“It was with heavy hearts that we left the Metro Detroit Detroit area in Michigan this past Wednesday to begin our 2019 Talladega journey. Talladega Superspeedway is the track where James Hylton Sr. and James ‘Tweet’ Hylton Jr.’s legendary racing journey was abruptly ended last year. It is also a track I’ve personally been air lifted out of twice. It is a fantastic track and I love the place (and was even the first track I attempted to qualify for in my ARCA career in 1988), but when things go bad there, it happens quickly and with great consequence.
Our goal coming into the race was simple: we HAD to finish the race in one piece, get in as many laps as possible, and hope that would translate into a decent finish. That was the plan because we need to get our overall lap count percentage increased and we desperately need time to get back to sorting out our short track program before leaving for Nashville in five days. In other words, our plan was to race at ‘Dega, head back home to southeastern Michigan where we’d basically do a ‘turn and burn’ to hit the road again and not finishing for any reason would have devastated our program!
We spent a great deal of time making small but necessary tweaks to the car on Thursday, or, ‘Inspection Day’ to make it more competitive. It paid off as we were successful in bringing home a top 25 in General Tire Pole qualifying. The efforts and patience of the crew were greatly appreciated as we had numerous changes to make.
The green flag waved as the Alabama sun was beginning to set behind the massive Talladega grandstands in front of who we love the most: our loyal ARCA fans! Very early in the race we got hooked up with D.L. Wilson in a two-car draft and we ran with his #11 most of the race. It is one of 1995 ARCA Menard’s Champ Andy Hillenburg’s cars so I was comfortable following him. Andy has been a good friend of ours for years and our superspeedway car was actually in his shop being worked on before Daytona, so I felt we were in good company from a drafting-partner perspective. The first half of the race was pretty much caution free until our first (and timely) pit stop. We pulled off a fuel-only pit stop, with special thanks to Carlos Leon who had never fueled an ARCA car, but handled it flawlessly.
The second half of the race had a few cautions, but we kept following the #11 until the final laps of the race. We finished the General Tire 200 with no damage to the car and with a respectable 16th place finish. Special thanks to our sponsors, Copraya.com and HIE Publishing, for their support. And special thanks to my volunteer crew for their huge effort. They are fueled by passion and that was clearly evident this weekend.
Looking back on this weekend, I think James and Tweet were smiling down, guiding us so to speak, and I’m confident we made them proud of our efforts of the #48 team! With smiles on our faces, our close nit group loaded up and headed back north to roll our superspeedway car off the trailer and replacing it with our short track car for the half mile iconic Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville and the Music City 200! We’re leaving this event with the car in one piece after having run the entire race and some more good news: we’re currently fifth in ARCA Menard’s Series point standings (our first time ever)!
The 48 team would like to express our appreciation to everyone for their unwavering support, whether at the track, behind the scenes, or even on social media and in cyberspace! We look forward to seeing y’all in Tennessee! Have a safe trip and it won’t be long before we’re all back at the track!” –Brad Smith
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