Kenley, NC – In one of the most anticipated short track races of the year, Joey Doiron and the 73 Wild Willy’s Burgers/JBJ Machine team made the trip south to Kenley, North Carolina for the 8th annual Mason Dixon Meltdown at Southern National Motorsports Park. It was the final event in the Pro All Stars Series National, which Doiron went into the event trailing Jay Fogelman by 40 points in third place. In their first trip to the high banked 4/10th mile racetrack, they struggled in qualifying but came away with a top five finish after being forced to fight hard throughout the entire 200 lap feature.
The lineup was set by time trials, which differs from the heat races that the PASS North Series uses to set their lineups. Fighting a tight car, Doiron was only able to set the 22nd fastest lap of the 28 cars.
The 200 lap feature event started with a scare as Doiron narrowly avoided a massive pileup on the first lap down the back straightaway. After the cleanup, Doiron started to make his progress through the field. The first issue of the race however came with just 40 laps to go before the halfway break when the leader, the 7 of Tyler Church was lapping cars and got to Doiron running in fifteenth. In the final 40 laps, Doiron raced aggressively and defensively, shuffling past cars and doing all he could to keep Church behind him. When the yellow flew to indicate the halfway break, Doiron managed to keep on the lead lap.
During the halfway break, the team changed four tires and got the car ready for the final 100 laps. Coming from thirteenth position, Doiron started to pick off cars one at a time, but with the race running fairly clean, it was hard to make any forward progress once the field strung out. A caution came out with just two laps to go however while Doiron was running eighth, setting up a green white checkered finish. After a shuffle at the front of the field on the restart, Doiron threaded the needle three wide to grab the fifth position and eventually take the checkered with a top five.
“I wish we could’ve had a bit more track time because at the second half of this race I felt really comfortable with the car,” Doiron said of the race, “starting out back hurt us and it was a really calm race for the most part, but we had a great rally to finish where we did and I’m very proud of this team and the great season we had, we’ll be back even stronger next year.”
With his fifth place finish, Doiron ended the season in second place in the PASS National Series point standings. This marks the end of an incredible 2013 season for the team, as they will now work towards getting ready for 2014.
Follow the Joey Doiron and the 73 team by finding them on Facebook at Joey Doiron Racing, on Twitter @joeydoiron73 and online at joeydoiron.com.
Story by Evan Beaulieu