John Wes Townley started the weekend with a tenth place finish on Friday night and rolled over that momentum to score his first series victory in the ASA Late Model Series Southern Division feature race at Senoia Raceway in Senoia, Georgia on Saturday night. Racing his No. 09 Zaxby’s Chicken Ford, “we had a great weekend, ” described the A-average high school student.
After starting practice Saturday, the Brothers Racing Team discovered that they were not as high on the timesheets as they had wished. The team found that many of the quicker cars were set up for the mid- day heat and not the cooler conditions they would encounter later during the race. Therefore, the Zaxby’s crew was at an advantage later in the day, a time when it mattered most.
“We qualified decent, ” Townley commented. “I was a little less confident when I saw there were some guys there that practiced fast. They probably showed up to run in the heat of the day but the temperature is going to drop a lot. ”
In spite of the worries in practice, the high school senior put down the third quickest qualifying lap of the day.
Once the green flag flew there was a tough battle with polesitter, Travis Cope, but once Townley got around him, it was a race between him and fellow Brothers Racing Team driver, Beau Slocumb. Slocumb made several attempts to pass his teammate for the win, but all attempts were rebuffed and Townley went on to take his first series win.
“Fortunately, Slocumb and I got out in front and we held it off there at the end. It was a great weekend for us, ” described Townley.
In Friday night’s race at South Georgia Motorsports Park, Townley was running strong enough in the race to move into third from a fifteenth starting position, only to be plagued by a fuel issue in the end when the team opted to stay on the track after a late race caution.
“We had a little mishap that night” the 17 year-old described. “The last couple of laps, unfortunately, we ran out of gas. We had something wrong with the fuel cell. ”
Despite the misfortune, the Georgia teen was still able to coast across the line for a tenth place finish.
John Wes Townley will be racing this weekend at I-70 Speedway in the ASA North VS South Shootout/World Cup 200.
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