EXCLUSIVE: J.R. Fitzpatrick Set for OSCAAR Super Late Model Season

Earlier in the off-season, J.R. Fitzpatrick announced that he will be running the full OSCAAR Super Late Model schedule for the 2015 season. Fitzpatrick debuted his new super late model this past weekend at the Motorama Custom Car and Motorsports Show.

“I’m pretty excited,” Fitzpatrick said. “Everybody has seen the car and how nice it is. It’s just going to be something new, a new challenge. It’s something that I’m really looking forward to – staying around home and racing every other weekend.”

The driver of the No. 84 Meinkee Car Care, Transaxle, Jenco Equipment, Cambridge Rigging, Equipment Express, Bert Transmissions, DRIVEN Steering Wheels, McColl Racing and Creative Edge Designs SLM has been a fixture in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series over the past eight years, scoring 11 wins and 64 top-10s in 89 career starts. However, lack of sponsorship brought forth a close to that program and a change for 2015.

In speaking of his switch to OSCAAR, Fitzpatrick said the decision was made “because they’re the biggest, baddest and fastest cars in Ontario, in North America really. There’s no car that looks as sweet as this one in this show. I wanted to be apart of the modifieds, but as soon as we quit the NCATS deal, I wanted to go faster”.

Fitzpatrick has made a handful of OSCAAR starts over the past two seasons, running within the top-five in each of those starts. In running those starts, the Cambridge, Ontario native says the biggest thing he learned was the tires as he wasn’t familiar with them previously.

“But now that they’re switching their tire program a little bit, I think we’re all be on the same page,” he added. “You can’t just run a car twice a year and expect to win so now I have a brand new car and it’s really ready to race. We’ll do some testing as soon as we can get the snow outta here and learn more about it.”

Set to tackle the full schedule, 12 races across five different race tracks, Fitzpatrick says he’s most looking forward to getting to Sunset Speedway.

“I like Sunset,” he commented. “The environment is just huge and now that they’re a NASCAR home track, it may excite fans a little more. But the product that OSCAAR is bringing to the track, it hasn’t changed so looking forward to it.”