Solid Weekend On The Super DIRTcar Series For Jimmy Phelps, Max McLaughlin & HBR

Story By: MANDEE PAUCH / HBR – WEEDSPORT, NY – The Heinke-Baldwin race team rallied four top-ten finishes over their two-day race weekend in New York.

The HBR team kicked off the weekend Friday evening with the Super DIRTcar Series at their weekly home track, Brewerton Speedway.

Jimmy Phelps placed second in a heat race before lining up on the outside of the seventh row for the main event.

“We had a good run with the leader in the heat race,” noted Phelps. “We were pretty confident going into the main after the heat.”

With an unlucky hand, Phelps drew 12 out of 12 for position for the 100-lap main event.

“We didn’t get the redraw we were looking for,” he said. “We weren’t bad. We were better than a sixth-place car, but we weren’t strong enough early to take advantage of any opportunities. I didn’t feel like we came to life until it was too late. It was unfortunate. I wanted to come in and have a good showing at our home track. The track has been different the past month, so it’s been tough to get a handle on it.”

Phelps crossed the line in sixth, marking his 12thtop-ten finish of the season with the Super DIRTcar Series.

Max McLaughlin pulled away with the heat race victory which put him into the top-12 redraw for the 100-lap main event.

McLaughlin rolled off on the inside of the second row.

“We were good early in the feature but faded at the end,” he said. “We didn’t make the right changes for the track conditions. We fired good but just weren’t there at the end when it mattered most.”

McLaughlin closed out the evening with an eighth-place finish.

Saturday evening the HBR team traveled to Mohawk International Raceway for their lone visit of the season to the Hogansburg, N.Y. dirt oval.

Phelps and the no.98h team rolled out their brand new Teo Pro Car to shake down in preparation for Super DIRT Week at Oswego Speedway.

“It was a rocket right out of the box,” Phelps said. “We set fast time overall and won our heat.”

After a very strong qualifying effort in the new machine, Phelps and the crew were feeling confident going into the 100-lap main event.

Phelps rolled off on the inside of the second row.

“The race was really good up front,” he added. “We got up to second, fell back to fifth, up to second, then back to third. I felt like we had a really good car. We had a couple guys that were better ahead of us. We could run with them up front but the winner had a small block which played an advantage and has a lot of laps there. We had a third-place car but got hung up with a lapped car at the end and ended up fourth. I’m really happy with the car and beyond excited to get back to Oswego.”

McLaughlin finished fourth in his heat race, which lined him up on the inside of the seventh row for the 100-lap main event.

“We were trying some stuff and were really tight,” noted McLaughlin. “We threw a new setup on the car for the feature.”

McLaughlin was on a mission and making moves at the drop of the green in his no.6h big block modified.

“We got to fourth pretty quick,” he said. “We got tighter and tighter as the race went on. We fell back to 14thbut at the end we got to where we were stable again and drove up to eighth.”

Phelps and McLaughlin will be back in action this Saturday night for “The Jack” tribute race with the Super DIRTcar Series. It will be the final series race leading up to Super DIRT Week at Oswego Speedway, October 4th-7th.