John Ownbey
John Ownbey has been a regular winner throughout 2015 on race tracks around the east Tennessee region. By his own admission the Cleveland, Tenn. driver, who has mostly competed in Crate Late Model events, is in the midst of the best season of his career after having earned numerous victories.
So what has been the key to Ownbey’s success this year?
“Over years past, the budget’s been low and we’ve had to run older cars and we’ve won some races and done good,” Ownbey said in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “But this year my cousin, Ray Cox, wanted to put a team together and we ended up buying a new Longhorn and got some help from them. That got us on the right track.”
Ownbey sings the praises of the chassis built out of the shop owned by championship NASCAR drivers Bobby and Terry Labonte.
“That car seems to be real versatile,” the driver pointed out. “We’re winning at different tracks and travelling a little bit with a few series, and I’m not used to that. We were wondering if it would be good at every track but it seems like that everywhere we go it’s not off by much. It’s just a real versatile car.”
And in more areas than the chassis has Ownbey and his team experienced an upgrade in equipment.
“We keep our tires real fresh and that’s paid off,” he declared. “I don’t know that that’s the key but the only things that are different from the past is getting a new Longhorn and keeping the tires fresher. We’ve had the best year I’ve ever had.”
John Ownbey’s No. 44 Longhorn
Ownbey and his crew have enjoyed stepping out and racing in new locales during the 2015 campaign. And those new places have produced a remarkable number of victories.
“We’re used to just running around home,” Ownbey explained. “We’re from Cleveland and we usually run there or at Boyd’s or North Georgia. This year we went to Tri-County and won a race, we went to 411 and won a race, we went to I-75 and won a race, and we went to Winchester and won a race. We’ve won at a lot of different tracks this year. I’m enjoying it big time. I’ve always wanted to go out and travel a little bit and have the motor to do it.”
As for the remainder of the season, look for the black and red No. 44 machine to make several more appearances around the area. And there might even be a few Super Late Model starts in their future.
“We’re just looking week to week. We’ve been out there enough now that we’re kind of getting a little help from different people so I’m wanting to try to get a bigger motor and try to run a few Super Late Model races. We might run at Talladega, the Gobbler at Boyd’s, and the Gobbler at Cleveland to try our hand at that and get used to working the gas pedal on one of them.”
