Jason Manley from earlier when he carried a white paint scheme.
Jason Manley ended the 2015 season on a high note as he found the winning groove on the tracks around east Tennessee. And this past weekend in the Limited Late Model portion of the Ice Bowl at Talladega Short Track, the Loudon, Tenn. driver showed that he doesn’t necessarily have to be close to home to find his way to Victory Lane. The driver of the No. 32 CVR Race Car left the state of Alabama on Sunday with the $2,500 first prize for his win in that class in the prestigious event.
Manley felt good about his chances in Talladega almost immediately as everything seemed to fall into place right from the start of the weekend.
“We went down there and drew ‘9’ out of a hundred pills, which is a good draw,” Manley explained in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We unloaded on Friday and were two-tenths faster than anybody in our first practice out and had the fastest time in the Limited Late Models overall. We just decided to roll it up in the trailer and not even do anything with it because we were fast right out of the box.”
However, the team was unable to show its strength on Saturday as most of the night’s scheduled activities were washed out by Mother Nature.
“We ran our hot lap session on Saturday then lined up to run our heat race and it came a downpour so they called the show off for the rest of the evening,” the 32-year-old driver pointed out. “We didn’t get to do anything else again until about 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, which is when we got to finally run our heat race. We started on the pole for it and won the heat race by about a straightaway. That put us starting fourth in the feature.”
Manley flexed his muscle right away when the green flag flew on the main event for the Limited Late Models. He moved forward from his second row starting spot right away and began looking for the top spot. However, others were also determined to get the win so the No. 32 had to fight for it all the way to the end.
“We started the feature and immediately got to third place because the inside guy spun the tires on the start,” Manley said. “After about three or four laps, I moved into second. It was a two or three lane race track and you could race just about anywhere because we were the first feature out and there was no rubber laid down, it was just slick. Me and the guy who I had just passed for second split the leader to go three-wide for the lead. Then me and the 87(Chris Finnell) car raced door-to-door for the next 20 laps or so until I ended up beating him by a car length or so. It was really an intense race.”
Manley wasn’t certain he had the win until the white flag waved over the field.
“The last lap is the only lap that I confidently led by myself,” he declared.
Jason Manley in the Talladega Short Track victory lane
The winner of six feature events around east Tennessee in 2015 believes the level of competition in this area helped him to succeed away from home.
“Around here, it means a lot to have success because you’ve got guys like Cory Hedgecock, Jason Cardwell, you’ve got Ruben Mayfield down at I-75,” Manley stated. “Those guys are tough race car drivers and tough teams, and there’s more than that, I’m just using them as examples. It’s very competitive around here and there are a lot of guys who are hard to beat. So to race around here and then go down there and have success out of town is very pleasing for our race team. We’ve really worked hard the last six months and made some long strides toward being more successful than we have been. We tested at I-75 and found some things and since we did that, we’ve really been fast.”
Manley also believes his chassis builder and employer at CVR Race Cars has played a major role in his recent improvement on the track.
“Chip Vineyard deserves a lot of credit because he has helped me get in the ballpark right out of the gate when we unload the car,” the driver said. “He’s very smart and he’s been to a lot of places so he always knows a good neutral place to start from.”
Based on last year’s success and the early victory in 2016, Manley thinks he and his team are in great shape for a banner season.
“We’re coming off the best season we’ve ever had and this right now is the best start we’ve ever had. I feel like that momentum and that confidence is going to roll right into the next few races we have. We’ve really worked hard to get to where we are right now and I feel like it’s all paying off.”
