Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – BARBERSVILLE, FL – The final nine laps of Saturday night’s DIRTcar Nationals Super DIRTcar Series feature had to be some of the longest of Jimmy Phelps’ racing career.
Driver after driver after driver continued to bring out the dreaded yellow flag with worn out right rear Hoosier racing tires.
Knowing this could also be an issue on his own HBR #98H, the Baldwinsville Bandit stayed smooth and not only took home his first Nationals win, but also stole the Big Gator Championship.
“Only thing going through my head during those final laps was man, we have too soft a tire on,” Phelps said. “I knew that about ten laps in and said Jesus, I gotta drive this thing straight.”
Starting on the pole for the event was a definite advantage for Phelps as it allowed him to dictate early on how hard he wanted to push his machine. In the closing laps of the event, the likes of Sheppard, Haers, Williamson, Britten, Drellos and even his HBR teammate, Max McLaughlin, all surrendered good finishes in the 50-lap feature due to worn out right rear tires.
That forced Phelps to evaluate how he managed the throttle on his machine, hoping and praying he could make it to the end.
He did.
“We got lucky tonight with the redraw,” he said. “Obviously, it put us on in position where we could control the pace and we just kept trying to slow them down, slow them down, slow them down. We just tried to save the tire, stay off of lap traffic and the car was just really good.”
Running the line he wanted to, controlling the race as he saw fit and having a well handling car was probably why Jimmy Phelps had a tire that lasted the entire distance on Saturday night.
“This thing was awesome tonight and that’s probably why I’ve only got five laps left on that tire, maybe,” he said. “If we were fighting an ill-handling car, it probably would have blown with 20-to-go.”
Phelps was quick to point out that this was a total team effort throughout the entirety of the DIRTcar Nationals. Any time he talked about this week, he never used the first person. He always said ‘we’. This was a great victory for HBR.
“Hats off to the guys on this team,” he said. “They gave us a hell of a race car all week long and I’m just super pumped right now.”
A win at Volusia Speedway Park, during the DIRTcar Nationals, has always been a thorn in Phelps’ side. He’s wanted one for so long, and now, he’s finally got it.
“This is big for us because we’ve been doing this for a long time” he said. “We’ve been coming to Florida for a long time and have struggled our asses off.”
The goal this week wasn’t for a win. Phelps said all he wanted was to put on a decent performance and he did just that.
“We just wanted to come down here to Volusia and run well,” he said. “To head home with “a gator,” let alone the “Big Gator” for winning the championship, I’m speechless. This is just awesome,”
Now Phelps can add another bullet point to his already stellar resume which includes multiple big event wins and championships. What does winning the Nationals Championship mean?
“It means a ton to all of us,” he said. “It’s something you come to Volusia every year praying to get. This year, we had a race team with a bunch of guys that worked really hard and gave us a car that gave me the confidence to stay up front and do it all week.”
If Saturday night was any indication, Phelps and the HBR team had everything working for them…hard work, determination and a little bit of good fortune.
“It takes a lot of luck to do this,” he said. “You’ve got to draw well, qualify well and run well. I’ve been doing this a long time and I don’t know how many years we’ve got left to come down here and do this so I’m glad we finally did it.”