Donald McIntosh
Donald McIntosh only sat in the Blount Motorsports car for the first time last September during the World 100 weekend at Eldora Speedway. In that relatively short span, the Dawsonville, GA driver has earned five feature victories in a variety of series, including wins this past Friday and Saturday in his home state. Also, the 22-year-old just added the Ray Cook promoted Spring Nationals Series championship to his resume this year.
So did the young hot shoe expect this much success so soon?
“Until last night, it didn’t even really sink in,” McIntosh recently said of his Spring Nationals title in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We went into the weekend wanting to just have the best weekend we could have. We didn’t really think a points battle was even in the question as far behind as we were. Man, it is just too awesome.”
The driver was very quick to point out that the success enjoyed by the No. 7 team in their eight months together is not his alone. That was particularly true of their efforts this past weekend in their triumphs at Boyd’s Speedway on Friday and Dixie Speedway on Saturday. Those results combined with a fourth place finish at Rome Speedway on Saturday allowed the BMS organization to erase a deficit in the standings and go on to win the Spring Nationals title.
McIntosh talking with BMS crew chief David Bryant.
“I can’t say enough about what David Bryant and B.J. Hillman did this weekend,” McIntosh declared. “We all work together and made really great calls starting at Boyd’s, everything we did just kept getting better and better. Then we just built on that at Dixie. We were just a little bit off at Rome but we still ended up with a fourth there. It was one of those weekends that would be very hard to top, to come from behind in the points by getting two wins and a top-5 is just surreal and awesome.”
Although McIntosh had shown flashes that the potential for success was there, particularly when he finished third in the 2014 Spring Nationals then backed that up with a fifth place effort in the Southern Nationals last summer, it would have been difficult for anyone to have predicted this level of success for the pairing so soon.
Even McIntosh did not fully expect what has happened in such a short period of time.
“I don’t know how I could have thought that,” he declared of his team’s good fortune. “Me and David have just jelled. It’s a team sport more than people realize, it takes everybody being on board. He’s figured out what I want to feel. We can go back and forth as far as making changes, but he understands what I’m saying and what I want the car to do, and he’s able to give that to me.”
Donald McIntosh in the Blount Motorsports Rocket
In view of their recent triumphs, McIntosh feels as if his team is riding a wave of confidence which offers the possibility for even more positive results.
“It gives all of us confidence,” McIntosh said of their eventful weekend in Georgia. “Even in our down times when we’ve had bad races, we’ve kept confidence in each other. I know they’re always doing their best and I think they feel like I’m doing my best. If you don’t have the confidence that the people you’re working with are giving you 100%, it’s not going to be a real good team effort. But right now, we’ve all got 100% confidence that we’re doing everything to the best of our abilities and it’s really coming together.”
And after winning a heat race and starting from the pole when the World of Outlaws Late Models paid a visit to the Tazewell Speedway, McIntosh and BMS feel as if they have an opportunity to make headlines this Friday night when the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series comes calling to ‘The Bad Fast Taz’.
“I feel like if everything goes right, if luck is on our side, we can have a real good night there,” McIntosh declared. “I’m looking forward to it. My goal for this Tazewell race is that I am going to finish this race. I am bound and determined that we’re not going to have any problems and we’re going to get a finish because I’ve been there three times and have yet to get a finish.”
Recent history has shown that the national touring drivers can be beaten by the local guys at Tazewell. Knoxville’s Billy Ogle, Jr. passed Josh Richards on the last lap to secure the win when the WoO Late Models hit the high banks back in April.
