By Bill W
June 1, 2017 – Joey Moughan has a full-time job that keeps him occupied. Add in a house restoration, and it’s the end of May before you race. For the Springfield, Illinois driver, that worked out just fine, as he claimed the MOWA stop at Jacksonville Speedway in Illinois last Friday night as his own. Joey will drive for Darrell Dodd this Saturday night at Wilmot Raceway in Wisconsin.
It was up to the minute before Joey knew he would be running at Jacksonville Friday. “I’ve been super busy at work and with the house,” he says. “I just took last week off, and spent the week welding the midget and getting the sprint car going. The motor was running well on the dyno, but I couldn’t get it to run in the car. About 2:30 Friday afternoon, we discovered that the mag was starting to go bad. We switched that out and it was fine. My Dad was helping me, which hasn’t happened a lot for us, but it was fun. I was ready to give up several times.”
Early returns at the track were good. “The first laps in the car felt good,” says Joey. “I was able to race the car hard, and it was nice. We were able to qualify third, which wasn’t bad for the first time out this year. I had one show in driving for Darrell Dodd in Wisconsin, but that was it. I was just a little rusty in my own stuff.”
Joey would start sixth in his heat. “I finally have a really decent engine,” he says. “You get bad habits driving lesser motors, so you need to shake those off too. I started the heat off and pulled my wing back. Any other motor would have been fine, but I had so much power. When I got on it, I did a tail-slapping wheelie. I set it down and spun out. I moved the wing back forward, and we were able to get up to the fourth and final transfer spot to get our time back.”
His draw for the feature invert did not go the greatest. “We drew an eight, of course,” says Joey. “I pulled the wing back again, and the car was still too tight. I jumped the cushion and hit the fence. It was a logjam back there. With ten laps to go, I was running back in eleventh. Luckily, I was able to sneak by (Paul) Nienhiser. Then I was able to get by Ryan Robinson in the Kunz car the one lap he went to the middle in three and four.”
Mark Funderburk Racing photo
Joey would continue his charge through the field. “It was clear sailing for me from then on,” he says. “I was second with six laps to go behind AJ (Bruns). He had been running the top, so I went to the bottom to show my car down there for the restart. Sure enough, he went down there, but I followed him and almost ran him over. I’ll be darned if he didn’t go to the bottom in three and four and left the top open. I was able to get him then.”
He remembered a time when roles were reversed. “Years ago, he got me the same way,” says Joey of Bruns. “I was in Northrop’s car and I led the whole way. He got me on the last lap in traffic. It was kind of cool to get him back. It was amazing to win Friday. At the start of the night…we’ve been so busy…I’d have told you I’d be happy with a top ten and a good finish. Even after I hit the fence, I was just hoping we weren’t going to crash. It was beyond what we expected.”
Joey also got in a show at Quincy Raceways with MOWA. For a time, it looked like a top five was in the offing, but a mechanical failure plagued him. “The track was rough on the cushion,” he says. “I think we timed in third and made the transfer through the heat as the second high point man. Paul had the most points, so we started fifth beside him in the feature. I had a choice of ten or thirteen inches on stagger. I chose ten and we were really tight. We were running fifth, sixth and seventh most of the way, and then I had a steering bolt come out on the draglink.”
He was lucky not to get upside down. “Fortunately, I got it off the track without crashing, but realistically, the best I could have done was about fifth,” says Joey. “It was a ‘cowboy up’ type racetrack and (winner) Terry (McCarl) did a heck of a job. I watched him make a couple of great moves. He’s a great racecar driver and it’s fun racing with guys like that.”
Joey will be back in the Dodd car on occasion in Wisconsin. “I’m thinking our next race with my #29 will be the All Stars show at Lincoln (June 9),” he says. “Conaway Handyman Services is about ten miles from there, and we like to race close to him when we can. I’ll drive for Darrell Dodd this Saturday at Wilmot and the IRA show next Saturday night up there too.”
Joey and the JM Motorsports team would like to thank: Moughan Electric, Conaway Handyman Service, Modern Paving and Scrap, Glenn Brothers Garage Doors, Jared Culbertson Transport, AED Motorsports, DMI, Simpson, Butlerbuilt and Maxim.