JOANIDES DOUBLES UP!

(04-19-08) Driver Nick Joanides has tried his hand at poker a few times, but no double up was bigger than the one he pulled off Saturday night. The Loyd McGhee owned, J&M Racing team, with Jackson Race Cars put on an awesome display of dominance in just their third race in the premier AC Delco Super Late Model division at Toyota Speedway.

After two disappointing races to start the season, the team looked for redemption. In the first race of the year, a clutch failure took them out of the race while challenging for the lead. And in the second race, Joanides was again challenging for the lead when he was penalized to the rear of the field for slight contact with the leader. 

Buried back in 22^nd in the point standings, the team put all their cards on the table heading into the first of six “Twin 50” events scheduled at Toyota Speedway this season, knowing with two races, this would be a great opportunity to make up ground.

The team ran only three laps in practice and posted the quickest time with an 18.495 second lap. Joanides was the second to last car to go out for qualifying and on his first lap, jumped to the top of the board with an 18.194 second lap.

The top six cars were inverted for the start of the first main event, putting Joanides sixth on the grid. He made quick work of the field in front of him, taking over the fifth position on the first lap. He passed Dan Moore on the outside for the fourth position a lap later. After a caution flag flew, the race restarted on lap four. Joanides made a three wide attempt at second place, but then thought better of it and waited another lap for the two cars to sort themselves out. He moved to the inside of Charles Price, winner of the first two races this season, to take over the third position on lap six. Two laps later he passed David Ross for the second position.

Multi-Race winner, Chris Johnson had built up an eight car length lead. Joanides quickly ran him down and they battled for several laps. The two cars bumped coming off of turn four after Johnson got loose. He completed the pass for the lead and the ultimately the win, going into turn one on the twentieth lap. Knowing there was still one more race to run on the same tires, Joanides put it on cruise control over the final 30 laps and took the checkered flag 2.093 seconds ahead of Johnson.

After the race, Johnson and Joanides, friends off the track and former teammates, exchanged high fives. Then Johnson gave Joanides a bear hug to celebrate his first win in the division after several second place finishes. 

Two other divisions ran races before the second Super Late Model race. In this race, the field was started straight up based on qualifying, putting Joanides on the Pole. Joanides quickly showed why short tracks invert the starts of most races. After a couple of quick cautions to start the race, he built up nearly a full straightaway lead by lap twenty five.

As uneventful as the race was until that point, the team got a big scare when the lapped car of Matthew Eshleman spun right in front of the leader coming off of turn four. Joanides reacted quickly and squeezed through the small hole between the spinning car and the wall. On the final restart, he once again built another large lead and slowed only to cautiously work through lapped traffic, easily winning the second event by 2.290 seconds. 

“Jackson Race Cars has just done an incredible job with this car, I’m amazed at how well it gets through the corners, they made me look like a hero tonight and I can't thank our team owner Loyd (McGhee) enough for giving us all the tools we need to work with” said Joanides. “It seemed like everyone was wrecking behind us in both races, so that made it a little easier on us. Today just turned out to be one of those rare perfect days, where everything went right. We’ve got a big hole to dig out of in this division, so I didn’t want to let up and take any chances.” With their wins, the team catapults from 22^nd to 6^th in the points, just 4 points out of 4^th.

The team would like to give a special thanks to all of their sponsors and are happy to reward them with the two wins. Mr. Crane (who was in attendance), Western Concrete Pumping, Santa Rosa Developers, White Cap Construction Supply, NMC Group, Ahern Equipment Rentals, Kramer & Lawson, Malins Pools and Performance Motorsports. As well as Jackson Race Cars and Ed Hansen Racing Engines. 

The team heads back to the track this Saturday, April 26^th and looks for their first win of the season in the #77 Auto Club Late Model. After two seconds and a fourth place finish in the first three events, they are second in the standings, just 10 points out of the lead.

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