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Jonathan Allard’s Nationals bid ends in C-main
By Gary Thomas
Knoxville, Iowa - August 12, 2007....Quite often in racing the luck factor comes into play and unfortunately for Chico’s Jonathan Allard, he didn’t have much in way of good luck during his Southern Iowa Sprint Week venture this past week. With the large amount of competition that’s on hand during the week, no matter how fast you are, if you don’t have things go your way, it’s going to make for a tough road.
Monday night August 6 saw Jonathan and Williams Motorsports take to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa for the 12th annual Front Row Challenge. A lot of rain was seen during the day and it made the race a question mark, but track officials were able to get the track into shape and a total of 27 cars competed at the event. The SOS ½ mile track was wicked fast and Jonathan turned the fastest lap of the 27 cars in qualifying with a lap of 15.620 aboard the Williams Motorsports, Weld Racing, Platinum Powder Coating No. 0. A fourth place finish in the opening heat transferred JA into the main event where he started from the fifth position. The track remained fast during the feature and Jonathan was up to third when he suffered a flat right front tire that made the frame of the car bottom out which blew the nose up and knocked the hood up, forcing him out of the race.
Following the Front Row Challenge Jonathan was set to qualify for the Knoxville Nationals on Wednesday night, but heavy rains forced the Wednesday qualifiers to be run on Friday night. After watching the Thursday night program run as scheduled, JA was set to hit the track on Friday evening. Jonathan was one of the top five fastest cars in hot laps, but a late draw in qualifying coupled with a drying track left him with the 37th quickest lap at the end of qualifying. He then lined up on the second row of his heat race and blew around the front row(which included WOO star Daryn Pittman) on the opening lap and dominated the heat race to pick up the win aboard the K & N Filters, Red Line Oil, Chris Jones Racing No. 0.
As Jonathan got on the gas during the A-main warm up lap, the U-Joint exploded and it put him out of the race before it even began. Jonathan commented that it was one of the biggest U-Joint explosions they’d ever seen and came apart in about a 100 pieces. Not being able to start the main event put him into Saturday afternoons non-qualifiers program and after winning his heat race he brought home a second place finish in the 15 lap main event behind winner Kerry Madsen. A second place finish was pretty solid considering that the non-qualifiers program also had big names like Jac Haudenschild, Jason Meyers, Billy Alley, Travis Rilat and Kenny Jacobs in it.
The runner-up finish in the non-qualifier feature put Jonathan into the C-main for Saturday’s Knoxville Nationals finale. Starting 10th, JA brought the GT Trends, Sharp Insurance, JP’s Paint & Body No. 0 home ninth in an unbelievably stacked 15 lapper. "The week as a whole was a little disappointing considering how fast we were," Jonathan said. He continued, "It seemed like we couldn’t catch a break all week, but hey that’s racing and all we can do is move on."
Up Next: Next up for Jonathan Allard and Williams Motorsports will be an All Star Circuit of Champions event tonight at the Thunder Hill Speedway in Mayetta, Kansas. Look for the team to continue racing with the All Stars this week including the two night event at the "Ditch" in West Memphis, Arkansas this Friday and Saturday.
Get Well Wishes: Longtime Williams Motorsports crew chief Ashley Smith has had some medical problems during the trip and everyone with the team hopes he can get back to 100% soon. Even with the problems, however, he was in Knoxville doing what he loves, working on the race car.
For the latest news on Jonathan Allard log onto http://www.allardmotorsports.com
Photo by Davy Thomas
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