Gallagher # 31 Moves to Modified Division for the 2021 Season At Bridgeport

With a long history in the 602 Crate division the # 31 entry of Jimmy Gallagher will now move up to the headline division of modified for the 2021 season at Bridgeport Motorsports Park.  Gallagher has been making changes and preparing for the 2021 season ever since the Danny Serrano Memorial weekend back in September. The Gallagher 31 modified will actually debut at the last race of the 2020 season at the Wildcard Weekend on Saturday November 7, 2020.

It’s been a while since we have seen Bridgeport crates move into modified.  Back in 2018 was the last time and it was a banner class of sportsmen that moved up to modified with Matt Stangle, Roger Manning and Brian Papiez all making the big move.  No one made the jump in 2019.  With Jimmy Gallagher making the jump he joins Tommy Moore Jr who made the jump last month and is also getting an early start on preparing for the 2021 modified season.

The Gallagher 31 number you see today at Bridgeport has a long history of racing before Jim Jr. was even born.  Jim Gallagher Sr. began asphalt oval racing in 1965 with a Ford Coupe at Atlantic City Speedway also known as P vill back in the day.  In the 70’s his interests turned to two wheel racing and he raced flat track motorcycles at a very high level for the next 6 years.  In the early 80’s he returned to 4 wheel racing in a 39 Chevy coupe on dirt at East Windsor, NJ.  Later in 80’s Jim Sr. got out of racing to focus on family and business.  But like many racers know; once it’s in your blood you can run but you can’t hide and sooner or later you come back.  So Jim Sr. and the Gallagher 31 was back in racing and this time in the sportsman division at Bridgeport from 1995 – 2000.  Family and business took Jim Sr. away from racing for 17 years but this time he was coming back as car owner, crew chief & part time driver with his son Jimmy Jr. as the primary driver.

 Jim Sr. had been out of racing for 20 years and Jimmy with no experience in racing whatsoever so team Gallagher 31 was starting at ground zero when they returned to racing in 2017.  The car was purchased from Brandon Grosso and members of his team Mark Blackwell and Sam Wescott provided guidance and assistance with getting the car setup & ready for their first year back in racing. 

Soon after the car was purchased the Ward Brothers with 40 plus years of racing experience came on board and Mike and Bruce provided expertise & additional shop help for the 2017 season.

In 2017 the Gallagher 31 returned to Bridgeport after 17 years with a new driver Jimmy Gallagher Jr.  The rookie division at Bridgeport was perfect for Jimmy as he was a true rookie with no racing background of any kind.  Jimmy noted “I remember not knowing how to buckle the safety harness and realizing just how fast things happen on my very first start when I went from the pole to 8^th place before the first turn.”  Jimmy’s progression was quick and by the end of the rookie division the Gallagher 31 had 5 wins and won the rookie points championship and was ready to move on to the regular crate division. Two weeks later Jimmy Jr won his first weekly Crate feature event.

During the 2017 both Jimmy & Jim Sr. would share driving since Jim Sr. still loved to get behind the wheel whenever he could.  Shortness of breath while driving the race car sent Jim Sr. to the doctor to get an inhaler so he could continue to drive but the diagnosis came back as stage 3 lung cancer during the winter of 2018.  The only thing that changed was that Jim Jr took over as exclusive driver and Jim Sr. continued as car owner, crew chief and shot caller while undergoing cancer treatment and never missed a race.  And if you ask anyone at Gallagher 31 racing; they will tell you Jim Sr.’s continued involvement with racing during his treatment was as much part of his full recovery and subsequently going into remission as the actual treatments.

2018 would be Jimmy’s first full year of points racing at Bridgeport and the sophomore year would prove to be full of ups and downs on and off of the track for the Gallagher 31.  It just so happened that 2018 was the year of the rainout and the season was cut down to 12 races and nearly as many rainouts.  Nonetheless, one of the highpoints of the 2018 season was a win from green to checkered flag in front of a full house at the “Pack the house” night.  But a few weeks later as the racing gods will occasionally do; a seemingly minor incident on the front stretch put the Gallagher 31 into the wall and bent the front clip.  The crew chief Jim Sr. jumped to action and the car was sent out for repairs and back for racing without missing a week.  Surprising the new front clip was way better than the old one and ran in the top 3 quickest in hot lap’s every week on the 5/8’s.  Jimmy finished the season with two wins and a solid 7^th place in the season point championship.  After the points season ended; Jimmy got his biggest win all and he wasn’t even at a race track. He married his VP of redraw and power washing Briana Lee Gallagher.  To say that Jimmy Jr has outkicked his coverage is most certainly an understatement here.  He not only married his number 1 supporter but she has Pharmacy PHD and wears a white lab coat during the day and also loves being with the racecar and in the dirt on weekends.      

The 2019 season was Jimmy’s second full season behind the wheel and with Jim Sr. in remission they were ready to go racing.  A long season of racing saw the Gallagher 31 get two wins and compete for the point championship right to the final week and finish a strong 4^th in points which was his best points finish to date in his career.

Then came 2020.  The pandemic and its effects have been well documented but even that aside; the 2020 racing season has had plenty of challenges, lows and then successes both small and large despite being shortened to only 12 weeks due to the pandemic.

The 31 Gallagher team went south to Florida in February for some winter racing and fun in the sun.   The trip went completely south on lap 1 of the heat race when the car would not turn and went straight into the turn 1 wall resulting in a concussion for Jimmy Jr and a completely destroyed race car.  Jimmy reflected “Well, we made the trip down for a heat race basically and wrecked on lap 1 of that heat race, cutting our trip short….really short. The car was destroyed, there was no fixing it there at the track, so we packed it up and headed back home. I ended up with a concussion and some bumps and bruises after that wreck. I guess you can say my ego took the hardest hit though. I was looking at all the effort we made to go down there and ended up with a totaled car. Talk about going from a high to a low in the snap of the fingers. That really made me step back and look at everything we were doing and say “why the hell do we do this?” I think every race team has said those words at some point. It was really the first time we experienced something bad like that. After getting the car back in the garage and chipping away at it, we were back to ground zero again.”

So a head start on the opening day of the 2020 season turned into a setback and starting all over again to prepare for opening day which was only 6 short weeks away.  The only lucky thing to come out of the Florida incident was amazingly the car did not have to be front clipped.

As things turned out the pandemic delayed the start of the season by 3 months.  But in April the second setback of the season came when Jim Sr. had emergency triple bypass surgery in the middle of the worst of the pandemic.  So 2020 was really starting to look a bit uneven and a possible lost cause with the crew chief and shot caller looking at a long recovery, a completely rebuilt race car untested on the track and not to mention a brand new high banked 4/10 new race track that neither the driver or car had ever been on.  Things looked mighty bleak for a moment.  But the turning point was quite evident and even broadcasted on a short phone video on facebook.  Upon release from the hospital after a one week stay; Jim Sr. came home and as per his request she was sitting in the driveway and fired up as the signature snakeskin boots emerged from the truck and stood and listened to his favorite car.  At that point it was clear that there was a will and it was gonna find a way to get the 31 Gallagher back to the track in 2020.  But with dad still recovering Jimmy couldn’t do it all by himself and in stepped Jim Dallet & Briana to help out every night in the shop preparing the car for the 2020 season.

The 3^rd challenge of the 2020 season was a brand new 4/10 high bank race track that neither the car nor the driver had ever been on before.   The first practice on the new track was in May and was a complete moral victory as the founder, crew chief and shot caller was there and never miss a trip to the track all season.  In the process of adjusting their setup from the old 5/8 track to the new 4/10 track the 31 Gallagher team got completely lost for about 3 weeks trying things that just plain didn’t work for them.  The answer for the new track was right in front of them; go back to what you know.  So they went back to the big track baseline setup and with a few adjustments they were right back where they wanted to be with the top 5 quickest each week and it just in time for the start of the 2020 points season in July.  It was a short and intense 7 week point’s season and with weekly consistency the Gallagher 31 finished a solid 3^rd in points for his best crate points finish to date.

Amongst all of this carrying on during 2020 team Gallagher had an eye on the future and had already begun planning for the 2021 season.  Those plans have already come to life with the purchase of their first spec 358 engine to compete in the modified division at Bridgeport speedway in 2021.

The last race was the Danny Serrano Memorial and with over 6 weeks to the final race of the season it made a whole lot of sense to start preparing for the 2021 season during those 6 weeks.  And with that said; the 31 Team and car is ready to make their 2021 modified debut at the final race of the 2020 season and get an early start on their 2021 modified program.

 The modified division is a huge challenge for a local family owned team taking on teams with multiple cars, years of experience and much deeper pockets but after all the twists and turns of the 2020 season the timing just seemed right.  And rest assure the crew chief and top shot caller has contingent and backup plans in place.   So coming off his best crate point finish of his racing career Jimmy Gallagher and the Gallagher 31 makes their move to the modified division.

Jimmy Gallagher Jr. started his first season in the crate division with a 7^th place finish in the points and with any luck I wouldn’t be surprised to see two 31’s in the points top ten next year with the old guard 31 and longtime favorite Tommy Beamer being  joined by the new kid on the block in the Gallagher 31.

Next event for Bridgeport is the URC High Banks Classic on November 6-8 with racing on November 6th starting at 7:30.   The 100 lap Danny Serrano Memorial feature has been rescheduled on November 7^th and a 50 lap modified feature event on November 8th with a full program of racing.  And yes; the Gallagher 31 team will make their modified debut this weekend.