Eddie Carrier, Jr.
The 2015 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season has not necessarily gone the way Eddie Carrier, Jr. was hoping it would. And coming into Friday night’s race at the Tazewell Speedway, the Salt Rock, WV driver is looking to turn things around. But admittedly, this is not exactly the location he would most like to be visiting when trying to make up ground against the other series regulars.
Carrier enters the weekend, which will also include a trip to the Florence Speedway in Kentucky on Saturday night, in the 9th spot of the series standings. After scoring two victories during the early part of the campaign in Georgia/Florida SpeedWeeks, the No. 28 Rocket Chassis posted a string of disappointing results in early May.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit,” Carrier admitted in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We’re struggling with our cars. We try to always get us a basic setup that we can use about anywhere and it seems like we’re having a hard time finding that this year. The last couple of weeks we’ve been trying to just get a grip on something, but hopefully we can figure it out here in the next few days.”
There have been some extenuating circumstances this year that have not helped Carrier and his team maintain the good rhythm they started the season with. Like every other racing series, the Lucas Oil tour had difficulties with the weather throughout the spring months which postponed or cancelled a number of events. Further, the Grover Motorsports operation has recently been in the process of moving into a new facility.
Did these interruptions impact the team’s performance?
“It seemed like after we came back from SpeedWeeks we had a couple of races there at Chillicothe and Brownstown and we were pretty decent there,” Carrier recalled. “Then we had the rain outs. I don’t know, maybe it has affected us because after Brownstown we didn’t race for a month. And we’ve been moving into a new shop so it might have thrown us in a slump or something, but we’re working on it.”
Carrier says that the high banks of the Tazewell Speedway have not really served him well in his previous visits to the east Tennessee track.
“When I go to Tazewell, I just try to come out of there as straight as possible and try to finish the race without getting torn up real bad,” the driver who finished 6th in the LOLMDS feature at Tazewell in 2014 declared.
The defending champion of the coveted North/South 100 at Florence tends to favor tracks with a bit less banking than that found in Tazewell.
“I like the flatter tracks better because it seems to make the racing better,” Carrier pointed out. “It seems like the high banked tracks are more of a momentum deal getting up on the track and letting the banking hold you. It seems like it can be a harder deal to pass on.”
Carrier hopes that his racing inventory will be the same when he leaves east Tennessee after Friday night’s activities as when he enters the Volunteer State. The equipment required to race full-time on a national touring series such as Lucas Oil is extensive. And with so many races run over the course of a season, the loss of any piece could be detrimental to a driver’s chances of placing at the top of the final standings.
“I’ve got three complete cars and we do all of our own motors in house so we try to do a lot of the motor work during the winter,” Carrier said. “Carl Grover and my dad do most of all the motor work so we have about six or seven motors lined up because during the season we really don’t have time to be doing that. And, Carl is busy with his businesses so we try to get a few motors built up to hopefully get us through the season. It usually works out pretty good.”
Carrier’s No. 28 Rocket Chassis
One disadvantage that drivers who have frames similar that of the 6’4″ Carrier is being able to see out of the car while negotiating the tight, steep turns of ‘The Bad Fast Taz’. Some drivers complain that it is hard to see very far in front of their own machines because the angle of the banking causes the driver to look up into his own roof. Carrier has taken care of that potential problem.
“I don’t think it’s an issue because when Rocket built my cars I had them to raise my roll cages up because of my height to give me a little more head room,” he explained. “Also, I’d have more head room in case it got on its lid, so it doesn’t bother me.”
According to the 44-year-old veteran driver, it isn’t necessarily the high speeds brought on by Tazewell’s banking that can cause trouble for the drivers. The evolution of the modern Dirt Late Model creates potential hazards on all tracks.
“With a lot of the places we go to, the cars are getting so fast now that you don’t have time to look at a gauge and do this or do that,” he said. “You’ve got to be totally focused on what you’re doing because if you take your eye away from the track, you get into trouble or you enter a corner wrong and get in too hot. But yeah, Tazewell is pretty quick.”
