Mulkern Racing Fields Pro Series Entry For Windham Driver
He’s already been behind the wheel of a race car for most of his life, but this season Bobby Timmons enters a brave new world.
Timmons, 19, of Windham, will compete full-time in the Pro Series division for Super Late Models at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in the Mulkern Racing No. 48 SouthernMaineMotors.com/Timmons Builders Chevrolet. Beech Ridge opens its NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season this Saturday night, May 26, at 6:30 p.m.
Though he made four starts in the Super Late Model at the tail end of the 2011 season, the bulk of Timmons’ racing resume is comprised of starts in a NELCAR Legends car and go-karts at Beech Ridge. This is his first full season in a full-size stock car, and his goals are appropriately modest.
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“Basically, there’s a lot of good cars here at Beech Ridge,” Timmons said. “There’s a lot of new guys, a lot of returning guys, and I just want to have a reason to go to the banquet next year. Nothing too crazy. It’s my first full season, and these cars are nothing like I’ve ever driven, my father’s ever driven, or my father’s ever worked on.
“It’s all new to us, so we’re just learning.”
Timmons’ father, Bobby Timmons Jr., cut his own racing teeth in the ultra-specialized Supermodified ranks in the northeast. He’s also spent many years on the crew for Mulkern Racing owner Scott Mulkern.
Still, both Timmons have relied heavily on the support of Mulkern Racing to get themselves up to speed.
“Like I’ve said, this is nothing like me or my father have ever worked with. My father is an old-school guy,” Timmons said. “They’ve been a huge help, especially Tony (Ricci). Tony has been babysitting us the whole time. Last year, we started racing right as he had his baby, and he’d put off doing family things to come and help us and make sure we got to the racetrack, so I can’t thank him enough.”
Last season, Timmons posted a pair of sixth-place finishes in his four Pro Series starts at Beech Ridge, each time after starting deep in a competitive starting field. He started 25th in one of those events before knocking on the door of the Top-5 at the checkered flag.
Without that experience, he said, he’d be at a loss for where to start this year.
“I feel like if we hadn’t done that, we’d have been so far behind the eight-ball that we’d have been halfway through this year before we got things figured out and straightened out,” said Timmons, who hopped in a Legend at Beech Ridge earlier this month and finished second in a one-off start. “We ran a million laps here at Beech Ridge in the past, and we know we’re able to get around it smoothly.
“You learn really good car control in the Legend. They’re so snappy and twitchy, that you learn great car control. I’ve had this thing snap loose on me a couple of times, and it’s been a lot easier to save.
“The thing that’s really killed me in this (Super Late Model) is my sense of awareness. It’s two or three times the race car, so what I think is the bottom is six feet away from where I need to be or what I think is a car on my inside is a car length back. That’s been the biggest adjustment.”
But with plenty of experience in support divisions at Beech Ridge to call upon, Timmons hopes the learning curve will be accelerated this season.
“I was thinking about that the other day,” he said. “I’d really rather kind of do this weekly deal and get used to one thing versus going track to track to track. It helps later on down the road – we might go PASS racing at some point, I don’t know what the future holds for us – but I’m pretty content running here at Beech Ridge now. I grew up racing here.”
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