October 15, 2004 Jay Middleton Looking Forward To Lakeland By Jack Smith Middleton in Winners Circle earlier this year. The field is starting to shape up to be one of the best events of the year for the Annual Florida State Championship Super Late Model 200 at USA International Speedway on Saturday night. One of the younger drivers looking for good things to happen is Jay Middleton, fresh off his best performance of the year on the American Speed Association tour. Middleton finished third at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Thursday evening. When asked about racing on the superspeedways, he said "We raced at Kentucky Speedway twice this year already and I love these those, I feel like it is my calling, I feel real comfortable out there". Middleton had qualified 10th in the field with a 161.619 average around the 1.5 mile speedway and once he got used to the drafting, moved to the front. "It was a good race, we were actually running 3/4 of a second faster in the race than we were in qualifying, because of the draft. In practice I was running about 6100 rpm, the rev limiter is 6500, and during the race I hit the rev limiter about 3/4 of the way from the backstretch all the way down to the middle of the corner. We asked Middleton to describe his first time experience on the famous speedway, and he had this to say: "Oh man that track is so rough, it is so bumpy out there, you get some pretty good g-forces right in the middle of turns one and two. I think one and two is where you feel it the most, 'cause we are flat out all the way around the track. The biggest problem is the lapped traffic........we started lapping cars on lap 4. There was so many slow cars out there and they wouldn't get out of the way, we would run up on them so fast, that it was hard to get out of your own way when you are going that fast." Twenty year old Middleton, a relative newcomer to the sport, was the 2003 Florida Pro Champion and runner-up to Sunbelt Super Late Model Champion Wayne Anderson, surprised some folks with his ASA performances in his rookie season. He only missed qualifying in one race, which was at Lanier Speedway the second race of the year, but came back and won the pole at the next race at the 1.5 mile Kentucky Speedway. Lakeland this Saturday may provide some challenges for Middleton and the crew of the number 74. "We haven't been running a lot of late models this year, and there have been a few advancements on the motor programs for a lot of these teams." But the ever positive Middleton concluded "we may be a little behind on our motor, but hopefully with 200 laps it won't matter that much, we will go out there and rock and save our tires and everything." Veteran Mike Garvey ASA front runner has to change engines in his car to prepare for Lakeland but is expected to make the race. ARCA and Hooters ProCup winner Mario Gosselin, fresh off a fairly serious altercation last weekend in the All American Challenge Series is expected to make the race also. Both Mike Cope, another ASA veteran, and brother Jimmy Cope are expected to also be in the starting grid. Grandstands will open at noon on Saturday, August 7 with practice for all divisions from 1 to 3 p.m. Qualifying for the Sunbelt Super Late Models and Penske Racing Shocks United Pro Modifieds will begin at 4 p.m. Racing starts at 7:30 p.m. Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on our Message Board! <news@karnac.org>or send a letter to the editor!