Duck River Raceway Park
Putnam ready to face WoO at Duck River
By Chris Tilley
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Josh Putnam
Josh Putnam of Florence, Ala., will try to record his name on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series record books as the full-fendered tour rolls into one of his favorite tracks Sunday for a $10,000-to-win event.
Duck River Raceway Park in Wheel, Tenn., was set to host the national tour April 11, but Mother Nature intervened halfway through time trials and the event was rescheduled for May 18. Track owner Bob Harris will welcome the Outlaws for tour’s second visit.
The 30-year-old Putnam has somewhat struggled early this season but went out of the 2013 season in a huge way, winning Duck River’s unsanctioned Deep Fried 75, giving him a career-high $10,000.
“We wrecked our car that we had good luck out of last year and I’ve been in the process of building a new house, so the guys have been doing all the work on the car,” Putnam said. “I don’t know whether that’s a combination of me not being in the shop and doing all our homework, but we’ve had some good runs, just haven’t put everything together.”
He’ll face a big challenge against the national touring stars of the World of Outlaws.
”We’re kind of a smaller group here, it’s all family-oriented, and to run against those guys, it’s a privilege,” Putnam said. “For those guys to give me the respect to put these things wheel to wheel on a track like this, I’m telling you this baby is wide open a lot of times, we run that whole race (2013 edition of the Deep Fried 75) in low lap times close to what we qualified in, even in lapped traffic and stuff.
“I didn’t get a mark on the car, it’s a privilege to run with those guys and to get a win. If we could put that thing in there for the World of Outlaws, I’d be speechless, just like I was for the Deep Fried. We come off last year with a lot of momentum, it hasn’t showed this year yet, the stars haven’t lined yet, but maybe we’ll get them there.”
Putnam typically runs races with limited tire choice, so that may leave him at a disadvantage to the traveling drivers.
“We’ve got several selections there and I’m going to really have to think through this and rely on others to ask some questions,” he said. “Brian (Key) and Charles (Roberts) with Hoosier, those guys are great to me, but the hard tire rule (from last year’s Deep Fried 75), you always think back when you’re doing your homework and looking at your notes, you look at times that we’re turned on hard tires here and you want to think to come here and watch your times on soft stuff.
“But you never know. You get a long green-flag run at this thing, and if I take the gamble and put hard tires on, that might be the race-winning gamble.”
Putnam has broadened his tire experience running with the Southern All Stars this season.
“We’re getting better. I’m learning. Maybe that’s some of our struggle this year, not really knowing exactly what to do on the tires,” Putnam said. “We ran that Southern Regional (Racing Series) deal the last four or five years and ran that hard-tire rule on the back, that’s what you run. So maybe we can rely on some of those guys and pull one off, but I think we still have a good hand in it.
”The track has been good so far this year, Bob (Harris) has a hard-tire rule and it’s been right on the track record with hard tires. Duck River widens out and gets racy, it’s action-packed. I think we’ll all be good with it.”
Putnam, one of the few drivers in the South to pilot a car for Illinois-based chassis builder Bob Pierce Race Cars, is trying to get back to basics with his No. 212.
“Since we’ve struggled we’ve been looking for the help we need and a lot of help from Bob (Pierce) on these race cars,” Putnam said. “ Since we’ve struggled we really went on a limb and tried some different stuff from last year just car wise and now we’re back to Square One
“We went back to our baseline that we we’re good on last year and let’s get our momentum from there, maybe the direction we wasn’t going was what I need as a driver, and what little Bobby (Pierce) has done in that race car in the last few weeks is mindblowing to me to watch his car. I just haven’t found that yet. We’re different, and I can’t run the same things that Bob has, we have found that out.”
Correction: Fixes Bob Harris as sole track owner.
