By Bill W, Dave Hill photo
May 3, 2010 – It was a good start to the season for sprint car driver Skip Jackson. He drove from a row five starting spot to finish second in the season opener at the Knoxville Raceway. He’ll be back at it this week aboard the J&S Auto Sports #2 as the Interstate Racing Association brings their best to challenge the Knoxville regulars.
Drawing the last pill, Skip qualified ninth in the field. “We qualified o.k., and that’s what you want,” says the Sydney, New South Wales native. “There was nothing about the night where we could complain too much.
That was evident in his heat race when Skip shot from his starting spot outside of row two, and led all eight laps. “Things went well in time trials and hot laps, and we had the car working good,” he relates. “That gave us the confidence to move around a little bit and go some different places in the heat.”
Skip’s qualifying effort netted him a starting spot inside row five for the feature. By the halfway point, he had worked his way forward into the top five. “The car and motor were really good,” he says of his Shaver powered J&J. “That made the job at lot easier for me.
A mechanical issue arose late in the race, but an open red resulted from a crash on the frontstretch involving Ian Madsen. The crew was quick to remedy the issue, as Skip restarted third behind Don Droud Jr. and Davey Heskin with two laps to go. “I had a spark plug issue there, so we used that open red to deal with it,” says Skip. “When we got that fixed, it made a big difference.”
With Droud out in clean air, Skip dealt with Heskin for the runner-up position. He was able to grab it on the low side in the final corner. “(Heskin) was running the low side in one and two, and the high side in three and four,” he says. “On the restart, he went to the high side of one and two, and he kind of tricked me. Luckily, we were able to get around the bottom of three and four really good and got by him.”
The second place finish resulted from the car getting better during the 20-lap feature. “At the start of the main event, I wasn’t that good,” says Skip. “But it got better the further we went, and towards the end, we could go top or bottom. When you can do that, you know things are on.”
The team looks forward to competing at Knoxville again on Saturday. “I’m grateful for Graffiti Graphics giving us a good look to the car, Slideways, NRPS and Turfwerks for making it all happen,” says Skip. “Rob (Sirfus), Steve (Fitzpatrick) , and Paul (Jackson), are all a great help, and we’ll be ready for Saturday.”
To learn more about Skip Jackson and the J&S Auto Sports #2 team, visit www.SkipJackson.net!