{"id":16145,"date":"2013-03-11T14:20:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T14:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=16145"},"modified":"2013-03-11T14:20:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T14:20:06","slug":"strong-start-has-mccreadie-anxious-to-resume-action-on-world-of-outlaws-late-model-series-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/strong-start-has-mccreadie-anxious-to-resume-action-on-world-of-outlaws-late-model-series-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong Start Has McCreadie Anxious To Resume Action On World of Outlaws Late Model Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tripleheader Weekend March 22-24 In Arkansas, Mississippi & Tennessee Next Up For National Tour<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"CONCORD, NC \u2013 March 6, 2013 \u2013 Tim McCreadie is finally home in upstate New York following a near month-long, season-opening racing odyssey in the Southeast. But as much as the 38-year-old dirt-track star relishes a break in his schedule that provides time to work on his racing equipment and hang out with his girlfriend Karen and toddler son Gavin, he\u2019s admittedly already eyeing his next trip south.<\/p>\n

McCreadie is, quite simply, feeling too bullish about the upward trajectory of his racing fortunes to sit idle. He has a smile on his face and a spring in his step as he prepares for the upcoming World of Outlaws Late Model Series tripleheader that features 50-lap, $10,000-to-win A-Mains on March 22 at I-30 Speedway in Little Rock, Ark.; March 23 at Whynot Motorsports Park in Meridian, Miss.; and March 24 at Duck River Raceway Park in Wheel, Tenn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our team is headed in a positive direction,\u201d said McCreadie, who is in his second season campaigning Warrior Chassis cars bearing the colors of Carl Myers\u2019s Sweeteners Plus Racing operation. \u201cWe\u2019re close to where we want to be and that has me excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming off a 13-race, five-track swing through Georgia, Florida and Alabama that saw McCreadie start slow but steadily pick up steam, the popular driver known as T-Mac clearly has his groove back. He\u2019s looking more like the racer who won a WoO LMS-best eight A-Mains in 2005, captured the circuit championship in \u201906 and enjoyed a mid-season 2012 run of nine straight top-five and 16 consecutive top-10 finishes than the struggling guy whose lone top-five outing over the final 15 World of Outlaws events last year came in the season finale.<\/p>\n

After kicking off 2013 with subpar finishes in the WoO LMS\u2019s season-opening doubleheader at Screven Motor Speedway in Sylvania, Ga. (29th<\/sup> on Feb. 8, 16th<\/sup> on Feb. 9) and destroying a car in a vicious practice crash during a DIRTcar UMP-sanctioned event on Feb. 10 at North Florida Speedway in Lake City, Fla., McCreadie came alive. He registered finishes of second, third and eighth during the WoO LMS Bubba Army Late Model Winter Nationals at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Fla.; scored a $10,000 DIRTcar UMP victory on Feb. 20 at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.; placed eighth (twice) and third in WoO LMS shows at Volusia; and was the runner-up in the snow-shortened \u2018Bama Bash\u2019 on March 2 at Green Valley Speedway in Glencoe, Ala.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had our best Speedweeks in a long time,\u201d said McCreadie, who ended an eight-year absence from Victory Lane at Volusia during the UNOH DIRTcar Nationals Presented by Summit Racing Equipment. \u201cWe had some off-nights \u2013 like those two nights at Screven, which put us in a hole in the (WoO LMS) points that\u2019s gonna be hard to get out of \u2013 but we kept working and trying stuff and got better and better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like we were really on to something when we lined up (in the fourth starting spot) behind Darrell Lanigan and Scott Bloomquist (in the 30-lap DIRTcar UMP A-Main on Feb. 19 at Volusia),\u201d he continued. \u201cLooking at that front row in front of us, I thought, We\u2019ve got some heat up here tonight. I\u2019ve been racing with everybody, but it\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve been together up front like that with a car that I felt was capable of beating them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up hitting the wall (while leading) and knocked myself out, but we passed them. It was fun just to race with Scott and Darrell like that \u2013 and to be able to do to them what they\u2019ve done to me the last few years. That\u2019s the kind of thing that gets me excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCreadie is confident that he can maintain his early-season success over the long haul in 2013. He does not want a repeat of \u201912, when he appeared to have his Warrior machine figured out \u2013 his nine top-five finishes in a row (including three wins) was a streak that even Lanigan didn\u2019t match during his record-setting championship season \u2013 but then fell into a frustrating slump for the remainder of the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat stretch just shows the potential of the car,\u201d McCreadie said of his more-than-fleeting flash of brilliance during his inaugural season working with Warrior\u2019s Sanford Goddard. \u201cWe started going good and we thought, O.K., we got this and it\u2019s gonna work all the time. But it didn\u2019t. It was a good stretch, but it faded away.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back, I think we know why it happened. We brought out a new car at the end of the year \u2013 just a new frame, really, not a new design or anything \u2013 and the last two nights out we were good. I think the other car we had been running had been in some pretty good wrecks and was bent, but we just kept running it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should\u2019ve gone down to Tennessee, put it on the jig and checked it,\u201d he continued. \u201cInstead, I stayed up there in my own little place \u2013 like I like to do \u2013 with just me and (teammate) Vic (Coffey) and tried to race our way out of (the slump). The problem was, I should\u2019ve realized that Sanford is here to help me and not take away from me, so sometimes you gotta put your pride away and do the right thing. If I would\u2019ve gone down there (to Goddard\u2019s shop), we probably would\u2019ve found out what was wrong and corrected the program. Well, we didn\u2019t, we raced it out, and you saw 10, 15 more races that were terrible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s me. It\u2019s nobody\u2019s else\u2019s fault \u2013 not Warrior\u2019s fault, not (engine builder) Bill Schlieper\u2019s fault, not Vic\u2019s fault, not Sweeteners. That\u2019s my call why we did that, and we learned a lesson. We gotta be part of this deal (with Warrior) a little more, and I think it\u2019s bearing fruit already this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to McCreadie, his close collaboration with Goddard will ultimately be the key to his consistent success in Warrior cars. Together they are striving to create a program that matches the well-established, streamlined teams of Lanigan and two-time WoO LMS titlist Josh Richards.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at those teams, those programs, and it\u2019s been 10 years building those programs to where in the last three, four years or so they\u2019ve really shown their promise,\u201d said McCreadie. \u201cWe\u2019re in year two of that process, with the same idea where I\u2019m working with a guy who will do anything I want to do if I can dream it up. I don\u2019t understand where that will ever be seen as a bad thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m real excited about where we\u2019re going with our deal. If we keep doing what I think we started this year, I think the sky\u2019s the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCreadie will enter the next weekend of WoO LMS action sitting fifth in the points standings, 104 points behind leader Richards. His deficit was already 82 points after the season\u2019s first two events at Screven, so he\u2019s effectively battled neck-and-neck with the four drivers ahead of him in the standings \u2013 Richards, Shane Clanton, Lanigan and Rick Eckert \u2013 over the past six races.<\/p>\n

Both McCreadie and the WoO LMS will blaze new territory with the March 22-24 tripleheader. McCreadie has never raced at I-30 Speedway, Whynot Motorsports Park and Duck River Raceway Park \u2013 and all three tracks will host the full-fender World of Outlaws tour for the first time. The event at I-30 will mark the tour\u2019s first-ever stop in Arkansas.<\/p>\n

McCreadie has never won a race in the state of Mississippi; his last appearance there was for a WoO LMS event on March 19, 2011, at Columbus Speedway. He owns an excellent track record in Tennessee, however, winning WoO LMS events at Wartburg Speedway (2010) and Clarksville Speedway (2005) and the \u201909 Scorcher at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, and he also won in front of Arkansas\u2019s fans in 2008 when he captured the Topless 100 at Batesville Speedway.<\/p>\n

For more information on the upcoming WoO LMS tripleheader, visit www.i-30speedway.com<\/a>, www.whynotmotorsportspark.com<\/a> and www.duckriverspeedway.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information on the WoO LMS, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fans can also follow the WoO LMS on Twitter at Twitter.com\/WoOLateModels <\/a>and Facebook at Facebook.com\/WorldofOutlaws <\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tripleheader Weekend March 22-24 In Arkansas, Mississippi & Tennessee Next Up For National Tour CONCORD, NC \u2013 March 6, 2013 \u2013 Tim McCreadie is finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-late-models"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16219,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions\/16219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}