In recent years, Langley Speedway’s five time Late Model track champion, Danny Edwards, Jr., hasn’t been the class of the field but that has changed this season and Edwards enters the Hampton Heat 200 as a potential favorite.
Throughout the past few years, for every great race there would follow races in which the veteran racer probably wished he had never shown up. Whether he was involved in some nasty frame bending wrecks, or would just miss the setup, Edwards would make no excuses on their performance on the track and it bothered him to no end. So what do you do? How do you turn everything around and get it back and headed into the right direction?
First thing that was obvious was Danny Edwards Jr’s attitude and the attitude of his very committed and dedicated race team. Last year’s Hampton Heat 200 was proof of their new beginning though it didn’t exactly start how they wanted. After starting 19th, Danny worked his way through the field and finished second in what some said Danny had the fastest car.
Going into this year’s race season, Edwards had a new car built and a fresh Junior Keen built engine ready to go. After going through some of the early pitfalls of a new race car and an early wreck in the season, Danny Edwards Racing was down in the Langley Speedway series points standings but proved to be back in somewhat form of being competitive and vowing for wins. Nowhere satisfied with just running well and capping off some decent finishes, Danny Edwards Racing kept working hard and then it all started to fall in place.
Going into this year’s Hampton Heat 200, Edwards is the winner of three straight at Langley Speedway. The surge in performance has Danny Edwards Racing currently occupying the second spot in the series points standings by a mere three points to brother Greg Edwards. While seemingly and rather obvious that Danny Edwards Jr is the hottest driver at Langley Speedway and poised at a sixth run at a track championship. The Hampton Heat 200 has eluded the long time racer and this year all that could change. We talked with Danny Edwards Jr about this great race and his chances for a win.
Given all his success at Langley Speedway, we asked if there was room in his trophy case for the hardware if he wins on Saturday night.
“Definitely. It would probably would be one of the biggest Late Model races (the Hampton Heat), I haven’t really won any big Late Model races”, explained Edwards. “ You know we won some of the bigger races way back, the 200’s, 300’s stuff like that but we’ve never really won any of the prestigious Late Model events so yeah it would be a big win for me if we can get it done.”
Next we talked about the car counts of the Hampton Heat 200, the level of competition and asked Danny how significant would it be to add his name to the list of Hampton Heat 200 winner’s page.
“Well it definitely would add a lot of credibility, we’ve raced at Langley many years and it hasn’t been until recently that people were outsiders have decided to start coming and racing with us and they have had some good success here”, shares the five time track champion. “If we can pull it off, I mean it’s a long shot for anybody. Like you said there’s going to be some big names coming in, anything can happen, it’s going to be a survival race. Obviously you need the performance, that will help but you can have the best or fastest car and not survive or win.
“So obviously you want the fastest car, everything has got to work your way, hope that you prepared your car well enough that there won’t be any failures, make good moves on the track but to answer your question, yes, it would add a tremendous amount of creditability for anyone that can come here and win this race whether they are local or an out of towner.”
The next part of our conversation deals with the fact that Danny Edwards racing has solidified itself as one of the best teams heading into the Hampton Heat winning the last three straight events. Is the momentum helpful or is it just business as usual for him and his team?
“Well I think it’s both, we worked ourselves into a position that our performance has definitely picked up over the recent weeks and that’s what we’ve been for working for all year,” says Edwards. “We had a few issues early in the season with some wrecks and some problems that kind of kept us back a little bit, kept us working a bit extra that took some time at making the car better. So I say yes it helps us emotionally, mentally that we got a little bit of momentum but I’m trying to take it as another race and do the best that we can do.
“Were going to bring our car out there, were going to run as fast as we can run and were going to do the best we can do against the competition. Hopefully, by the end of the night, we’ve done enough.”
The last thing discussed was that after last year’s second place finish and arguably having the fastest car, can Danny Edwards Jr become the sixth different winner of this year’s running of Langley Speedways Hampton Heat 200?
“I don’t know if we had the best car last year, we might have had one of the best cars that survived to the end, I don’t think we had the best car,” explains Edwards. “But, can we win it? Yeah we can win it but so can a handful of other people so we definitely feel that were in the game. I would definitely like to get me one here, I haven’t won one yet, don’t know if I have many more left in me I don’t think and so I would like to at least get one.”
Edwards has had a lustrous career at Langley Speedway in its Late Model division scoring five track championships and accumulating numerous wins along the way. Edwards has raced in all seven Hampton Heat 200s scoring several second place finishes but yet to survive and win this grand event. Perhaps the time is now for Danny Edwards Jr and I personally wouldn’t be surprised, that race team is ready to win.
