Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
Looking for a change, J.R. Fitzpatrick made the decision to join the Dickies OSCAAR Outlaws Presented by London Recreational Racing tour for 2015. Despite some early season bad luck, he has managed to work his way up to fifth in the points lead.
“It’s been tough,” he admitted. “We’ve had a lot of bad luck. It’s a new car and just trying to get all the bugs out. It’s been fast everywhere we’ve gone.”
In the first race of the season at Sunset Speedway, he would fall out of the race with a mechanical failure while running inside the top-five. He would then blow the motor in his second Sunset outing, running teammate Roy Passer’s car for the feature.
When the tour headed on the road to Delaware Speedway, he would once again suffer a mechanical failure after contact while running once again in the top-five, resulting in a 12th place finish.
With the first three races under his belt for the season, he headed to Sauble Speedway looking for a change.
“We’ve decided since we’ve had no luck that we would just totally change the whole car over and try a few different things,” he commented. “Since then at Sauble Speedway, the thing has been an absolute rocket. Even today, it’s been pretty good. We’ve got the crate motor in after the built blew up and that seems to help us a ton.”
The feature at Sauble Speedway would be cut short due to a huge crash on the front stretch, but he finished second in the Chase for the Colors at Peterborough Speedway, followed by a second at Sunset Speedway this past weekend. The second place finish at Sunset came after a lengthy, clean battle back and forth with Glenn Watson.
“I think we had the speed at Sauble, but that race got cut short. Peterborough – we had it won but we had a fuel pick-up problem,” he said before racing on Saturday night at Sunset. “So, it’s just one of those things that maybe a little luck on our side, we’ll be good to go.”
With four races remaining on the schedule, the driver of the No. 84 Meineke Car Care, Transaxle Heavy Truck & Trailer Parts, Cambridge Rigging, Equipment Express, Jenco Equipment, Bert, McColl Racing Enterprises, Creative Edge Signs, Wix Filters, Permatex, Driven Steering Wheels, Spray Nine, Deon Racecars, Clayton Johns Media and ImageFactor.ca Motorsport Designs SLM will look to capture his first career OSCAAR victory.
Looking at the three tracks (Flamboro Speedway, Peterborough twice and Sunset) left on the schedule, the Cambridge, Ontario native stated that he’s excited to get to each of them.
“I like Flamboro, coming back here (Sunset) and Peterborough – I like every track that we go to,” he stated. “This car is really good. We have a good set-up for Peterborough. Flamboro, I’m a little worried about the power issue with the crate motor. But we’ll see. Here (at Sunset), down on power on the straightaway but as tires get wore out, this really pays the difference.
“So we’re just going to have to see how we do.”
