Wednesdays with Wayne – Three Race Week Starts Tonight!
(Bill W) May 7, 2014 – A busy week looms for the Wayne Johnson Racing #77x sprint car team. Tonight, they will join the World of Outlaws at the Jacksonville Speedway in Illinois. Friday night, the WoO travels to Wilmot Speedway in Wisconsin. On Saturday, the team will return for weekly action close to home at the Knoxville Raceway. Last weekend saw motor issues slow their efforts at Eldora Speedway in Ohio with the Outlaws.
The team failed to make the show on Friday at Eldora, but showed some speed by making the feature Saturday. Wayne says, “Our results didn’t really show it Saturday, because we got lapped early before a caution, but we passed (Jac) Haud(enschild) and a couple of cars there. But it wasn’t for position at that point, because we were a lap down and they weren’t.”
Wayne wanted to get some laps at the high-banked speed plant. “I wanted to stay out there and get some laps, because we hadn’t raced there much,” he says. “At one point, when we were lapped, we were running amongst the top five and they weren’t running away from us. So we had some speed, but the results definitely didn’t show it.”
It turned out there were some motor issues. “We changed a bunch on the car both nights, we just couldn’t find the speed until it got slick,” says Wayne. “When we went to (engine builder) Charlie’s (Fisher), we found out we had been having a little bit of motor issues. We had some broken valve springs, and some valves that were hitting the pistons. We knew at that point why the motor wasn’t right. We definitely learned a lot and got better, especially with the motor being down. But the thing was off the pace.”
Wayne is looking forward to tonight’s event at the banked ¼-mile bullring in Jacksonville. “I like racing at Jacksonville as long as the track is wide,” he says. “It hasn’t been any fun when it’s heavy at all. When it gets wide, it gets fun. With as many cars as we’re going to have there, I’m guessing it will be a fun race.”
Wayne holds several wins at Wilmot Speedway, Friday’s stop. “As of late, we haven’t been great at Wilmot, but we’re definitely picking up steam as long as everything mechanical is there for us,” he says. “Wilmot has been good to us in the past.”
National Sprint Car Hall of Famer, “The Ohio Traveler” Rick Ferkel has joined the team for their trip to Jacksonville. “Rick has really helped us a ton,” says Wayne. “He’s just given me a different outlook on some things. We had gotten stagnant the last couple of years, and he’s given me some different ideas that have worked out. I’m looking forward to getting to some places that really slick off here coming up!”
Category: Driver Updates, Wayne Johnson
