EXCLUSIVE: J.R. Fitzpatrick Going to Be Busy with Super Late This Season

After a solid campaign last season, J.R. Fitzpatrick returns this season, looking for championship glory. The bid for the championship will be busy as he’ll be tackling both the OSCAAR Super Late Model Series and Sunset Speedway Avenue Auto Parts Super Late Model schedules this year.

“It’s going to be very interesting with everything that’s gone on over the winter with two different clubs running now,” he told OnPitRoad.com last month. “For us, we’ve pretty much dedicated ourselves to both because how can you not go racing when there’s open races? So we’re going to be busy. We have three cars now – started off with one a couple years ago, now we have three. So we’re definitely busy.”

The Sunset Speedway schedule will consist of five events, while the OSCAAR schedule consists of 10 races. Fitzpatrick ran the full OSCAAR schedule last season, finishing runner-up in points with five straight top-two finishes to complete the season. Notably, he finished the year off on a high with a victory in the Autumn Colours Classic at Peterborough Speedway, after taking the lead on Lap 33.

“What better way can you end really then winning the last race of the year? You definitely have confidence all through the winter and the car was really good,” he said. “Even if Kevin (Cornelius) didn’t break, I think it would’ve been an exciting race for all of us. Our car has always been good at Peterborough – it’s been good everywhere. Now we’re going to a built motor, we’re going to have a little more power for guys so hopefully they can keep up with us.”

Arguably, the statistics speak for themselves and the driver of the No. 84 Auto Parts Centres, Meineke Car Care, Transaxle Heavy Truck & Trailer Parts, Cambridge Rigging, Equipment Express, Jenco Equipment, 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 comes into the season as one of the favourites for the championship in both divisions.

“We’re pretty confident,” he said. “We have a lot of good stuff, tested a lot last year and obviously we were running really well – three quarters of the field thought we were cheating every week. It’s going to be exciting because we can now transfer everything over to (teammate) Roy (Passer) as we didn’t have the same stuff last year, and we’re going to have three really good guys. I think we will all be competitive.”

This year’s OSCAAR schedule brings forth a new interesting factor, though, with the Race for the Cup Championship format, taking after the elimination format that NASCAR uses for their three series.

While the format has received a mixture of reviews, Fitzpatrick is one of those who likes the format.

“I mean, they have to look at it at a sense did they enjoy themselves when one guy won all the races and nobody else had a chance? This is opening up a new book for guys to have an opportunity to actually win a championship,” he commented. “Everybody says, ‘Oh, what about bad luck or what not?’, but the way I see it is that it’s no different than any other situation. You have to win and you get wrecked – it’s no different, so I know a lot of people don’t like it but it will be exciting for the fans and everybody else should just suck it up and go race.”