The ASA Late Model South Series has been Jimmy Lang’s playground in 2008. After five wins, he is looking at the big picture, the season-ending championship. Lang hopes to have a clean day when they go to Charlotte County Motorsports Park (FL) for the final event, unlike what happened at New Smyrna Speedway (FL) this past weekend. Still though, he was able to overcome problems and an ill-handing car to post a fourth-place finish.
Lang was two tenths quicker then the rest of the field during Friday night’s practice, but over the course of the Saturday’s warm up sessions Lang made contact with the wall. That sent the team scrambling just to get the car ready for the race. His Performance Concepts Chevy was rolled out in qualifying just in time.
“We were fast in practice,” said Lang. “I got into the wall a little bit. It was all me. I just overdrove the car and it got out from underneath me a little bit. It knocked the rear end out just a little bit. We started to fix it, but it was so close to qualifying time that we didn’t get to look at everything.”
Lang went into the race hoping the car was ok from the incident, but it wasn't quite perfect.
“The car was very free during the race,” said Lang. “We pretty much just rode around and did the best we could with what we had and we came home fourth. It’s not a bad finish; we knew we had a better car then what we showed. We just could never work on it during the race.”
Instead of looking back, the team is looking forward to the next race, which is at New Senoia Speedway (GA). Lang won the race at Senoia back in April and hopes to complete the season sweep at the 3/8ths-mile track.
“I like Senoia, I used to struggle there quite a bit, but now we have things figured out and hopefully we can get another win like we did in the spring.”
As the season winds down Lang holds a 30-point lead in the ASA Late Model South Series. Having the right strategy might be key in bringing home the championship trophy to Bluffton, South Carolina.
“This championship is in the front of my mind,” added Lang. “I think about it all the time. I think about keeping the car in one piece and get the best finish I can with out pushing the issue and putting myself in jeopardy of losing the title.”
Lang will be back in action on October 11th at New Senoia Speedway (GA).
