Shane Clanton
Shane Clanton came out of the Georgia/Florida Speedweeks segment of the World of Outlaws Late Models schedule just about as hot as a driver could possibly be. The Zebulon, Georgia pilot picked up one feature win at Screven Motor Speedway then reeled off three consecutive victories at Volusia Speedway Park a week later. That’s not to mention an UMP Late Models win he also posted along the way.
As a matter of fact, just about the only thing that has impeded Clanton’s progress this season has been the weather as every WoO Late Models race scheduled since the series left Florida has fallen victim to Mother Nature.
Now Clanton hopes to resume his winning ways when the World of Outlaws make a two race run through Tennessee this weekend. The tour will make its way to Duck River Raceway Park in Wheel on Friday night(April 10) and then roll into the Tazewell Speedway on Saturday evening(April 11).
“It takes a lot of hard work to do what we’ve done and we’re trying not to let that get away from us,” Clanton declared in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We’re still working every day just trying to save enough equipment to go out and run the World of Outlaws, but on the other hand, try to race as much as we can.”
The 2012 Dirt Late Model Dream winner has shown speed at Duck River in the recent past.
“We feel real good about Duck River,” Clanton proclaimed. “This race last year we set a track record but then it rained out. We came back and still got the pole but we didn’t have a good race setup at the time. Hopefully we can duplicate the qualifying effort and then race better. That’s where we struggled the most last year was in the races. Hopefully this year we’ve got that worked out so we can contend for wins.”
Both Duck River and Tazewell are tight, high banked facilities. And both differ drastically from the track on which Clanton scored multiple wins early in the season.
“Volusia has big wide sweeping corners so it takes a different driving style and a different setup,” the driver explained of the differences between these upcoming tracks compared to the facility located near Daytona Beach. “We ran second at Tazewell last year in this race so we’ve got those notes we can fall back on. We can build off of that and get one more spot. At Duck River, I’ve always run good there and we just need to capitalize on our good runs we’ve had so far.”
After the run at Duck River, the series will move to one of the most unique race tracks in America. Tazewell Speedway’s extremely steep banking provides for high speeds and numerous pitfalls.
“Bulls Gap is probably the only place that’s somewhat similar,” Clanton said of the upper east Tennessee track. “Tazewell is an animal all its own. You’ve got to be tight enough to be aggressive and yet still turning as you leave the corner because it’s got so much banking to it. So it takes a different setup to run that place and hopefully we can do the right things.”
Shane Clanton
Four years ago, Clanton combined his efforts with Marshall Greene at Capital Race Cars in hopes of creating a chassis that would contend for wins and championships.
“Me and Marshall built them back in 2011 and we struggled in ’11,” Clanton said. “Then we got good in ’12 and ’13. We had some growing pains in ’14 trying to find a good balance, but we’ve worked hard enough over the winter that we’ve got the balance so we can hopefully produce more wins.
“More wins will bring more customers and more customers will bring more wins,” Clanton added. “We want to get on top and stay there, but it’s hard. It’s not like building these cars is easy. It’s a struggle everyday trying to keep the balance of building cars and going fast.”
Clanton pointed out that success on the race track doesn’t happen by accident.
“It’s a lot of 60 and 70 and 80 hour weeks versus just a 40 hour week. Sometimes it’s sun up to sun down you’re working on cars trying to put them back together after you’ve crashed or something. But just getting prepared, it takes a lot of hours. It’s not like it’s just a couple of hours a day you go work on your race car and have fun. It takes a full-time effort of not just one or two but sometimes three or four people to keep it going.”
The driver of car No. 25 hopes all of that work in the shop will translate into wins on the tracks of Tennessee this weekend.
