Jimmy Anderson Jr. might be the most consistent race car driver in the Golden Triangle this season.
He leads the 602 Late Model points race at Columbus Speedway. He has finished fourth or better in four of the seven races at the track this season. He has done it without a feature win or a runner-up finish.
Anderson Jr., who has raced Street Stocks and Late Models for the past four years, is still looking for his first career win. He’ll be OK if he doesn’t earn a win the rest of this season because he has been locked in on the Columbus Speedway points title since the beginning of the season.
“I’ve had some top threes, top fours,” he said. “I’m knocking on the back door of the guys who’ve been doing this a bit longer and have a bit more money and resources to put into it. I told my dad, after last year, ‘I want to win the points, no matter what it takes.’ ”
Anderson will have to hold off — among others — his father, Jimmy Anderson, who led through much of the season before falling back to fourth after missing a race. Anderson Jr. holds a 124-point lead over Jonathan Pridmore with four races remaining.
Anderson Jr. will begin the final stretch Saturday at Columbus Speedway, where 602 Late Models, Limited/Crate Late Models, and Street Stocks will have feature shows and the Kajun Mini Sprint Association will have a $1,000-to-win feature for double series points. Hot laps will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Though eager to earn his first win, Anderson Jr. is relieved to be over the bad luck that haunted him for much of the two years he spent racing Street Stocks.
“I couldn’t buy a good enough quality parts to stay out from underneath that car,” Anderson Jr. said. “I went through motors, transmissions, rear ends. I had the opportunity to get this late model — a guy made an even trade with me — and I about couldn’t get it tuned quick enough.”
Prior to the 2014 season, Anderson Sr., who had been out of racing since 2006, decided to return to the track. They father-son duo purchased another Street Stock car, but in the first race they entered it at Columbus, Anderson Sr. flipped it six times after smacking the wall.
“I packed the track for him that night and I told him, ‘Something doesn’t feel right,’ ” Anderson Jr. said. “He went out there, ran it, and the rear end wasn’t right. First night on the track, totaled it.”
That wreck was the first step in father and son’s transition to Late Models. Jimmy Anderson Jr.’s younger brother, Adam, found a bare-bones Late Model car for $800.
“My dad said, ‘Before I die, I’m gonna drive one,’ ” Anderson, Jr. said. “We started building his car. I still had the Street Stock car at the time, and I had a guy who wanted to do an even trade. I thought, ‘Why not get one, too?’ ”
The result has been father-son time that started when Anderson Sr. raced go-karts and his son would help work on the car and go to races. They never had the chance to race against one another until last season.
“We work together on the two cars, and we swap out parts and tires and stuff,” Anderson Jr. said. “I like racing with my dad. He’ll come off the track with a big smile, like ‘I about got you, I was all over you.’ ”
While Anderson Jr. is finding consistency in Late Models, his first experiences inside the car weren’t good. He wasn’t sure how to set up the car. Plenty of people gave him tips during his first practice session at Columbus, but none of it worked. In fact, the car began to handle worse. That’s when Hunter Carroll, a late model driver Anderson Jr. knew from his high school days, approached him, jokingly, Anderson, Jr. said.
“He wasn’t practicing or racing (and) said, ‘I want to drive that car,’ ” Anderson, Jr. said. “I said, ‘Here, have at it.’ He wasn’t expecting it. He asked what percentages are here and there, but I didn’t know. Someone else set up the car and I was just driving it. He said, ‘Can you bring it to my house? Let me set it up.’ It stayed over there for three or four days. We changed every piece of that car, front to back. We took it back out to the track, and he told me to take it easy … and I went out there and ran the heck out of it and ran up front.
“Now I’m over there all the time, helping work on his car or mine. I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for Hunter, his brother, and his dad.”
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