MIDLAND, N.C. – Two of the young rising stars in this weekend’s PASS South super late model field at the 14th annual North-South Shootout are hoping that crate motors power them to victory in Saturday’s 125-lap main event.
19-year-old Trey Jarrell and 20-year-old Jake Spillers, both looking for their first-career PASS South victory this weekend at Concord Speedway, have the cost-effective engine packages in their respective entries and believe they have every bit as good a shot to perform as their competition that utilizes a ‘built’ motor package – despite the crate motors being down slightly on horsepower by comparison.
Jarrell, drive of the No. 12 KayTech/Reedy Racing super late model, has run select PASS South events this season in hopes of notching that elusive first-career PASS victory – but his last two efforts have ended in crashes not of his own making.
This time, Jarrell’s mission is simple: stay out of trouble, save tires and survive until 25 to go in hopes of being in contention for a win at the North-South Shootout.
“It’s one of the most prestigious races we have down here … and everyone wants to win it,” Jarrell told Race Chaser Online. “For me, it’s going to be hard to have to wait for everyone (running the built motors) to burn up their stuff and come back to me because it’s not in my nature, but the fact is we don’t have the horsepower they do down the frontstretch.”
“That’s really where they’ve been beating us,” Jarrell added after posting the third-fastest time in practice on Thursday. “I can stay with them through (turns) one and two and through the dogleg because I’m basically flat-footing it, where they all have to lift. There’s been a couple times where I’ve had to breathe the throttle a little bit, but it’s not been too bad for us. We’re definitely beating the frontrunners in the corners; they’re just killing us down the frontstretch right now.”
Jarrell circled long green-flag runs as his key to victory in Saturday’s 125-lap main event. Without them, the Liberty University student said, he may not have as easy of a path to challenge for the victory.
“We need the race to go green and stay green for a while,” he emphasized. “If that happens, then with the way this track is and (the competition’s) motor packages are, they’ll use up their tires and be sliding around to where we can get to them and have a good chance. The horsepower they have just gets us on the short runs. You just have to manage what you’ve got.”
“If it were going to be about 30 degrees out, then we could get some real power down, but with the sun the way it’s been this weekend we just have to go with what we’ve got and see how they shake out to us in comparison. I think we’ll be alright. We’ve proven we can compete for wins with this package … so Saturday should be no different.”
Team owner Mark Reedy was matter of fact about his thoughts of the car’s chances.
“She’s a dog, but she gets through the corners really well and that’s where Trey will have an edge.”
