In more than 15 years driving race cars, Greenbrier’s Jack Sullivan has learned plenty on dirt tracks around the country.
But he was pretty sure he didn’t know it all.
Bad Boy Mowers 98
WHAT Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series national event, $20,000 to win, $1,200 to start
WHERE Batesville Motor Speedway, Locust Grove
WHEN Tonight and Saturday night. Gates open at 4 p.m., hot laps at 7:30 p.m., and racing starts at 8 p.m.
TICKETS Grandstand admission is $25 for adults, $5 for children aged 6-11.
FORMAT Tonight: Time trials and qualifying heat races for the late models, plus full cards for IMCA modifieds, street stocks, hobby stocks and factory stocks. Saturday: Last-chance qualifiers and the 98-lap main event for late models, plus full card for street stocks.
LUCAS OIL SERIES STANDINGS
Through 13 of 52 events
Jonathan Davenport, Blairsville, Ga.,1,830
Scott Bloomquist, Mooresburg, Tenn.,1,615
Jared Landers, Batesville,1,575
Darrell Lanigan, Union, Ky.,1,560
Brandon Sheppard, New Berlin, Ill.,1,550
In February, he turned in his driver’s suit and helmet and spent two weeks in Georgia and Florida, working as a crew member for one of the top teams in dirt late model racing.
“I just wanted to see if I could learn a little from someone else,” Sullivan said. “I’m one of those people who likes to see what the other guys are doing, see if there is something they do that can help me.”
Last season, Sullivan earned his first series championship, taking the title in the Arkansas-based Comp Cams Super Dirt Series. But throughout the season, he earned just three victories in 29 starts, and Sullivan said he knew his racing organization needed a jump start.
In December at the Performance Racing Industry trade show in Indianapolis, Sullivan presented his idea to Mark Richards, the owner of Rocket Chassis in Shinnston, W.Va. Right away, Richards agreed to bring on Sullivan for Florida Speedweeks to work on the Rocket house car and driver Josh Richards, Mark’s son and a three-time World of Outlaws Late Model Series national champion.
For two weeks, Sullivan traveled with the team from track to track and helped prepare the car and make repairs. He studied how one of the sport’s most successful teams incorporates a winning philosophy.
“What those guys want to do, all they care about is winning races. That was evident right away,” Sullivan said. “Everything I learned wasn’t necessarily suspension tricks and things like that. It was how they went about their day, how they get ready, how they prepare tires. Lots of details.”
With Sullivan helping turn the wrenches, Richards was clearly the dominant driver during Speedweeks. In 15 starts with the World of Outlaws, Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and the United Midwestern Promoters — against the nation’s top drivers — Richards earned six victories and was in contention to win nearly every night.
Sullivan said he also learned that more work and preparation is not always better.
“I realized I work on my car way too much,” he said. “They adjust on their car, but not as much as I would have thought. I am notorious, I mean the world’s worst, at messing things up when I should have just left them alone. I’ll start out good, make it worse, get it a little better and wind up awful for the feature.”
His time with Richards was, by no means, Sullivan’s first working on race cars. As a teenager, he began working as a shop hand at GRT Race Cars in Greenbrier before eventually working his way through the dirt car ranks as a driver.
“My buddy had a race car, but he got married and I got the car,” Sullivan said. “I kind of wandered in at GRT and begged for a job and got one. My first job was picking up pop rivets off the parking lot because everyone was getting flats. I was sweeping floors, but I was helping with the race cars.”
Implementing what he learned during Speedweeks, Sullivan’s season with his own team is off to a decent start. In five starts, he has a Comp Cams Super Dirt Series victory at Little Rock’s I-30 Speedway and a second in a Mississippi State Championship Challenger Series event at Whynot Motorsports Park in Meridian, Miss.
Heading into the Bad Boy Mowers 98, this weekend’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Sullivan said he is anxious to see how he compares to the nation’s best.
“We’ll know where you stand right away, I promise,” he said. “The guys who run nationally, they are going to be fast no matter what. The days of guys having a local advantage at a track, those days are long gone. These guys are fast and you have to keep up.”