Sportsman racer Chris Jakubiak traveled to Accord Speedway for the first time, for the season-ending The Gobbler. He brought a car that had seen better days. Nevertheless, he visited victory lane with it.
“My car’s steering box was clicking, the transmission was wheezing, and the frame was mangled beyond repair,” Jakubiak, of Ballston Spa, New York, said. “Everything on the car was bent. I couldn’t put a straight part on it, it was so bent up.”
Jakubiak started second in the feature at Accord Speedway and trailed race leader Joe Judge for 29 laps of the 30-lap feature.
“I could see him, but I couldn’t gain on him,” said Jakubiak. “I had no speed in the corners, but great drive coming out of them.”
On the last lap, Lady Luck smiled upon Jakubiak.
“Suddenly there was a pile of lappers in the middle of the track,” Jakubiak said.” Judge got into the pile, I ducked under him and avoided the carnage.”
Jakubiak credited his success Derrick McGrew, the senior and the junior, whom he raced with at Jakubiak’s home track of Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta, New York.
“Junior won at Accord when the Short Track Super Series was there earlier in the year,” said Jakubiak. “Senior used to be a regular at Accord Speedway. When we got to Accord, he put a tune on the old car and told me, ‘You’ll be good to go out and drive this thing to the front.’”
The victory lap around Accord Speedway may be the swan song for the chassis. Chris Jakubiak has picked up a new Bicknell chassis.
“Unfortunately, the frame is too far gone,” Jakubiak said. “I’ll take all the parts off of it, service them, and hang them up in the shop. Some of the guys said cut the front of the frame off and make it into a video simulator. Why do that? I don’t need a race simulator — I have the real thing.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
