Devin Jones made his way back into his #35 Super Late Model for the first race in five months this past weekend at the Pro All Star Series (PASS) South opener at Anderson (SC) Motor Speedway. After racing in his Skip Barber F2000 car during the short track off season, Jones had no trouble bouncing right back to the front of the pack in his super late model.
After fine tuning the car during practice, Jones set the fourth quickest time in his Skip Barber Racing School #35 Mazda Super Late Model during qualifying out of a 28 car field.
“It was great to jump back into my Super Late Model,” said Jones. “It wasn’t difficult to transition from the open wheel car to the super. I was pleased with the car going into qualifying and knew we had a car to beat for the race.”
Jones redrew outside pole (in PASS the top ten qualifiers redraw for position).
“On the start I noticed I had a hard time getting the car into high gear,” said Jones. “We were running in the top three and the car was good. I knew I needed to conserve what we had so that I would have plenty of tire for the long 150 lap race.”
Around lap 48, a caution caused the field to restart. “The car was stuck in high gear and that’s when our problems started,” said Jones. “I dropped back to mid pack on the restart and someone checked up in front of me and as I slowed to avoid them someone got into the back of me and I spun. This put us a lap down.”
“Once I got back up to speed, I was hoping that there would be no more restarts,” said Jones. “With the transmission problem I had to slip the clutch bad on the restart and I knew I couldn’t do that too many times without burning up the clutch.”
In the final 25 laps of the race, Jones had made his way back to eighth position when he got a rear flat. He came into the pit for a tire change which put him two laps down. He finished the race in 12th.
“What I have learned now in short track racing is that you can’t control the uncontrollable,” said Jones. “It was a fun night to be back in the super and despite the obstacles, we still showed our speed. Thanks to all the fans. We had a great time seeing everyone at the pit party. I want to again congratulate Shane Chuppen, raffle winner of the Skip Barber Racing School Introduction to Racing Course at Road Atlanta. I know he will have a fantastic time.”
Jones will be running the PASS South series again in April at North Wilkesboro Speedway where Devin Jones Racing will be holding another raffle for a Skip Barber Racing School program. This coming week Jones will also race the first round of the BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National presented by Mazda during the week of the 12 hours of Sebring, in Sebring, Fla. with the American Le Mans Series.
Jones would like to send a special thank you to the Skip Barber Racing School for donating the racing course gift certificate. He would also like to thank Racing for a Cause’s Ricky Springer for coming out to see the event and DLP Motorsports for a great car set up.
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Devin Jones Shows His Super Late Model Speed at Anderson (SC)
Bounces Back to Short Track Racing Easily After
Open Wheel Events During Off Season
