LAKE CITY, FL (July 18, 2005) – Florida short track ace Jay
Middleton and his NFM Racing team made the 900-plus mile trip from
their home in Lake City, Florida to Anderson, Indiana this past
weekend not quite knowing what to expect. Jay was going on his first
trip to the legendary quarter-mile
Anderson
Speedway, and he was going to be making that first trip to compete in
one of the most prestigious Short Track races in the entire country,
the Anderson 400.
The Anderson 400 is a grueling, 400-lap race that has been won by
some of the best to ever compete in the short track world. The race
was an ASA-sanctioned event for most of its life until the CRA Super
Series took it over a few years ago. Middleton, who is running his #74
Super Late Model all over the country this year, picking and choosing
some of the biggest events around, knew this would be one of the
biggest races for him to run all year long.
He did not disappoint himself, his team or the fans in attendance.
Middleton came from four laps down at one point during Saturday
night’s race to finish fourth, a remarkable feat for a driver who had
never seen the track until Friday.
"It was an awesome race," said Middleton. "I have to thank my guys
on the team. We made up a bunch of laps tonight. For the first time
here, you can’t ask for anything more. This was a fun race. It was a
long race though; it is the longest race I’ve ever run. There are just
so many chances you take in this race. There is always something going
on around you."
The race wasn’t as easy as an 11th-starting spot and a
fourth-place finish sounded. Middleton spent much of the early part of
the event just riding around in the top-10, waiting for the later
stages of the race to make a move.
However, dodging all of the other wrecks wasn’t enough for
Middleton. On lap 178, the #74 fell off the pace and had to make a
green-flag stop. Middleton’s right front tire went down and he was
forced into the pits. In the process, he lost four laps to the
leaders.
If that wasn’t enough, later in the event, the exhaust fell off of
the car, allowing all of the car’s fumes to leak inside the cockpit.
Without proper ventilation, Middleton was forced to suck in all of the
fumes.
He never let either occurrence derail him. Middleton fought back,
and with the help of a super fast car and a few timely placed
cautions, he worked his way back onto the lead lap late in the event.
In fact, Middleton passed race leader Eddie Hoffman to get back on the
lead lap. As the race wore on and no cautions fell, Middleton, like a
veteran, pulled over and left Hoffman and the second place car of Jeff
Lane go to enable them to battle on for the win.
"We ran over something. There was a chunk of aluminum in the tire.
It was a big chunk. We had to come in right then. If it would have
gone a little flat over time; we probably could have stayed out cause
the caution came out right after that. I was going so slow and the car
still pushed up, I had to come in.
"The exhaust pipe fell off too. It was shooting all of the exhaust
right in the car. It was getting hard to breathe. And there is no
ventilation in the car. I had no water from around lap 50. It made for
a tough night, that is for sure.
"Without that tire problem, we would have been at least a top-two
car. There is no doubt about it. If we would have had a little more
ventilation, we might have been able to hold on to third. It was hard
to concentrate at the end."
