Another Top 10 for Jeremy Colangelo in Miller Lite Series at Mobile

Mark Martin Performance Development Driver Sixth In Gulf Coast Championship

Jeremy Colangelo and his #05 Super Late Model team made their way to the Miller Lite Series finale this weekend at Mobile International Speedway (AL) where they brought home yet another solid top-10 finish.  Colangelo qualified the car in the sixth position, but an ill-handling racecar and unsuccessful adjustments caused him to fall one position to seventh when the checkered flag fell.

“It was a pretty uneventful race, unfortunately,” said Colangelo.  ‘We ran fifth most of the night until we came in for tires, made a few adjustments and lost a few spots on pit road.  We thought it was ok because we hoped we were making the car better, but we ended up making it a little bit too tight and from there we never really could run up where we had been running most of the night and ended up having to settle for seventh.”

Although he struggled, Colangelo still took note of the great racing the series’ has produced.  Not only is he on the track with some of the greatest names in short track

Jeremy Colangelo strapping in before the Miller Lite Series event. (Fastrax Photos)

racing, he’s learning from them as well.

“It was still a fun race with a lot of side-by-side racing,” recounted Colangelo.  “We ran several laps on the outside of Augie [Grill] and several laps on the inside of Alex Haase, but it was just a fun race altogether. This year just hasn’t really produced the type of results I know we’re capable of producing, but we’ve learned and it’s just been one of those years that we’ll gain from.”

 

With the support and knowledge of Mark Martin, Jeremy Colangelo and his Colangelo Motorsports team have made a run at the Super Late Model racing world in 2009.  The Florida driver and his team have competed in a full season of competition in three series this year as well as several other major Super Late Model events along the way.  Two of those series, the Five Flags Speedway Blizzard Series as well as the Mobile International Speedway Miller Lite Series, joined together to form another championship, the Gulf Coast Championship, which consists of the finishes of only the drivers who compete in all 10 events, five at each track.

After completing the final event of the 10-race season, in the rain-dated Miller Lite Series finale at Mobile International Speedway, Colangelo found himself sitting sixth in the final standings.

“I think finishing sixth in the Gulf Coast points was more of a luck deal,” explained Colangelo.  “We were helped out by other people’s misfortunes because we had plenty of our own misfortunes and we just couldn’t run up as high in the finishing order as I know we’re capable of.  But it was fun and we learned a lot.  I don’t have any plans finalized for next year, but these are some of the races I want to try to include in whatever it is I end up doing.  It was definitely a good learning experience and I had fun racing against the toughest competition in Super Late Model racing.”

With the full Blizzard Series season in his rear-view mirror, Colangelo feels that they’ve learned enough this season to be strong at the 42nd Annual Snowball Derby in December.  Although their finishes didn’t always reflect success, they have been learning each time out at the Pensacola, Florida, track.

“We really learned a lot in that last race at Pensacola,” said Colangelo.  “We didn’t have the results to show for it, but we learned a lot on the long runs, and with the Derby being a 300-lap race, I think it’s going to be pretty good.  As long as we can qualify in the show and get a decent starting position, I think we’re going to be pretty well off for the Derby.  Do we have a car capable of winning? Right now, I’d have to say definitely not.  Running against guys like Bubba Pollard, even Johanna Long and Augie Grill, those three there seem to be the class of the field there at Pensacola, but we should still be strong.  We never really got a good finish there so I’m hoping to kind of redeem myself at the Derby.”

Colangelo is now in the home stretch of his 2009 season, but it is certainly not time to sit back and relax just yet as he is heading into his final three races, since they are coincidentally the three biggest races of his season. 

First on the lineup for the DeLand, Florida, driver is the All American 400 this weekend at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville, Tennessee.  From there he will set his sights on the Governor’s Cup at New Smyrna Speedway and then the legendary Snowball Derby in December.