton Gaines has been a regular with the Kenyon Midget Series for many years and is planning to run a majority of the pavement events this year.

With seven career victories to his credit, Gaines posted two podium finishes last year running a limited schedule. He scored two third place finishes at his favorite track Anderson. He garnered the hard charger award in the season opener and won a heat race in the championship night event.

Gaines scored a sixth place finish in the first Circle City Raceway event, his best showing on the dirt.

After finishing fourth in the 2022 point standings, he followed that up with an 11th place showing in the 2023 rankings.

“Right now I'm not sure about running the full schedule,” Gaines said. “I'm definitely going to run the majority of the pavement races.” He plans to run all the Kenyon Midget Series races that will be live streamed in conjunction with the 500 Sprint Car Tour.

Gaines said he probably would not compete at the dirt races, but didn't rule out a race at Circle City.

“I prefer the pavement tracks over dirt,” he said. “Anderson by far is my favorite track. I'm looking forward to returning to Berlin and Kalamazoo should be really fun. I wish at Salem we were running the half-mile because the quarter-mile will be like the Speedrome.”

Gaines said his full-time job is keeping him busy and another reason not to run the full season is that he is spending more time with his girlfriend who resides in Detroit.