Super Late Models Of All Types Welcomed At Mason-Dixon Meltdown

When Ryan Lawler took the checkers at Hickory Motor Speedway in August to capture his first-career PASS South Super Late Model Series victory, he did it in something other than his normal orange #31 Ford. After his primary PASS South car blew an engine in practice, Lawler broke out his black #91, which he normally races on the ASA Late Model South Tour. Lawler proceeded to take his ASA Late Model car (the team had renumbered it back to #31) to Victory Lane.

The victory was big for PASS South, which has come to pride itself on working with competitors who have different styles of cars and still want to compete with the series. In addition to several different ASA Late Model Series competitors, a couple of NASCAR Elite Division drivers have also took turns on the track behind the wheel of their respective cars in PASS South.

All NASCAR Elite Divisions cars (Midwest Series, Southeast Series, etc.) and ASA Late Model cars will continue to be welcomed to race with PASS South and in the “Mason-Dixon Meltdown” at South Boston Speedway on Thanksgiving weekend, November 24th-25th.

“I ran one car all year long,” said Lawler. “We ended up breaking a motor and had to get our ASA Late Model out. That ended up working out well for us, because we won the race with it. Being able to use that car was great, because it gives people an option to run the ASA Late Models somewhere else, other than just with the ASA Late Model Series. It was a real good deal. The ASA car was really strong, actually.

“Being able to do something like that will really help PASS as well. Car count makes a series. It is hard to have big car count when a series has a specific car that people need to bring. Whenever you can have a series that will accept a few different cars and work with the teams, it will help things out tremendously.”

In addition to Lawler, ASA Late Model Series drivers Mark Reedy, Chase Austin and Wes Burton also made starts with their ASA Late Model cars during the 2006 PASS South season.

NASCAR Southeast Series standout Justin Wakefield competed in two separate PASS South races during the 2006 season by driving his #98 NASCAR Southeast Series machine. He debuted with PASS South at Florence, but wasn’t able to compete because of engine problems. However, he made a start during the “Orange Blossom Special” at Orange County Speedway and finished sixth.

“It’s great because it gives guys an opportunity rather than just junking the cars,” said Wakefield. “It would give guys another avenue to come run them. I’d love to race with PASS as much as I can. In the one race we ran, we had a better car than what the final results showed. We had a tire go flat and we had to come in to change it. I think, had that not happened and the car stayed pretty stationary, then we could have finished even better. Plus, there was some beating and banging out there and I was trying to be very careful, because we still had some Southeast Series races to run. Now, we don’t have any of those, so we can race even harder with the guys.”

Wakefield won the final Southeast Series race, just a couple of weeks ago at Greenville-Pickens Speedway (SC). NASCAR has announced they are dropping the Elite Division at the end of the 2006 season and now PASS South will be the only place in the southeast where drivers can compete with that style of perimeter chassis . Wakefield is hoping to race with his Southeast Series car at the Meltdown.

“It’s better than junking the cars for sure,” said Wakefield of getting to run his SES car in PASS South. “I think the cars can be very competitive. I know we are going to try and cut some bars out of the right side of ours. I think if we can get the full 59% left-side weight in those cars that we are allowed, that would help us out a ton. It would really make it a level playing ground.”

Different styles of cars are allowed to run with varying adjustments in weight. That allows them to be competitive with the standard straight-rail Super Late Model that most of the competitors run. For more information as to the specifics regarding the rules package for either an ASA Late Model or a NASCAR Elite Division car, call Paul Johnson at (207) 318-3850.

For more information on the “Mason-Dixon Meltdown,” please contact Jeremy Troiano at (704) 455-2051 and check out www.masondixonmeltdown.com.