CAMARILLO, Calif. – Fresh from a three-week lay off Irwindale Speedway Super Late Model racer Charles Utts is ready to get back to the track.
Utts is currently second in points in the division’s standings with five straight top-11 finishes. He drives the Lucas Oil Products Chevrolet, car 66.
“We’ve been tweaking the car,” Utts said. “The car has been fast all season, but we know the rest of the teams in this series are working hard and we need to stay up with them.”
When he wasn’t working on his racecar, Utts used the extra off time to plant flowers around his house. His eventual goal is to plant 66 red roses, in keeping with the car number and paint scheme on his racer. He plans keep the thorns away from the Goodyear Eagles he uses on his car.
Racing incidents have forced Utts to spin three times in the last two races and the plan for the coming race is to stay out of the spin cycle.
“I just hope we can keep the nose pointed in the right direction for the whole race this time,” Utts said.
The Super Late Model division at Irwindale is brutally competitive. The points leader is 1999 NASCAR Winston West champion Sean Woodside and another Winston West star, Tim Woods III, is also a regular in the SLM series.
Utts works at the family printing firm, Custom Printing, where he heads the Sales Department. He lives in Camarillo with his wife Kristen, a former True Value Mechanic of the Year winner, and their daughter Ashley.
