Fayetteville Motor Speedway
Notes: Owens reflects at pre-race gathering
Jimmy Owens (left) talks to reporter Thomas Pope. (Lucas Oil Series)
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (June 18) — Before driving to an eighth-place finish in Thursday night’s 50-lap Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature at Fayetteville Motor Speedway, Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., spent the afternoon with several of his touring friends at Dunn-Benson Ford’s Race Day Meet & Greet in nearby Dunn, N.C. | Fayetteville RaceWire
Surprisingly, it was a new experience for the 43-year-old superstar who has been racing for more than two decades.
“It’s actually my first one ever,” Owens said of his participation in the pre-race car show that also included Lucas Oil Series regulars Earl Pearson Jr. — of course, since he’s the lead driver for the Dunn-Benson Racing team — Don O’Neal, Steve Francis, Eddie Carrier Jr., Devin Moran and Brandon Sheppard.
Owens was happy to support the special event, which prompted him to leave his Volunteer State shop at 10 p.m. on Wednesday so he could arrive at the Dunn-Benson dealership in time to unload his Rowland Racing machine for display by 10 a.m.
“It’s something Carlton (Lamm, co-owner of Dunn-Benson Ford and the Dirt Late Models steered by Pearson) asked us to do and it’s great to be a part of it,” said Owens, who arrived with his crew at the dealership at 4 a.m. and caught several hours of sleep before the start of the event. “Not too often do people ask, and when they do it’s really out of the way. We’re close to the track here and they asked in plenty of time in advance. It's really tough to get to these events, especially the day of the race, so they were smart — they asked everyone so they could plan to be here a lot earlier.”
While meeting fans in afternoon temperatures that broke 100 degrees, Owens spoke with Fayetteville Observer motorsports writer Thomas Pope on several topics that put him in a reflective mood. Here’s some of Owens’s responses to Pope’s inquiries:
• On whether he’s amazed by the quality of Dirt Late Model competition these days: “Every time I line up. I’m fortunate enough to come along in a time that I get to race against the Dale Earnhardts of my sport, and when my career’s over I can say that I raced against the best of the best and the people who made the sport what it is.”
• On being considered one the sport’s all-time greats: “It’s kind of overwhelming, but it’s pretty cool, too.”
• On how he got the big break that launched his Dirt Late Model career: “Jerry Wisecarver, I drove for him for awhile … then Jim Long, he hooked me up with Arnold Fuller (of the Huntersville, N.C., area) and we started bouncing around here-and-there with some Late Model races. We went to the World and the Dream with his stuff, then he and I split up. That kind of opened the door for me, turned some heads, and I was able to get a different ride right off the bat. Then we got with (Mike Reece’s) Reece Monument and those guys. I’ve been lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and people notice hard work and determination, I guess.”
• On the decision he made to accept Reece’s ride offer nearly a decade ago: “Back when I did the deal with Reece, he comes up to me and offers me this and that. You hear that from so many people. I called and checked around on him a little bit. He had one race car at the time. I talked to my friends and my family, and they’re like, ‘Nah, I wouldn’t do that, it’s too good to be true.’ I was sitting there pondering and thinking, ‘I have to know. Even if it’s the biggest mistake of my life, I have to know.’”
• His thoughts on how many offers he’s presented are truly just bull: “I’m gonna say about 75 percent. People have good intentions and, when they approach you, they just don’t understand the kind of money it takes to race at this level. They want to give you a little bit of money to put stuff on your quarterpanel. Back in the past, the money they would’ve given me would’ve strung me along a whole season in (open-wheel) modifieds. But this right now, to let a quarterpanel (be sponsored) for a small amount is a big hindrance on your deal. I’ve been approached by friends and fans that want to be on the car with money that ... I don’t want to be rude, because I just can’t do that. And it sucks, because they approach you and want to do that and want to do something for you, but don’t understand that for the space, it’s not fair to the other guys (sponsors) and it’s just tough.”
Track surface, weather create Fayetteville issues
From isolated thunderstorms that popped up around Fayetteville late in the afternoon to rough track conditions during qualifying to an evening threat of rain that forced officials into hurry-up mode, Thursday’s Lucas Oil Series visit to the half-mile oval was anything but ordinary.
Lucas Oil Series assistant director Rick Schwallie ultimately had to make two alterations to the tour’s usual format on the fly — first assuaging team’s concerns over the difficult track conditions by making the event show-up points only, and later dispensing with the customary series of qualifying heats and lining up the 50-lap feature’s field by results from time trials because rain appeared to be closing in fast.
“Tonight’s track conditions were adverse — (promoter) Jim (Long Jr.) was beside himself,” Schwallie told the Fayetteville Observer’s Pope, noting the especially rough spots in the third and fourth turns that prevailed during time trials. “To address that, we just gave everybody 100 show-up points tonight. We had a couple of racers here with one car and have two more nights to race this weekend, and we put it back on their shoulders if they chose to race it out or not.”
Schwallie also made the call to quicken the show when radar indicated that showers were nearby after time trials. Shuffling the schedule in hopes of beating the weather, local-division action was pushed to later in the program and the Lucas Oil Series feature was rolled onto the track immediately after track-prep work was finished, marking the first time in the national circuit’s history that no qualifying races were contested to help set an A-Main’s field.
“Yeah, we never have lined up from time trials right to a feature,” Schwallie told Pope. “At Hagerstown (Md.) one time we abbreviated the program by locking a few cars in through time trials, then running two B-Mains and going to a feature. But looking at the weather, it was already to Fort Bragg and just coming this way and we just felt like we needed to do something. We had a great crowd tonight and we wanted to make sure we could get this race in.
“We don’t want to short-change any race fan, but at the same time, I hope every race fan appreciates that we got the full 50-lap race and they saw a good one. I mean, J.D. (Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga.) going around Pearson there on the outside, that was worth of the price of admission. It was a fantastic race.
“The top three ended up being tour regulars, so I feel like the fans got a good show out of it. All in all, I think we made a good night out of a bad situation. Here it is, Thursday night, 10:40 (p.m.), and we’re (at the) checkered flag. I hope the fans can appreciate that.”
And there were certainly plenty of spectators in Fayetteville’s concrete grandstand on Thursday night — a fact Schwallie noted.
“Hot temperatures, bad weather, Thursday night, and I still say this is probably the best crowd (Long has) had all year,” Schwallie remarked to Pope. “That’s not just our effort, it’s the effort of the roster of drivers we have following the tour. They’re an established group of racers, and we appreciate them racing with us and sticking it out with us.”
Francis happy with third
Most nights Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky., wouldn’t have a smile on his face after finishing third in a feature. But considering how frustrating his 2015 season has been, claiming a spot on the podium at Fayetteville was satisfying enough for the 47-year-old — never mind that he ceded second place to eventual winner Jonathan Davenport by picking the inside line for a lap-27 restart.
“We’ve been kind of up-and-down,” said Francis, whose third-place run was his best Lucas Oil Series performance since an identical finish on Feb. 11 at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla. “We’ve been trying to build a program to get back to our consistency, so we actually needed a good run. Maybe I was a little bit conservative there on that restart, but we just didn’t want to make no mistakes and do nothing dumb and just try to get out of here with a good finish tonight.
“I knew (Davenport) was there (in third place) and I knew he could run that outside, but there was no use of me trying to go out there. We just needed a good finish.”
Francis entered the evening’s action with just three top-five finishes in the 13 Lucas Oil Series events since his third-place outing on Feb. 11. His struggles to get rolling in his Barry Wright-built Clint Bowyer Racing machine this season have him sitting ninth in the points standings, but his Fayetteville visit gave him a boost that he hopes will lead to brighter days.
“It’s been kind of an off-year for us,” Francis said. “All the credit (for Thursday night) still goes to them (crew) guys. They work their butts off trying to get this program turned around and get it where we need to go. I think we’re headed in the right direction now.”
