Zach Henshaw will compete in his final race before serving our country as part of the Air Force at Southern National Motorsports Park as part of this weekend’s Thanksgiving Classic. Henshaw will be taking while he is serving to save up in hopes of coming back in four years.
Henshaw says the decision to join the Air Force came after he graduated from school for HVAC, Henshaw later discovered that wasn’t the path he wanted to follow which led to him taking the ASVAB military entrance exam and scoring highly on it.
Henshaw has a plan, saying “I heard good things about my job field I think it’ll be a nice change and that way I can save up money to update my car with nicer stuff.” Henshaw will miss racing but acknowledges that money problem may have been something that kept him from always running up front.
“Sometimes it’s disappointing racing against guys with nothing but money, I do what I can to make ends meet just to make another race,” Henshaw said. “I’m happy with a top ten finish and some of these guys are disappointed they didn’t finish in the top three. Everyone can’t be a winner and that’s the problem with racing it’s going downhill, people aren’t motivated to race against people with so much money and that’s part of my thing.
“I love racing but it’s almost disappointing to go out there and run. I’m hoping the time I’m in the Air Force and the money I save up to update the car we can be a competitor every week when I come back.”
With this much time, away, some may be worried the love for racing could fade as life opens more doors for Henshaw but Zach knows he will be back.
“After I serve the country for four years, I’ll be coming back to late model racing at my home track Carteret County Speedway.”
Despite his bad luck, the last few times at Southern National, Henshaw has immense faith that he can go out with a very loud bang this weekend, he has Chris Burns setting the car up and helping him out. Burns has some good experience, winning three times at Carteret County Speedway this season.
“Chris helped me get all the bugs out of my car and we have been friends for a long time,” Henshaw remarked. “He’s the one who got me into late model racing I run out of their shop Chris is smart and knows a lot about these cars.”
Henshaw and his aforementioned luck have already visited Southern National once this year, it didn’t go his way as he got caught up in a wreck and destroyed brand suspension. Burns has the car nice, new and competitive.
“Chris basically put new, highly competitive equipment on my car and we spent a couple of nights getting it right, without a doubt, we should be a competitive contender on Saturday night.”
With a four-year break between races for Henshaw, he says he will be going all out to win at Southern National.
“The car is going to sit for 4 years so I’m going all out if we got to tear the doors off and fenders to get to the front so be it.”
Henshaw is not the type of racer to trash someone else’s car just so that he can win, he says he will be mindful of the cars around him if they are faster he will wave them by but he really wants to go out with a bang.
“We want to race every one clean,” Henshaw explained. “I have never intentionally spun anyone out, if someone is faster than me I’ll wave them by but why race someone who has a good running car and you have an off race car that night. I’m confident in the car and setup and we’re going to go for a top three and a win if possible.”
Henshaw may already be a winner, going to serve the country he loves and the country that affords him the opportunity to race wherever he wants. Regardless of the outcome at Southern National this weekend, Zach Henshaw will be a force to reckoned with after his service is over.
