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| JEREMY PELFREY AT HICKORY MOTOR SPEEDWAY. (SHERRI STEARNS PHOTO) |
Pelfrey wants to kick his season into gear
By Tom Gillispie
Jeremy Pelfrey is fourth in Limited
Late Model points at Hickory Motor Speedway, just two points out of third, but
the Lenoir resident isn’t happy with his season so far.
“I’ve struggled this year a little
bit,” the 35-year-old Lenoir resident said. “I haven't won, although I’ve
finished second five or six times.”
Taylor Stricklin and Trent Barnes
hold down the first two spots in Limited points, and Travis Byrd of Sherrills
Ford is third, two points ahead of Pelfrey.
Pelfrey says he went into the season
hopeful, partly because the two drivers who had finished ahead of him in points
last year, Shane Lee and Landon Huffman, had moved up to Late Model full-time.
But Stricklin has found his stride,
young Barnes came along, and Byrd, Casey Pierce and Dillon Houser began
competing for victories.
The last two Limited races, on July
12 and Aug. 2, weren’t among Pelfrey’s better ones. On July 12, Pelfrey ran 12th,
seven spots behind Byrd. Then on Aug. 2, he finished 11th, one spot
behind Byrd.
“I keep losing points,” he said. “I
enjoy running Hickory, and I don't want see anything happen to it. It’s
convenient.”
Still, except for his recent
struggles, he’s done pretty well there.
In last year’s Fall Classic,
featuring a 100-lap Limited race, Pelfrey finished third behind Justin Bolton
and Landon Huffman.
And in the 2013 season finale,
Pelfrey won, with Spencer Boyd (now the Super Trucks points leader), Dylon
Wilson, Sheflon Clay and Houser filling out the top five.
And in the 2014 season opener,
Pelfrey finished second behind Byrd, with Stricklin fourth.
But the next week, Pelfrey qualified
second but finished 18th, last. He says he’s had a lot of those up
and down finishes this year, with no victories to sprinkle in there.
“Last year I had a better setup,”
Pelfrey said. “I need to be patient and stay out of trouble. I’d like to start
winning races (again), and I think I’m capable of that. We were running great
last year.”
Pelfrey says he started his heating
and air business “six or seven years ago,” but he admits that it makes racing a
little harder.
“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve
ever made,” he said. “Still, it’s been tough doing that, racing and having
(three) kids.”
Pelfrey graduated from Hickory High
in 1997 and moved to Lenoir when he married wife Krista. Strangely, they met
racing go-karts, and he says she still rags him that she once beat him for a
go-kart points title. “It came down to me, her and another guy, and she won
it,” Pelfrey said without malice.
He started racing Street Stock in
1999 at Hickory and Tri-County Motor Speedway and did that for four years.
He has not-so-fond memories of his
first try at a Late Model race. Early in the race, he got knocked into the
outside fence and destroyed the car.
“It was the first time I ever drove
one,” he said. “It caught fire, and I was young enough that it didn’t bother me
much.”
It bothered him at the time, though.
He was terrified of the fire. The crash had knocked the car apart — a good
thing, as it dissipates the force of the wreck — and he battled to get out.
“It seemed about three minutes, but
it was probably closer to 10 seconds,” he said.
After doctors released him to race
again, Pelfrey bought a racing truck and raced two-thirds of the season at
Tri-County.
Pelfrey later took a couple of years
off from racing, but he kept his hand in by spotting for Shane Huffman, the
1999 track champion.
He’s been racing Limiteds
successfully the last few years at HMS, and he says his goal for the rest of
the season is to get back a little swagger from past seasons.
“I’d like to get back to where we
were before,” he said. “Lately, I felt we were fast enough. I want it to be
something that’s all the time.
“I want to be the
guy beat, not a guy who shows up and you don’t know how he’s going to run.”
Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.
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