A Lot of Work for an 8th Place Finish - But We'll Take It!

It was a rough day at Colorado National Speedway for the Veracity Racing Team, but hard work, perseverance, and a whole lot of help from the 02 team earned Jax Hughes an 8th place finish in the Main. A big thanks to Tom Morrey and James Waller for working on the pit crew this week, and to Showtime Towing and Colorado Axle and Gear for their support.

In the first practice session, Jax found the car to be very tight and hard to turn. After a few laps and getting the tires up to temperature and the car up to full speed, the car pushed up out of turn 4 and the right front corner went into the wall, followed by the right rear corner. Jax was not hurt. The track crew worked on getting the car on the hook and brought it back to our pit. The upper control arm and spindle were in pretty bad shape and had to be changed. The lower ball joint was also bent, requiring the lower control arm to be swapped out as well.

Shawn Smith dove in with everything he had and started the dis-assembly process with a vengeance. Along with his Dad, Darrell Smith, and many from the 02 team, we soon had the old parts out and the new parts going in. The car was back on the track for qualifying.

The qualifying effort was as good as we could get it, still some steering issues and brake problems. Jax qualified 14 of 18, a full second off of his quick time from last week.

After bleeding the brakes, setting toe-out and fixing a few more odds and ends, Jax went out for the Dash. He started on the front row with the 23 of George Gallegos, and wound up 2nd behind George.

Starting deep in the field for the main event, Jax was solid and consistent and wound up bringing the 51 car in in 8th place. Good job! Brett Yackey dominated the race, carrying on with his strength for the day in his fastest qualifying time and Fast Dash win. Ron Cox came in second, Curtis Heldenbrand third, rookie Dylan Binford fourth, and George Gallegos rounding out the top 5. Darrel Smith in the 02 finished sixth, and again, a huge thanks to that team for getting us back into the night’s program. Kyle Patee had a rotor problem and was forced to leave the track for repairs.

We really love racing at CNS and being a part of this community. So many other teams and drivers were in and out of our pit all day, asking what we needed and offering help. You people are awesome.