Swan comes from back, finishes 11th at Mile

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: June 10, 2014

Swan comes from back, finishes 11th at Mile

Rising NASCAR star wins race

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

WEST ALLIS — James Swan was just happy to finish the third annual Howie Lettow Memorial 150 on Sunday at the Milwaukee Mile.

Last year, he got into a scary crash, which he insisted looked worse than it did.

Nonetheless, it was just nice to finish one of the premier super late model events in the country. He finished 11th in the 36-car feature after starting the 150-lap feature near the back.

“I’ll take it,” Swan said. “We had a 27th-place car and we finished 11th. ... I’m happy with that.”

Rising NASCAR star Erik Jones won the race, leading the final 59 laps for the victory. Griffin Mc-Grath was second, followed by Chad Finley, John Hunter Nemechek and Tim Sauter.

“I’m glad to pick up a win here; this race especially,” Jones said. “It’s one I’ve been eyeing the past three years.”

It was an impressive day for Nemechek, the son of veteran NASCAR competitor Joe Nemechek, also known as “Front Row Joe.” The young Nemechek also won the 100-lap CRA All-Stars Tour JEGS 100 earlier in the afternoon.

“It was a good day overall,” Nemechek said. “I had two very good race cars.”

Anderson Bowen of Buford, Georgia, the Howie Lettow Memorial 150 fast qualifier, was sixth. He also pulled double duty Sunday, finishing fourth in the JEGS 100.

Ross Kenseth was seventh.

Johnny Sauter, a regular on the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and a native of Necedah, was in contention for the victory until a mechanical problem forced him out of the race on lap 107. He finished 25th.

Jones races for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Busch, a superstar on the NASCAR Sprint Car Series, won last year’s event at the Milwaukee Mile in the same car Jones drove to victory lane.

Jones insisted Sunday’s race wasn’t a cake walk, despite making it look like it, especially in the second half of the event. The native of Mooresville, North Carolina, said he hadn’t driven a late model in about six months. On Friday, he competed in NASCAR’s truck series race, where he finished 11th. On Saturday morning, he was at the Milwaukee Mile.

“(The car) was really good (Saturday),” Jones said. “When I got here, we found a couple issues in the front end, switched them around, got them fixed and made it better. We felt good about the car in qualifying and once the race started I felt really good about it.”

While it had been a while since Jones last drove a late model, he’s enjoyed success in a late model.

Counting his victory Sunday, he’s won four of the biggest short-track events in the country. He’s won the Snowball Derby in Florida twice (2012 and 2013) and the Winchester 400 in Indiana (2013).

Jeremy Miller led the opening 24 laps after starting on the pole. Chris Weinkauf took over on lap 25 and was dominating. He led 66 of the next 67 laps. Just shy of the 100th lap, Weinkauf dropped off the pace and was passed by multiple cars each lap. He didn’t finish the race and was scored with a 26thplace showing. As for Swan, he was happy because he didn’t finish last year’s event. He was also happy because he started 26th and wasn’t comfortable in his car throughout the race.

Despite that, he hung around close to the top 10 in the late laps.

“It was just tight in the center; just horrible tightness in the center,” Swan said of the struggles with his car. “When we fixed the tightness in the center, it was wicked loose off, but we never did fix the tight in the center.

“I almost hit the wall on the back in Turn 2 almost six times,” he added.