ROBERSONVILLE, NC :: Louis White scored his 12th win of the season at East Carolina Motor Speedway on Saturday evening in the Ronnie Barnette Memorial in dominant fashion, leading every single lap. The victory capped off what has been a dominant season for the veteran racer.
White’s victory came after he and his team had to change a transmission after practicing on Friday ahead of the race.
“We went Friday night and tested and broke a transmission so we had to bring the car and pull the transmission from my Late Model,” White explained. “The car was real good first practice. That track likes cold weather and when it gets cold like it was this weekend, the speeds pick up. We qualified in the 15.40s. That’s about the fastest time I’ve seen this year in a Limited.”
White qualified on the pole and held off several challenges to score the victory.
“I had a couple challenges,” White said. “We had four or five cautions. I thought one guy would get by me at the end of the race until the tire pressures picked up. Once the tire pressures picked up, the car handled better and we had it them.”
Prior to Saturday’s race, White had scored 11 victories en route to the track championship in the Limited Late Model division at East Carolina Motor Speedway, his fourth championship of any kind.
“I won the track championship there in 1990 and to be racing still in 2014 and to be able to win the championship again after all these years meant a lot to me,” White said. “We haven’t run for the championship a lot. We just kind of run here and there.”
The season was dominant for White. He won all but four races in the Limited Late Model division at East Carolina. The only other drivers who scored victories were Bradley McCaskill and Rusty Daniels.
“I let Bradley McCaskill drive my other car one weekend and he won races and beat me twice that weekend but I beat him twice so we’re still even by now but other than that, first race of the year, I was leading with five laps to go and Rusty Daniels slipped by me. Other than that, it was one of the best seasons I’ve ever had.”
White, who turned 56 on October 8th, has been racing for over three decades. He got his start at Dixieland Speedway in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. After that, he started running at Wilson County Speedway and Elm City. Those were all dirt tracks. He made the transition to asphalt in 1990 when East Carolina opened up and has been racing on asphalt ever since at East Carolina as well as at Wake County Speedway, Orange County Speedway, Dillon Motor Speedway, Florence Motor Speedway, Myrtle Beach Speedway and Volusia Speedway Park when it was asphalt, among other tracks.
“I remember going to the track back in the day and they had older guys running then and I thought they were old men,” White reminisced. “Now, I’m their age.”
White isn’t planning on slowing down anytime soon either. He plans to head out to Orange County Speedway this upcoming weekend, Caraway Speedway the weekend after that and also plans to enter the Southeast Limited Late Model Series race at Myrtle Beach Speedway in November as well as the Limited Late Model race in the Thanksgiving Classic at Southern National Motorsports Park.
