Jensen Ford
Jensen Ford has visited dozens of victory lanes over the course of his racing career. However, his triumph this past Saturday night in the Southern All Star Dirt Racing Series event at Smoky Mountain Speedway ranks among his most prized. For the 33-year-old driver, it was his first win in the Super Late Model division.
Ford points out that his car, which is a newly built TNT Race Car, has been fast all season but misfortune has gotten in the way of good finishes until Saturday night. The groundwork was originally laid last year when the driver and team began to make the switch from Crate Late Model racing to the Super Late Model class.
“Man, over the winter we worked our butts off,” Ford told InsideDirtRacing.com following his win at SMS. “We took one of our crate cars last year and ran some super races with it to kind of see what we needed to do. We built this car and at the first of the year it was brand new. It’s been fast ever since we’ve raced it. The very first time we took it on the race track was a test session at Bristol and it was quick then. We came here for that World of Outlaws race and we were good in it.”
Ford appeared to be on his way to a solid result on Friday night in a Schaeffer’s Oil Spring Nationals race at I-75 Raceway until a spin dropped him from his third position to out of contention. Prior to that, the No. 83 car had shown speed against top competition in the Karl Kustoms Bristol Dirt Nationals at Bristol Motor Speedway and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series event at Smoky Mountain Speedway. But disappointment had been the result as bad luck ended some race nights too early.
Ford was determined to see the checkered flag on Saturday night. As it worked out, he not only saw the black and white flag but was the first to cross under it.
“We’ve only finished one race this year and that was the World of Outlaws race down here so just finishing the race, that’s what I told them here,” the driver recounted. “I said, ‘I don’t care if we’re 45 laps down and last, we’re finishing this dang race’. And, we won it.”
Ford in his No. 83 TNT Race Car
Ford, whose father owns TNT Race Cars, has been encouraged by his car’s speed so far in 2021. It was just a matter of everything coming together. That happened at Smoky Mountain when he started from the pole then led all 40 laps to claim the winner’s trophy.
“We’ve had speed everywhere we’ve been,” Ford declared. “We were probably one of the fastest cars at Bristol every night, even that last night. Heck, we passed Davenport that last night(in the feature) and he wound up winning the race. We’ve got speed, we’ve had speed, but we just haven’t had the finishes to show it. I keep telling my guys that our finishes are horrible but if you go back and look at our performance speed-wise, we’re fast.”
The fact that he was able to win against solid competition like Dale McDowell, Cory Hedgecock, Ricky Weiss, Donald McIntosh, and others made the victory all the sweeter.
“That’s another thing I tell my guys. Every time we go to run a super race, we’re racing against these guys. It’s not a bunch of nobodies we’re racing against. I’m proud of our team. We’ve come a long way. Like I say, we’ve worked our butts off.”
Respond to this post on Twitter by following @RichardAllenIDR and @MichaelRMoats or by liking the InsideDirtRacing.com Facebook page.
Also, NASCAR and pavement racing fans can check out InsideCircleTrack.
