RAYBESTOS BRAKES NORTHWEST SERIES

WEST RICHLAND, Wash. (September 1, 2002) – According to Jason Jefferson, racing is all about luck. During the Tri-City Raceway Labor Day spectacular, lady luck was on the Naches, Wash. natives side as he captured his second consecutive NASCAR Weekly Racing Series presented by Dodge late model championship on Saturday night, and put the icing on his own birthday cake with a win in the Kingsgate Plumbing 125 presented by Lumbermen’s for the Raybestos Brakes Northwest Series, NASCAR Touring division.

above: The #97 of Jason Jefferson leads the field to a restart on his way to his first NW Series win

(photo courtesy of NASCAR)

Wes Rhodes, who lost the primary engine in his Lumbermen’s Chevrolet during the afternoon practice session and had to make a motor change, held off Shane Biles for second place. The finish was Rhodes best career run on the Northwest series. Biles was third followed by Ken Kaltschmidt and Ken Olson. The fifth place run for Olson also a native of Naches, Wash., was his best career finish on the Northwest series.

Biles started on the pole based on a six-car invert, and led the 24-car field to the green flag. By lap seven, Jefferson had moved to second place and set his sights on Biles for the lead.

An incident on the tight .500-mile front stretch collected several cars including Pete Harding and John Dillon. Also involved in the incident were Garrett Evans, Chris Hart, and Gary Lewis. Harding, Dillon, and Evans would retire for the evening. Lewis rallied for a seventh place finish while Hart came home in 16th place.

The incident grouped the field up for a restart and Jefferson pounced on Biles in a battle for the lead as lap 34 began.

The Ford drivers thrilled the capacity crowd with a tight battle through lap 41. Jefferson cleared Biles exiting turn No. 1and quickly moved out to five-car length lead.

Defending series champion, Kevin Hamlin, caught Biles on lap 56 and the pair raced for second place through lap 64. The American Dream Chevrolet and Biles Angel Racing Ford made contact exiting turn No.1 that allowed Hamlin to squeak by for second place. The handling on Hamlin’s race car began to fade and Kaltschmidt was able to move into second place on lap 87. Hamlin fell back through the field before pitting for repairs late in the race; he finished in 13th place, four laps down to the leader.

The action picked up again as lap 90 came to a close. Olson, who runs the series events primarily at his hometown Yakima Speedway, moved from his 20th place starting position to fourth place and began to apply pressure to Rhodes for third place.

Olson got dragged into an incident involving Kaltschmidt and the lapped car of Troy Conrad. With only minor sheet metal damage, Olson rallied back through the field and moved by Rick Suran late for his fifth place finish.

Jefferson used the racing action behind him as a lightning rod. He made quick work of lapped traffic and was never seriously challenge for the lead through the final 15 laps. His first career victory on the Raybestos Brakes Northwest Series comes on the same race track his older brother Jeff captured his first series win on April 27. The opportunity to join the elite list of drivers who have won on the Northwest circuit humbled Jefferson he said from victory circle.

“I don’t know what to say, I’m just shaking. I know a lot of stuff happened behind me to a lot of good guys so it kind of got me out there by myself,” Jefferson said. “I could not have done this without my crew. We raced hard on Saturday and again tonight, I have to thank Simmonson Automotive, Bud Light, Better-All Auto Sales, and Doug Betteral.”

The weekend was a dream come true for Jefferson he added. “This is exactly what you dream of doing but you’re never sure if it’s going to happen. Racing is a lot of luck; we had a lot of the regulars that run the series have some problems so it helped. We came down here to do this; we won the championship yesterday and this race today. It feels great.”

Rhodes was elated to capture second place after the engine change left him unsure of the response of the back-up motor for 125 laps. “We got virtually no practice today but my crew worked their butt’s off and we got a good finish. I’d like to thank Lumbermen’s and Knight Fire Protection, I know they were here in the stands tonight and I hope they had a good time.”

A career best second place run came on a race track that Rhodes admitted is a little tough on the Lumbermen’s team. “This is my worse race track. This motor sure pulled tonight, it was really rocking on. We’ve had our share of bad luck happening here lately so it’s sure nice to have had some good luck tonight.”

With his third place run, Biles made it two Ford’s in the top-3. Biles is the lone Ford race car at many of the series events and to have two run well this evening brought a sense of joy to his team. “Jason is a hell of a driver and all of these competitors are awesome. We have good equipment here, I have to thank Ron Angel. I know he lays awake at night thinking of how to get more horsepower and I think we finally have as much as the rest of these guys.”

NOTES OF INTEREST:

Jeff Jefferson earned his fourth Bud Pole Award of the season with a lap of 17.877 seconds at 100.688 mph. Jefferson is the only driver on the series to have multiple Bud Pole Awards in 2002. He also leads the Gatorade Front Runner standings.

Gary Lewis continues to chip away at Kevin Hamlin’s points lead. With a seventh place finish, the Bothell, Wash. driver is 42 points behind Hamlin with three races left in the season. Lewis had moved as high as third place in the running order, which could have cut the lead further, but a stuck transmission linkage with 10 laps to go cost him several positions. Hamlin fell well back in the running order after pitting for an ill-handling car. He recovered quite nicely to finish a respectable 13th, which helped to maintain the points lead for the defending champion.

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