NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chief Matt McCall is teaming up with long-time car owner Wendell Davis to compete in Sunday’s Jerry Moody Memorial at Southern National Motorsports Park in Lucama, North Carolina.
McCall, 33, from Denver, North Carolina won a UARA championship racing for Jerry Moody in a car Wendell Davis, 48, from Seven Springs, North Carolina helped prepare. Together, McCall, Davis and the late Jerry Moody had a lot of success – with a good portion of that success coming at Southern National.
“I think it’s pretty cool to do this race at Southern National, a lot of history here with him and the racetrack,” McCall said. “A lot of wins, so pretty cool to fire off with a win for his memorial race.”
Because of his commitments in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, now as a crew-chief for 2010 Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, McCall does not get to race often. His last race as a driver in a Late Model Stock Car was on July 19, 2014, a race at Southern National which he won.
Is McCall the favorite to win because of his experience?
“I don’t know about favorite since I run once or twice a year but I feel like we can win,” McCall stated. “The car’s pretty good. We made a couple laps today and feel pretty good about it. Car’s driving pretty good so we’ll see how it feels on Sunday. Fortunately, I’ve done this for a long time so it’s pretty easy to get back in the rhythm most of the time.”
McCall said if he can’t win, he’d like to see Jerry Moody’s 20-year-old daughter Haley, from Kinston, North Carolina, score the victory.
“If we can’t win, we’ll let Haley win it then I guess.”
Davis owns several cars that compete at Southern National and at other venues, including cars raced by Michael Fose, Chris Chapman and Gerald Benton. This weekend, however, all his efforts are behind McCall.
“This weekend, Matt doesn’t get to run much, everybody’s really going to support Matt,” Davis said. “We won one last year. Me, him and Jerry, I was in on that. We had a lot of good luck all three of us together.”
Davis is excited that Southern National is honoring Jerry Moody’s life and legacy with the race on Sunday.
“This is really special,” Davis remarked. “I’m glad to see them do something for Jerry. He helped a lot of good people. He was a good man. Jerry was first class. I learned a lot from him. Just a good person. You won’t find anybody like him, total package.”
McCall said he is still close with the Moody family and he’s looking forward to getting the chance to race
“The Moody family is an awesome family,” McCall observed. “Jerry’s instilled a lot of great values in Haley and it will be pretty cool to get to race against her. That’s going to be a unique opportunity. Our schedule now, it’s kind of hard to do that so that’s going to be pretty cool.”
The Inaugural Jerry Moody Memorial will be run on Sunday, April 26th.
