Late model driver Zack Mitchell set fast time for March Madness. Then, he hit the wall on the next lap at Cherokee Speedway. Amazingly, Mitchell recovered to win his heat race and the 50-lap feature.
“I owe everything to my team of three,” Mitchell, of Enoree, South Carolina, said. “They fixed the car in 15 minutes, and I made my heat on time.
“After setting fast time, I bottomed out going into Turn 1 — that shoved me up the track into the soft stuff and right into the wall.”
Though Mitchell had a spare car, he preferred to repair the car he qualified in. Switching to the backup would have sent him to the rear of his heat race. So, full-time crew members Dwayne Frady and Tim Brock, and Mitchell’s father, Todd, went to work right after qualifying. They knocked the bent spoiler back into shape and replaced components on the right front of Mitchell’s Longhorn chassis.
“We didn’t know if we bent anything in the suspension, so we changed everything just in case,” said Mitchell. “We got in the lineup for the third heat with not a minute to spare.”
While the crash damaged his car, Mitchell was not hurt. He credited his The Joie of Seating full-containment seat, Simpson five-point harness, Bell RS7 helmet and Simpson Hybrid head-and-neck restraint.
After winning his heat race, Mitchell started second in the feature and quickly jumped into the lead to set the pace of the feature.
“Layton Sullivan was on my tail for the first 15 laps, and then suddenly dropped out,” Mitchell said. “I had to work for the win — Joseph Joiner gave me a hard time for the final 15 laps.”
Zack Mitchell races full-time for Coltman Farms Racing. Prior to racing Cherokee on Sunday, he competed in two Schaeffer’s Oil Spring Nationals events. Mitchell finished 11th on Friday at Swainsboro Raceway and eight at Senoia Raceway on Saturday. The win at Cherokee was his first this year.
“It sets the tone for a hopefully great season,” said Mitchell.
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.
