Jerrod battles with Brad Loyet in their heat race at Tri-City Speedway (Mark Funderburk Racing Photo)
(Bill W) April 19, 2016 – Jerrod Hull got his 2016 racing season underway last weekend in Illinois. A pair of top tens at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City and LaSalle Speedway with the MOWA series kicked things off. The MOWA series is back in action this Friday night at Jacksonville Speedway.
The series qualified for the first time at Tri-City Speedway Friday. Jerrod was sixth quick. “The new format is different,” he says. “They drew a heads up start for the heats based on qualifying. That put us outside row one for our heat. The heat was fun. Brad (Loyet) was on the pole, and we were able to get around him early. I was searching around the track a little bit. He finally got a run in one and two and was able to slide me in three and four. He led a couple laps there and we slid him. He was able to drive back underneath me. It was a real close finish and we finished second. I don’t know about the other heats, but that one was fun and hopefully exciting for the fans.”
The Sikeston, Missouri driver would start sixth in the feature. “We put a medium tire on,” says Jerrod. “The track had already taken some rubber. The first part of the feature we were loose. The modifieds had run and scrubbed some of the rubber off. The first four or five laps, we were back to ninth.”
Jerrod would move back up to finish sixth. “When the rubber came back, we were able to move our way back up to about sixth,” he says. “We were in line at that point. That’s about all we had.”
It was on to LaSalle Saturday in a co-sanctioned event with the IRA. “We qualified pretty well,” says Jerrod. “We were fifth out of 38, which we were happy with. That put us starting fifth in our heat race. All we needed to do was make the top five to start in the first five rows of the feature.”
Unfortunately, a tangle gave Jerrod a DNF in the heat. “We took off there and we were running fifth,” he says. “The guy running fourth started losing it and spun down the track. I caught his left rear with my right front. That broke the axle and all the shocks. That knocked us out of the heat.”
He would bounce back and get through the B. “We started on the pole of the B main,” says Jerrod. “The track was not good on the bottom. We had three starts and I fell back to second or third on all of them. By the time we went green and I fell in to line, I was running third. The top two get their time spots back, so unfortunately, we were one spot out of that.”
Jerrod would make a charge in the feature after starting 23rd. “We made some adjustments,” he says. “We were pretty nice. Early on, we were able to pass cars in the middle and then the top. At that time, the track took rubber. By then, we were running ninth. Even with the rubber, we were able to pass a couple of cars. We ended up seventh, and the way the night went, that was almost like a win. It was fun! You’d rather start 23rd and run seventh, than start sixth and run sixth like we did Friday.”
Photo: Jerrod battles with Brad Loyet in their heat race at Tri-City Speedway (Mark Funderburk Racing Photo)
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