Logan Roberson and crew celebrate a win from earlier in the season in Bulls Gap
When Logan Roberson took the checkered flag at the end of the Crate Late Model Nationals on Saturday night at the Volunteer Speedway he scored the biggest win of his racing career. The Waynesboro, VA driver pocketed $3,000 from the Mitch and Tanya McCarter owned facility located in Bulls Gap, Tenn. The victory put a cap on what has been a highly successful season.
“It’s been pretty good,” Roberson said in a telephone interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We’re about to finish up the season here with one race left. We’ve got 19 wins and we won the RUSH National Weekly Racing Series championship. We’ve had a good season and it’s been fun. I can’t wait for next year.”
All that success came about because of the efforts of a relatively small crew. Roberson, who works as a mechanic for the City of Waynesboro, has a full-time job which forces him to spent late nights working in his shop after having spent the daytime hours in the city garage. His father also has a full-time job. But together, the two men work to thoroughly prepare and maintain the Rocket Chassis race car Logan will drive each weekend.
“Me and my team, me and my dad and whoever helps us at the shop, we try not to leave the house unless our program is 100%,” Roberson declared. “We make sure that everything is aligned before we get there. We planned a lot this year to be able to race out of state a lot and I think everything just fell into place with our sponsors and all the work we put into it. We got a lot of help from Rocket Chassis and Integra Shocks.”
This was the first time in his relatively short driving career that Roberson has ventured away from his home area extensively.
“We’ve almost run 70 races this year,” the 20-year-old racer explained. “Last year we ventured out some but not nearly as much as this year.”
Logan Roberson in his No. 17 Rocket Chassis
So what has all this travel and racing brought about?
“It honestly changes your lifestyle,” the young driver insisted. “All I know how to do is race and work. Usually the car has to be done on Thursday so that we can load up and be ready to leave on Friday when me and my dad get off work. We have a very short crew with just me and him and a few other guys who help sometimes. We’ve really got to be prepared. As a driver you have to adapt to different places. It takes a lot, for sure. You’ve got to be able to adapt and take information when you can get it. This year has changed my racing career a lot.”
Roberson believes that he and his team have made drastic improvements as a result of their increased race and travel schedule in 2017. The added experience of racing in new places and against different drivers has steepened his learning curve. Also, help from outside sources has also benefitted his efforts.
“I think my program really picked up when I switched to Rocket and Integra,” Roberson declared. “I feel like branching out in racing made me more versatile. I believe racing in other places and against other people and learning from their driving styles has helped. I’ve also had to get used to running other surfaces and the tires. It’s made me a whole lot better racer for what I want to do in my career.”
Like many, Roberson would like to someday be a full-time racer. And that is a goal the Crate Late Model ace believes he has within his reach with the right help.
“I would eventually like to be able to do something in racing for my living. With the right sponsors and the right circumstances it could come true.”
As of now, the Virginia native plans to continue racing next season in much the same way he has during the 2017 campaign.
“I think we’ll do a lot of the same thing but we’ll maybe do a little more branching out,” Roberson explained. “I was looking toward the Nesmith Series but I would have to find more sponsors and some more help to get that going. For now, we’re just going to continue racing regionally and hitting bigger shows in our area.”
And one of the places Roberson and his team plan to visit in the future will be the Volunteer Speedway, a place where he scored the biggest win of his career.
“I really like that place,” he declared. “It’s fun. Mitch and them have put together a great place to race. It kind of fell into my hands. We had a good qualifying time and started on the outside in my heat race and won it. Then we started on the outside of Cory(Hedgecock) in the feature. I think the outside is where you wanted to be.
“That’s one of my biggest career wins. I’ve won some $2,000 and some $1,500 races but that was my highest paying race.
