9/30/2015
Sprint Source
Jerrod Hull – A Rough Go!
Jerrod Hull and the Heartland Trailer Manufacturing #12 team had a rough go of it last weekend in three events. The Sikeston, Missouri driver is accustomed to finishing up front at venues like St. Francois County Raceway near Farmington, Missouri and at the Quincy Speedways in Illinois. However, his highest finish of the weekend was a fourth place at the Queen’s Royale at Farmington. A ninth place MOWA finish Sunday in Quincy has him 23 points behind Paul Nienhiser heading into that series’ finale at Jacksonville Speedway October 9 and 10.
Friday’s prelim at Farmington saw Jerrod time in seventh quick. “We made it through the heat race, which got us into the redraw for the Dash,” he says. “We started seventh in the Dash and got up to sixth. A car got into the back of us, and spun us out. We ended up running seventh.”
Starting inside row four of the feature, there wouldn’t be much movement for Jerrod. “We passed a car, and a car passed us,” he says. “We ended up running seventh. It was just terrible. I don’t know what we had going on, but I was really uncomfortable. It was a shame, because this was one of our bigger weekends.”
The team went to work for Saturday’s Queen’s Royal finale. “We completely tore the car down,” says Jerrod. “We put all new bars and shocks on it. We may have been a little better. We qualified fourth, and made it out of our heat again.”
He would finish fifth in the Dash, giving him a starting spot in the main event inside row three. “I fell back to sixth at the start, but we came back and passed a couple of cars,” says Jerrod. “I passed for third and the red flag came out. That put us in fourth again, but I felt pretty good. It was lap nine, we were in lapped traffic, and the leaders were right there in front of us.”
Unfortunately, something was lost after the red. “We were just there after the red flag,” says Jerrod. “We did pass a car for third, and we were third for a few laps. Joe B. Miller got around us with a few to go, and we ended up running fourth. We had the leaders in sight at the end, but we just weren’t fast enough. It was disappointing.”
It was on to Quincy Sunday with the MOWA series. “Usually, we’re pretty good at Quincy,” says Jerrod. “We changed some bars and things. We didn’t draw well, which put us starting eighth in the heat race. The track was fast on the cushion, and the car in front of me jumped it and got sideways. I got into him, which flattened the right side header, knocked the nerf bar off and bent both wings. We come into the next corner, and there was a car flipping. I thought it was going to flip into me, so I ran off the track to miss him.”
A seventh place heat finish meant starting 13th in the feature. “They reworked the track,” says Jerrod. “Early on, we were tight. We fell back to fifteenth. The last five or six laps, the track slicked off. I actually passed five or six cars the last three or four laps. We were reeling them in at the end and finished ninth. Unfortunately, we missed on the setup early on. That was our whole weekend. There’s no sense in sugarcoating it. We were bad.”
Jerrod is looking forward to getting back to Jacksonville for MOWA’s two-night finale October 9 and 10. “We’re going to put a different car together for the last two shows at Jacksonville,” he says. “It’s actually the oldest car we have. We lost the points lead there at Quincy. We’re hoping for a couple good finishes there.”
Jerrod and the #12 team would like to thank: Midland Performance, Super Shox, Sebastian Sand Blasting & Powder Coating, Inc., Chuck’s Small Engines, Don Hamilton, HRP, Lighthouse Christian Center, Rockstar Graphics, King Racing Products, DMI, KSE Performance Products, Hoosier Tire, Simpson, Weld, Automotive Machine, Maxim and Heartland Trailer Manufacturing.
Photo: Jerrod races at St. Francois County Raceway (JM Photography)
Article Credit: Bill Wright