JASON JEFFERSON CAPTURES FIRST CAREER WIN ON

RAYBESTOS BRAKES NORTHWEST SERIES

By Doug Pace

     WEST RICHLAND, Wash. (September 1, 2002) – According to Jason Jefferson, racing is all about luck. During the Tri-City Raceway Labor Day spectacular, lady luck was on the Naches, Wash. natives side as he captured his second consecutive NASCAR Weekly Racing Series presented by Dodge late model championship on Saturday night, and put the icing on his own birthday cake with a win in the Kingsgate Plumbing 125 presented by Lumbermen’s for the Raybestos Brakes Northwest Series, NASCAR Touring division.

      Wes Rhodes, who lost the primary engine in his Lumbermen’s Chevrolet during the afternoon practice session and had to make a motor change, held off Shane Biles for second place. The finish was Rhodes best career run on the Northwest series. Biles was third followed by Ken Kaltschmidt and Ken Olson. The fifth place run for Olson also a native of Naches, Wash., was his best career finish on the Northwest series.

      Biles started on the pole based on a six-car invert, and led the 24-car field to the green flag. By lap seven, Jefferson had moved to second place and set his sights on Biles for the lead.

      An incident on the tight .500-mile front stretch collected several cars including Pete Harding and John Dillon. Also involved in the incident were Garrett Evans, Chris Hart, and Gary Lewis. Harding, Dillon, and Evans would retire for the evening. Lewis rallied for a seventh place finish while Hart came home in 16^th place.

      The incident grouped the field up for a restart and Jefferson pounced on Biles in a battle for the lead as lap 34 began.

      The Ford drivers thrilled the capacity crowd with a tight battle through lap 41. Jefferson cleared Biles exiting turn No. 1and quickly moved out to five-car length lead.

      Defending series champion, Kevin Hamlin, caught Biles on lap 56 and the pair raced for second place through lap 64. The American Dream Chevrolet and Biles Angel Racing Ford made contact exiting turn No.1 that allowed Hamlin to squeak by for second place. The handling on Hamlin’s race car began to fade and Kaltschmidt was able to move into second place on lap 87. Hamlin fell back through the field before pitting for repairs late in the race; he finished in 13^th place, four laps down to the leader.

      The action picked up again as lap 90 came to a close. Olson, who runs the series events primarily at his hometown Yakima Speedway, moved from his 20^th place starting position to fourth place and began to apply pressure to Rhodes for third place.

      Olson got dragged into an incident involving Kaltschmidt and the lapped car of Troy Conrad. With only minor sheet metal damage, Olson rallied back through the field and moved by Rick Suran late for his fifth place finish.

      Jefferson used the racing action behind him as a lightning rod. He made quick work of lapped traffic and was never seriously challenge for the lead through the final 15 laps. His first career victory on the Raybestos Brakes Northwest Series comes on the same race track his older brother Jeff captured his first series win on April 27. The opportunity to join the elite list of drivers who have won on the Northwest circuit humbled Jefferson he said from victory circle.

      “I don’t know what to say, I’m just shaking. I know a lot of stuff happened behind me to a lot of good guys so it kind of got me out there by myself,” Jefferson said. “I could not have done this without my crew. We raced hard on Saturday and again tonight, I have to thank Simmonson Automotive, Bud Light, Better-All Auto Sales, and Doug Betteral.”

      The weekend was a dream come true for Jefferson he added. “This is exactly what you dream of doing but you’re never sure if it’s going to happen. Racing is a lot of luck; we had a lot of the regulars that run the series have some problems so it helped. We came down here to do this; we won the championship yesterday and this race today. It feels great.”

      Rhodes was elated to capture second place after the engine change left him unsure of the response of the back-up motor for 125 laps. “We got virtually no practice today but my crew worked their butt’s off and we got a good finish. I’d like to thank Lumbermen’s and Knight Fire Protection, I know they were here in the stands tonight and I hope they had a good time.”

      A career best second place run came on a race track that Rhodes admitted is a little tough on the Lumbermen’s team. “This is my worse race track. This motor sure pulled tonight, it was really rocking on. We’ve had our share of bad luck happening here lately so it’s sure nice to have had some good luck tonight.”

      With his third place run, Biles made it two Ford’s in the top-3. Biles is the lone Ford race car at many of the series events and to have two run well this evening brought a sense of joy to his team. “Jason is a hell of a driver and all of these competitors are awesome. We have good equipment here, I have to thank Ron Angel. I know he lays awake at night thinking of how to get more horsepower and I think we finally have as much as the rest of these guys.”

NOTES OF INTEREST:

Jeff Jefferson earned his fourth Bud Pole Award of the season with a lap of 17.877 seconds at 100.688 mph. Jefferson is the only driver on the series to have multiple Bud Pole Awards in 2002. He also leads the Gatorade Front Runner standings.

Gary Lewis continues to chip away at Kevin Hamlin’s points lead. With a seventh place finish, the Bothell, Wash. driver is 42 points behind Hamlin with three races left in the season. Lewis had moved as high as third place in the running order, which could have cut the lead further, but a stuck transmission linkage with 10 laps to go cost him several positions. Hamlin fell well back in the running order after pitting for an ill-handling car. He recovered quite nicely to finish a respectable 13^th, which helped to maintain the points lead for the defending champion.

RAYBESTOS BRAKES NORTHWEST SERIES RACE #11                                       

                                                         Kingsgate Plumbing 125                                             

Tri-Cities Raceway - West Richland, Wash. - September 1, 2002 0.500-mile Paved Oval                                                 

                                                         62.5 Miles, 125 Laps-Purse $30,250                                           

Pos    Qual       Car              Driver   Team          Laps  Points        $ Won  Status

1               4         97        Jason Jefferson Better-All Auto Sales Ford     125       180           3,925 Running

2             16           6        Wes Rhodes Lumbermen’s Chevrolet 125 170           2,225 Running

3               1         31        Shane Biles Angel Racing Ford     125              165    1,675     Running

4             12         47      Ken Kaltschmidt K-C Racin Chevrolet 125              160    1,100     Running

5             20         15      Ken Olson Northwestern Auto Glass Chevrolet 125              155    1,050     Running

6             17         40      Rick Suran Eastside Paving Pontiac 125              150    1,025     Running

7             15         73      Gary Lewis The Sign Factory USA Pontiac             125       146           1,000 Running

8             21         87                  #  Travis Powell Powell Awards Pontiac 124              142       775     Running

9             14         69      Ralph Hubbert TSTR/Tires, Inc. Chevrolet 124 138              550 Running

10           10         16      Troy Conrad Painter Logging Chevrolet             123       134              700 Running

11           23         23      Brian Saling Pantrol/Parts Plus Ford     123       130              500 Running

12             3           2      Joe Benedetti  A1 Champion Drywall Pontiac 122       127              650 Running

13             8         33      Kevin Hamlin American Dream Chevrolet 121 124              800 Running

14             2         26      Zach Niessner Wide World Of Maps Chevrolet 111 121              425 Running

15           18           9                  #     Kelly Mann Universial Land Chevrolet 109 118              650 Accident

16             5           5      Chris Hart Yakima Implement/Speck Chevrolet 83    115              565 Running

17             7         55      Ed Watson Creekside Retirement Chevrolet 44    112              555 Running

18           11         25      John Dillon Frontier Equipment Co. Chevrolet 34    109              375 Accident

19             6         42      Jeff Jefferson D&G Bodyworks Chevrolet 27    106              845 Engine

20             9         64      Garrett Evans Leonard Evans Superstore Chevrolet 26    103              535 Rear End

21           22         35                  #  Aaron Young Les Schwab Chevrolet 25    100              350 Engine

22           19         39      Pete Harding LP Body Shop Chevrolet 23                97       600    Accident

23           13         28          Matt Hall American Way Coll. Center Chevrolet 7        94              525 Engine

24           24        07         Bill Shaw Powell Awards Chevrolet                 0         91              350 Ignition

# Rookie-of-the-Year Contenders                                                                                      Failed to Qualify: None                                                                                                        

TIME OF RACE: 55 min. 37 sec.                                                                                      AVERAGE SPEED: 68.223 mph                                                                                        MARGIN OF VICTORY:  .457 seconds                                                                                    BUD POLE AWARD: Jeff Jefferson, D&G Bodyworks Chevrolet                                                          GATORADE FRONT RUNNER AWARD: Jason Jefferson, Better-All Auto Sales/Bud Light Ford                                                                      ROOKIE-OF-THE-RACE AWARD: Travis Powell, Powell Awards Pontiac                                                                  CAUTION FLAGS: 5 for 27 laps (15-17), (25-32), (79-82), (98-104), (110-115)                                                                     LAP LEADERS: Biles (1-40), Jason Jefferson (41-125) There was one lead changes among two drivers.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

1 Kevin Hamlin                       1,766                            (4)

2 Gary Lewis 1,724                           (3)

3 Pete Harding                       1,606                           (1)

4 Troy Conrad 1,595                              -

5 Chris Hart    1,585                              -

6 Jeff Jefferson                       1,563                           (2)

7 Joe Benedetti                       1,525                              -

8 Shane Biles 1,498                              -

9 Rick Suran  1,482                              -

10 Garrett Evans                       1,476                              -

11 Wes Rhodes                       1,425                              -

12 Kelly Mann 1,362                              -

13 Travis Powell                       1,292                              -

14 Ed Watson 1,283                              -

15 Matt Hall    1,273                              -

16 Ralph Hubbert                       1,188                              -

17 Aaron Young                       1,169                              -

18 Ken Kaltschmidt                       1,168                              -

19 Ron Eaton 1,093                              -

20 Brian Saling  691                              -