The Great Pumpkin at Meridian Speedway
Meridian, Idaho – During the Thunder Stocks race at Meridian Speedway August 9, 2008, the bright orange number 94 car, nicknamed the Great Pumpkin, charged ahead and took over leaving the other nine cars in the dust. Grandview City Councilman, and part time race driver, Bill Lawrence, was behind the wheel of that hard charging race car. On Saturday night Lawrence was the only Thunder Stock driver to take advantage of the practice time offered by Meridian Speedway and made 32 laps around the track to verify that his car was running in the best possible form and adjusted correctly.
His dedication to preparation and that extra practice time paid off with the second fastest qualifying time and the fastest lap times in two of the three races he ran that night. But the most important of the three was the 25 lap main event where Lawrence worked his way to the front of the 10 car field after starting near the back of the pack. In just eight laps after the green flag he had the lead and never gave it up and in fact had a 12 second lead by the end of the race.
At one point Lawrence passed lapped traffic by slipping between two slower cars with skill and precision not usually seen in the Thunder Stock class. Lawrence is no stranger to the winners circle and has several trophies in his collection so far this year. Up until this last race weekend he was just three points behind the leader in accumulated season points but has likely taken over after the new points are tallied.
Lawrence started racing about 30 years ago and just returned to racing in the last year when his long time friend and racing buddy, RJ Lewis, convinced him to try again.
Lawrence is the president of the City Council in Grandview and sits on the water and sewer board. He is actively involved in the community and heads up the emergency extrication unit, is an EMT and is a past Fire Chief of Grandview. Lawrence works at Six States Distributing in Boise as the rebuild manager.
