AURORA, Oregon — Jim Warn from Aurora, Oregon and driver of the GPI Performance.com Chevrolet in the NASCAR Camping World Series-West put on a thrilling late race charge from the tenth position to run down eventual winner Paulie Harraka and claim his best career finish of second at Colorado National Speedway Saturday night. The finish was a long-time coming for the second year team and has given Warn a tremendous boost heading into the final two events of the season.
Warn qualified eighth for the 150-lap event at CNS where a capacity crowd filled the facility for the fan favorite event. From the drop of the green flag, you could hear the excitement in Warn’s voice as he communicated with the crew over the radio. Over the opening laps, Warn just settled in and got comfortable with the bumpy track surface and found where his car worked the best. Fortunately for Warn, his car worked really well no matter where he put it.
By lap 23, Warn started to make advances on the field and moved into the 7th position. After a quick caution on lap 24, Warn continued to size up the guys in front and moved into the 6th position on lap 35. Two more caution periods bunched up the filed over the next 60 laps and Warn lost a few positions due to the double file restarts. Warn then tangled with Brett Thompson on lap 91 and the pair spun coming out of turn four. Warn stayed on the lead lap and restarted the race from the tenth position with 55 laps to go.
By lap 100 Warn had moved back up to the sixth position and moved into the top five on lap 110. From there Warn seemed to be able to move high or low on the track and put his GPI Performance.com Chevrolet into the second position on lap 120.
Warn trailed leader Harraka by nearly a full straight away and went to work cutting into the lead. By lap 125 he had cut the lead down to only two car lengths and over the final 25 circuits Warn applied repeated pressure on the rookie for the top spot but had the door closed each time. While a win was certainly on his mind, Warn played it conservatively and did not push the issue and came home with his first top five finish of his career.
“I had so much fun racing out there,” Warn said. “I have felt all along we had the ability to race with those guys and it all finally came together. I could put the car anywhere on the track and move forward and that continued to give me confidence. Roger (Bracken) and the team did a great job all day and this is certainly the high point of the season and I hope we can keep it rolling into Iowa.”
When asked about dicing it up for the lead late in the race, Warn just smiled. “That is what racing is all about and why we do it,” Warn said. “It was fun. Paulie protected his line and I tried to put my nose in there. For all the bad luck we had this season I wasn’t about to add some more so I didn’t push it too hard, but man was it a blast!”
Perhaps no one was more excited about the finish then his father and spotter, Mike Warn. “It was a whole more difficult spotting those final 50 laps,” Mike Warn said. “Jim drove a great race and I am really proud of him. It was fun to watch but a little tense at the same time.”
Warn maintains the ninth position in the point standings after eleven races, 170-points behind eighth place and 277 points out of the fifth position. In eleven starts this season the 26 year old competitor has one top five and five top ten finishes heading into the final two races of the season at Iowa (9/4) and Roseville (9/26).
Warn drives for MJ2 Racing and is sponsored by GPI Performance.Com. The car is powered by a Chevrolet NASCAR Spec Engine built by Brad “Freight Train” Peters and sits atop a Hopkins chassis. Warn is in his second year of competition in the NCWS with one top five and nine top ten finishes in 24 career NCWS starts. Jim’s crew is lead by Mike and Cindy Warn (owners) with Roger Bracken as his crew chief. Additional support is proved by crew members Aldie Taylor, Mike Jones, Dustin Gerlach, Steve Golladay, Gil McGarrity, Dan McGarrity, and Julie Maden.
The Toyota/NAPA “150” at Colorado National Speedway was the 11th of the 13 races this season for the NASCAR Camping World Series-West. The race at Colorado National Speedway will be televised Thursday, August 20 at 12 noon PT on SPEED Channel. The next event for MJ2 Racing and driver Jim Warn is Friday, September 4 at the marquee Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa. Warn finished 7th in the East/West combination event at Iowa back in May and is looking to better that mark heading into the Central Iowa Building and Construction Trades “125”.
