It was another great weekend for Jason Patison and his E3 Sparkplugs, Dixie Chopper Super Late Model team. The team unloaded Friday night at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale CA and found that the track was much tighter than it had been the race before. Crew chief Steve Teets and the rest of the team worked hard making changes to free the number 17 machine up, by the time qualifying came around on Saturday afternoon, Patison had a much improved racecar. Patison circled the half-mile track at 18.46, good enough for 2nd quick out of the 21 car field.
“I was surprised how tight we were when we unloaded because we hadn’t changed anything on the car, but my team worked their tails off and we got the car pretty dialed,” said Patison after qualifying.
Pole sitter Nick Jonadies rolled an eight car invert, putting Patison on the inside of row 4 for the start of the 50 lap main event. When the green flag dropped Patison quickly jumped to the bottom groove and started passing cars. He cleared Brian Wong for 3rd place around lap 25 but unfortunately would not gain any more positions. Second place Travis Thirkettle was also running the bottom line and Patison’s car would not handle up high, Patison worked Thirkettle over the remainder of the race, at times running all the way down on the apron, but was unable to complete a pass.
“We had a great racecar tonight but Travis did a good job of holding his position and I just couldn’t get by him. I really want to thank E3 Spark Plugs, Dixie Chopper, Lucas Oil Products and Idiaz Label for all of their support and Steve Teets for always giving me great racecars, this is the third time we have raced this car and it hasn’t finished worse than 4th, I’m really proud of my whole team and I know we are going to get that win soon!”said Patison after the race.
Patison’s next event will be the NASCAR Camping World West Series race at Toyota Speedway on July 4th. Jason Patison Racing would like to thank all of their sponsors for their continued support: Lucas Oil Products, SuperClean, Dixie Chopper, E3 Spark Plugs, Jim Beam, K&N Filters, Idiaz Label, Jasper Engines, and Fatheadz Sun Glasses.
