Jesse Lowe
When most people think of riding a wave in the summer, they think of the ocean and their favorite beach. However, Jesse Lowe is riding a wave of a different sort. The Crossville, Tenn. racer is riding a wave of success into the summer months after having already piled up eleven feature wins during the early part of the season in his Crate Late Model race car.
Lowe has won so far in 2017 on a variety of tracks that include Duck River Raceway Park, Boyd’s Speedway and his hometown Crossville Speedway. His victories have come in weekly competition, special shows for the Crate Late Model class, and in touring series events such as the NeSmith Dirt Late Model Series race a couple of weeks ago at I-75 Raceway.
The 25-year-old driver attributes much of his success to the hard work put in by his team and to the winning combination he has formed with chassis builder Chip Vineyard and the engine building Hedgecock family.
“Our new car has been a big key to success for us,” Lowe declared in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We’ve got a brand new CVR Race Car and our Eagle power plant. Chip and I have come together with what I like and what he thinks will work and we’ve really just hit a sweet spot. Out of the last five races I don’t think we’ve changed one spring or anything no matter where we’ve went. It’s been really consistent and it’s easy to drive. We just try to keep things as simple as we can.”
Lowe also believes that his team’s mindset has been a key factor in the number of times they have found victory lane. That mindset has allowed them to perform well no matter what the venue and no matter who the competition might be.
“We went to Duck River and won, and we went to Boyd’s and won,” Lowe recalled. “Out of the eleven wins, six of them have been bigger paying races where the tracks are offering more money or a series race. One thing we’ve done is not really look at the competition but just racing the race track. If our car is as fast as it can be on the race track then the competition takes care of itself. A lot of people get psyched out about who they’re racing against or what track they’re on or who has the best looking trailer, but we just blow all that out and race our race against the race track. It’s helped our team tremendously.”
Like many local or regional racers, Lowe does not drive race cars for a living. That means his days are much longer than those of the average person because his racing job only begins after his regular job has been completed. And he believes those long hours have led to his success this season.
“I work a full-time job at Martel Sign Company and when we shut the doors I go home and then I’m out in the shop until 8:30 or 9:00 every single night,” Lowe said. “I have a routine that I go through and every night we try knocking the same stuff out throughout the week so that we’re not getting DNF’s or so that we don’t miss something. That way we’re fully prepared. When you’re racing weekly off the weekly money, you have to finish good.”
Lowe’s No. 5j CVR
Furthermore, winning breeds even more winning, both in the confidence level of the team and in the team’s ability to keep its equipment in good running order.
“One thing that has helped us this year is winning these races lets us keep fresh tires on the car and keep fresh parts on the motor,” Lowe explained. “We’re not lacking having the best of the best when we show up at the races. When you’re racing with competition that’s within hundredths of seconds of each other, you’ve got to have the best of the best.”
Finally Lowe would like to take his program even further in the near future, and he believes that opportunity will eventually present itself.
“We would like to do NeSmith stuff in the future. What we’re trying to do this year is just get out to as many race tracks as we can and show off our talents and show what we can do. We want to show how our team works and how we’re a faith based team that tries to present our sponsors and the people who support us in the best manner at every race track we go to. I think people are starting to pay attention and we’re starting to get a little bit of notice. With the people we have and the equipment we have, all we’re waiting on is that opportunity. It will come in due time.”
