Jason Welshan
Fans of dirt racing around the east Tennessee region may have noticed that they haven’t seen Jason Welshan on the area tracks all that often in 2017. It’s not that the Maryville, Tenn. driver isn’t racing as often as he did in the past. Instead, it’s that the many time feature winner has opted to hit the road in favor of racing on new tracks and against new competition.
Welshan currently sits third in the Ultimate Super Late Model Series standings behind Jonathan Davenport and Tyler Millwood. The southeastern based tour races in Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. The USLMS pays $20,000 to its season long champion.
The decision to hit the road and take on a touring series schedule is not an easy one, no matter what the payout might be. But the driver who has won in Super, Crate and Limited Late Model competition across this area decided to go for it earlier this season.
“Well, I got rid of all my crate stuff and picked up a new sponsor in Budget Transmissions and they wanted to get into racing,” Welshan explained in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “In North Georgia in that first race we set fast time with the Ultimate Series and ran second to Brandon Overton there. After running second that night we felt like we’d give it about a four race opportunity and see where we were after that. Well, after four races I had narrowed the gap up on Jonathan so we decided to hang in there.”
Further, Welshan was just ready for a change of scenery.
“It’s just something different,” the 38-year-old competitor pointed out. “I hadn’t got to race with a lot of Super Late Model guys other than when we raced with the Ray Cook series and I just wanted to see some new faces. I love the sport and I love meeting new people. I went to race tracks in the Carolinas, because this series races a lot in the Carolinas, that I had never got to go to before. It’s different from what I learned how to race on. The tracks over there are nothing like what’s in east Tennessee.”
As a result of racing in new places, the veteran driver has had to change his style. But he has enjoyed the challenge. And he has enjoyed learning from others who have experienced success at those places.
“It has been different for us,” Welshan declared. “I’ve not raced on a lot of the sandy, wheel spinning type of race tracks and it’s been different. I’ve been trying to maintain the wheel spin but that just don’t seem like it’s the fastest way around those Carolina race tracks. And we’ve been adjusting. Rambo Franklin, Tyler Millwood and Chris Ferguson have been helping us out and giving us a little information. We’ve struggled at times and we’ve run decent at times.”
Welshan shown here after winning a race at 411 this past February
And there is much more involved in taking on a touring series than just learning new tracks. Travelling to facilities further away from home causes a team to have to hurry their preparations on the car because of the need to leave the shop a day or so earlier than what they had been used to. Also, the hauler has to be loaded with more equipment than would have been necessary for Welshan to leave his Maryville, Tenn. garage to go to a one day show at Smoky Mountain Speedway or 411 Motor Speedway.
“We carry a lot more stuff with us now,” Welshan said. “We’ve got parts that are ready to go so if you tear something up on a Thursday or a Friday night you’ve got the parts that are ready to go for the next night. Most of the places we go with this series are roughly six hours away from my shop. We’re going to Virginia Motor Speedway this week and it’s like nine hours from the shop. You’ve really got to make sure your truck and trailer are serviced and you have good tires on the truck and trailer. And in case of breakdowns on the way, you not only carry parts for the race car but you have to make sure your rig is ready to go up and down the road. You’ve got to maintain the inventory inside the trailer. You’ve got to carry more race tires than you do for a one night show.”
Further, Welshan has to enlist the help of crew members who may be losing time on their jobs to make longer trips. But he points out that he has been fortunate in that regard during this venture.
“It helps if you’ve got guys who can go with you,” the driver said. “A lot of these guys we race against have paid employees but everybody I’ve got is volunteer help. They all pay their way into the races. It might sound tight or cheap on my end but I still have to watch my P’s and Q’s going up and down the road. I’m so fortunate to have people who will go with me and take care of stuff like that. We just don’t have it in our budget to be able to pay two employees to go with us. To compete the way we are, I’m very satisfied.”
Welshan’s No. 29
So why the Ultimate Super Late Model Series?
“It pays very well and the guys, Kelley Carlton and his group, are excellent people,” Welshan explained. “They’re fun to race with and I think they’re real fair. We’ve been wanting to do something a little different and had been wanting to Super Late Model race so we kind of changed ownership in the team and we’ve just got one car owner now, Gary Rolf out of Urbana, Ill. who owns Hidden Hollow Motorsports. He’s really big into Super Late Model racing and that’s what his heart and soul is in. Cecil Underwood of C & J Trucking supplies Clements Engines for us and we just put the deal together and decided we were going to do this.”
And Welshan proclaims that his team has not yet shown all their cards, but that is coming soon.
“We’re in the process of putting a new Longhorn by Skinny together which we should be done in the next week or so,” he revealed. “All in all, I’m really happy with where we’re at right now and where we’re headed. If we just hang in there we might be able to bring this championship home to east Tennessee.”
