CALLAWAY, Va. – If you dig into the details, Jonathan Shafer isn’t just happy because he charged from 16th to eighth in the most recent CARS Late Model Stock Tour event at Franklin County Speedway.
Shafer is wide-eyed and eager because he doesn’t have to wait to get right back to work with Nelson Motorsports.
Fresh off a solid run from deep in the field during the AutosByNelson.com 250, Shafer has an opportunity to be back in the seat with the CARS Tour for back-to-back events. He’ll take his next stab at a maiden series victory during Saturday’s VisitHampton.com 125 at Langley Speedway.
It’s a unique event for the CARS Tour this season, in that only the late model stock class is featured on the card, but Shafer simply wants to put into practice everything he’s learned over the last few months.
“We definitely had speed at the end of the last race, which is something I’m proud of and I think we can use to our advantage, but I’m really excited to get right back to work this weekend,” Shafer told SPEED SPORT. “We don’t always get to do back to back races like this, so I’m excited to keep our rhythm going and focus on what we can do better from week to week to build up our consistency.
“Hopefully at Langley we can keep our long-run speed for the end of the race and save our stuff early, because I think if we can do that we’ll have something to fight with.”
Shafer certainly had something to fight with at the end of 125 laps at Franklin County, but it didn’t look like he’d have a chance to do so at first after being buried in 16th starting spot following qualifying.
“That was tough – we were only a tenth and a half off – but in this field, everyone is so close that if you’re off just a tiny bit, like we were for practice and qualifying last weekend, it really shows,” Shafer noted. “We were just snug and it took us a while to get the car where it was really comfortable. It showed in our struggles early on, but as the night went on, we got better and better.”
Shafer’s improvement wasn’t necessarily evident in the first quarter of the 125-lap feature; in fact, he was mired right where he started in 16th for the first 26 revolutions around the three-eighths-mile oval.
It took until the 82nd lap before Shafer was finally able to crack the top 10, but from there, it was as if a light bulb clicked and his No. 2 Toyota really came to life.
Finding a groove right through the middle of the race track in turns one and two, above a strip where the pavement began to come up during the event, Shafer was able to make passes on the outside of several of his competitors, climbing as high as seventh before a late caution inside of 30 to go changed the game.
The yellow flag pinned Shafer on the bottom of the track, where his car wasn’t nearly as strong, and he struggled to maintain ground once the green flag returned before settling in again in the closing laps.
Shafer was eventually able to rally back to an eighth-place finish after nearly falling out of the top 10, but said if not for being trapped on the bottom on the last restart, he might have been able to finish even higher.
“It started off where I was good on the bottom and one and two, but the valence got knocked off by one of the holes, so every time I’d go back down to the bottom of (turns) one and two, it would scrape and my car would be all jacked up,” Shafer explained. “So I started running the middle to high groove in one and two, and once I did that, I just had so much drive off the corner that I was just able to pass everyone. I was a little stuck there in three and four, even with running the middle of three and four, but one and two in the middle groove was definitely where I gained on everyone.
“The last restart, having to be on the bottom screwed me up, because I hit the hole and I couldn’t do anything about it unless I was on the high side … so I hit the hole there and the car pushed up, and I ended up losing the spot there, but we were able to get back in line and get back to the top, which helped us at the very end be able to hang on for a top 10.”
It was a result that Shafer didn’t think was possible after his qualifying woes. Now, he has renewed focus and a belief that even if things aren’t going right at first, his Nelson Motorsports team can overcome adversity in a big way.
“I thought after qualifying and at the start of the race, we were doomed because they were racing in front of me and I didn’t know where it was fast. So I was just riding,” Shafer noted. “Once things got spaced out, I was able to move around … kind of like in the dirt car, and I was able to find which lanes were the fastest.
“We always come to try and win, but this race taught us a lot and we’ll definitely use those lessons down the road to make ourselves better and keep getting closer to that first win.”
Saturday’s CARS Tour VisitHampton.com 125 can be streamed live through SPEED SPORT TV affiliate Pit Row TV.