The first race of Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham’s Superstar Racing Experience was not won by a superstar.
That’s not a slight to Doug Coby. He’s a great driver and a six-time Modified Tour champion. He showed it on Saturday night. But he also wasn’t a household name entering the evening to most of the fans tuning into CBS to check out the new racing series.
Coby was selected for the race because of his success at Stafford. He has over 30 wins and was invited to the race as part of the series’ desire to include stars from the the six local tracks on the SRX schedule to se how they stacked up in equal cars to drivers who mainstream fans recognized.
“Short tracker won it tonight,” Coby said.His familiarity with the track was evident from the start. He won the second heat and led 80 of the feature race’s 100 laps. Coby beat out drivers like Stewart, Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves and Greg Biffle.
After Coby got out of his car, the fans at Stafford chanted his name. In his post-race interview he paid tribute to a friend named Don King who had died earlier in the week. King was one of the first people to help launch Coby’s racing career.
