Nick Joanides spent 6 years chasing the Nascar dream with his own under-funded Nascar Southwest Series team. While he had moderate success, finishing a career best, 4th in points in the 2001 season, he struggled to keep up with the better funded teams.
When Nascar announced that they would be ending the series following the 2006 season, Joanides (and many other teams) decided it was not worth the financial burden to continue. The 2005 Toyota All-Star Showdown was his final touring series race. “It was such an incredible division to race in all those years, we had 60 cars showing up almost every week of the 16-18 race schedules, but the last year, I think they cut it down to 8 races and many of the top name drivers were gone” said Joanides. In fact, each of the drivers that finished ahead of Joanides in 2001 were not there for the final season.
“It was a blast racing door to door with so many champions like, Raudman, Vidovich, McKean, Pettit and Kanke. These guys are some of the most talented drivers in the country and racing against them made me a much better driver, and to have beat many of them in 2001 was quite an accomplishment for our little team.
Following the 2005 season, Joanides figured it was time to hang up his helmet. With the Nascar West Series being far more expensive to run and costs of local track racing escalating, Joanides didn’t feel he had the resources to stay competitive.
Joanides sold all of his equipment, but was able to run partial schedules in the Late Model and Super Late Model divisions in 06 and 07 for other owners before teaming up with J&M Racing’s, Loyd McGhee and Jackson Race Cars.
While not excessively funded, it was the first time in Joanides’ career that he was with an adequately funded team. “We didn’t spend frivolously and we were limited with our budget, but we had the important things we needed and finally there was no excuse for us”
The results since have been astonishing. Three weeks ago, they completed their 100th race together and celebrated the milestone with their 40th trip to Victory Lane. Along the way, the team made history by guiding Nick to become the first driver in Toyota Speedway at Irwindale track history to win both the 2009 Late Model and Super Late Model championships, in the same season!
The team competed in the first four Super Late Model races in 2010, winning the first two before an engine failure hampered their efforts in the twin main events the following week. Their sole focus since, has been on repeating as the Auto Club Late Model champion. Through eight races, they’ve posted 3 wins, 7 top five finishes and currently lead the point standings.
With a three week break in the schedule, team owner McGhee, decided to step up to the next level for a week and enter the Spears Manufacturing SRL Southwest Tour 100 this Saturday at Toyota Speedway. The team will of course use a Jackson Race Car’s chassis, courtesy of Colofast and Dexter Tuttle. ProCast will be the primary sponsor. Dave and Tony Jackson will co-crew chief the effort.
“It’s great to see how far the series has come in the past year since Spears came on board. Almost all of the former champions are back, mixed in with a lot of new young talent, it’s going to be like old times. I’m really looking forward to battling with these guys again. Hopefully our Super Late Model success with carryover to the Tour car”.
Qualifying is scheduled to start at 7:00 PM on Saturday, July 17th with the nights four division race card to immediately follow. The Spears Manufacturing SRL Southwest Tour 100 lap race will be the final main event of the evening.
More information is available at the team website: www.joanides.com
