Recapping The Week That Was For Jimmy Phelps, Max McLaughlin & HBR
Story By: MANDEE PAUCH / HBR – WEEDSPORT, NY – The Heinke Baldwin race teams continue to show strong finishes after posting four top-ten finishes this past weekend.
The HBR team kicked off their two-day weekend Friday night at Brewerton Speedway with the Super DIRTcar Series for the ‘Showdown at Sundown 100.’
Jimmy Phelps timed second fastest in his group which lined him up second in his heat race.
“We started second and finished second,” Phelps added. “It was one of those deals where we didn’t go forward but we wanted to make it into the redraw, so it evened the score.”
By luck of the draw, Phelps started on the outside of the second row for the 100-lap main event.
“We had a really good car,” he said. “We had a second-place car and so did Billy Decker. We were pretty even. He got me early in the race then we spent 80 laps chasing him. I felt we were good enough for second. We didn’t have enough to chase Matt (Sheppard) down but it was a good points night on the series.”
Phelps capped off the evening with a third-place finish which moved him up to second in the Super DIRTcar Series points chase.
Max McLaughlin started off his night with a strong battle in his heat race.
“We got the lead on the first lap from Billy Decker,” said McLaughlin. “We stayed up top then Larry Wight got by on the bottom, so we went to the bottom. All three of us were fighting for position. We ended up third but were all really close.”
McLaughlin’s third place finish earned him the top-12 redraw. By luck of the draw, McLaughlin started on the outside of the fifth row for the 100-lap main event.
“We were really good off the start,” he said. “We didn’t tighten up enough for the feature though. We got way too loose at the end and finished eighth.”
McLaughlin now sits fourth in the series point standings.
Saturday evening saw the team back at Land of Legends Raceway for a regular Saturday night show.
“It was tough,” noted Phelps about Saturday’s event. “We didn’t learn a whole lot in practice. It was a challenging couple of rounds. We went into the main event not even knowing what we had.”
Phelps finished sixth in his heat race, which lined him up on the inside of the seventh row for the main event.
“We couldn’t really see enough to race hard in the feature,” he said. “We were searching and trying to get a little better. I thought we were a solid top five car, but we need to get a little better. We’re definitely competing for the wins but we’re close.”
Phelps closed out the evening with a solid top-five finish.
“We’re consistent,” he said. “We’re not super happy yet so we’re still searching but at least we’re running up front while doing it so it’s not like we’re searching and not showing results.”
McLaughlin started eighth in his heat race and maneuvered his way forward to click off fourth-place.
McLaughlin rolled off on the inside of the eighth row for the main event.
“We’re testing some new stuff on the car,” McLaughlin added. “We found some speed in it. We tried a couple things, it just took too long to come in the feature. We were running 13thwith about ten laps to go and finished sixth. We were really good at the end. It just took too long to get going. Once the track got black and slick things got really good.”
Next on slate for the HBR team will be Brewerton Speedway on Friday, Land of Legends on Saturday and Albany-Saratoga Speedway with the Super DIRTcar Series on Tuesday.
