Racing
'A storybook ending': Goldsboro driver wins final race to cap state championship run
Clay Jones talks about the final race of the season at Wake County Speedway in which he pulled off a bold move to win.
If you previously used a social network to login to WRALSportsFan.com, click the “Forgot your password” link to reset your password.
Clay Jones talks about the final race of the season at Wake County Speedway in which he pulled off a bold move to win.
we knew we had kind of locked up the points championship at that track in Wake County, um, but leading up to that race, we thought we were out of the state championship stuff, you know? So we weren't even thinking about where we get to the racetrack that day or the day before, and they're like, hey, you know, you still got a shot to win the state championship and um you have to finish third or better. So we're like, okay, no pressure, you know, no pressure, we gotta finish third or better. And we've always ran really, very, very good up there, you know? So I've told all our guys, I was like, look, we just, you know, we got to keep doing what we've always done, Nothing changes. It's it's it's another race pretty much. But yeah, we took off man and I think we qualified like fifth, you know, not our best starting position and we ran there for a majority of the race and kind of ease our way up, you know, still in the back of my head, got to finish third or better. So, if I could just ride third or second, you know, I'm good with that. So we get up, get up to second and he's probably, I don't know, probably 8 to 10 car lengths ahead of me, you know, and I was just gonna settle right there, settle in second, you know, that will lock up the state championship and with, like, 10 laps to go. It's like, you know, I kind of move my line a little bit on the racetrack and started picking up speed because my dad always calls out lap times, you know, while we're racing and uh I moved moved my line a little bit and like we picked up the 10th and I was like, well dang, you know, I kept hitting that line and we kept gaining on him, 1/10 the 10th, the 10th, and before you know it, with two laps to go, I'm on his bumper and uh we take the white flag and um he slips come up off the two and I got up under him and we come to the line and I had him by like a car length man, I mean, it was it all happened so fast that honestly, I didn't, I didn't realize what had happened because I mean, we had run him down so quick and got by him and it was like, man, you know, and I had told dad on the radio, you know, before that, because we had had a caution with like 15, 16 to go, and I was like, look, you know, I don't, me and him kind of had some front ends earlier in the year, you know, we kind of got into each other and that's the last thing I want, right? Yeah, I didn't want to give him the opportunity for anything like that to happen, you know, So I was like, I'm just gonna stay back and you know, if he wins, he wins, I just want to stay out of trouble, you know? So like I said, we take off and and he gets out ahead and then all of a sudden we run him down and I'm like, well, I mean I'm so much faster, I can't just sit here, we only got one lap to go, so I'm gonna go for it. And we just did beat him. It was just a storybook ending to an awesome year man, It really was.