Story by: Rob Staley ~ [email protected]
Danville, VA(May 1, 2012) — The move from a tiny bandolero car to a full size limited late model machine may seem difficult to many racing observers, but young Axton, VA. driver Calvin Meadows appears to have made the transistion with ease.
Meadows surprised many in his new class with an outstanding fourth place finish ( out of 14 cars ) on opening night at Ace Speedway. “Honestly, it’s not that much of a difference between them ” , he told me a few days after that sucessful debut. The Meadows team bought the limited from multi-time Ace race winner Jimmy Rice who offered some good advice about the new ride to the rookie pilot. ” Jimmy Rice told me it’s just a big bandolero ” Meadows laughed. ” There are a few things I am new to like the clutch and shifting, but that’s not much of a problem for me anymore. Also you could run the tires on the bando for numerous races without feeling a difference , but with a limited it’s a completely different story”.
The bandolero racing where Meadows began was sanctioned by Carolina Competition Sports. Before Meadows made the commitment to run Ace fulltime in 2012 , some may have thought Meadows would transfer to the CCS limited sportsman tour .Meadow’s explained ” I have raced at many tracks before and Ace is the best and nicest track I have been to. Brad Allen is a great manager , the staff are all nice, and they all appreciate you coming there”
Meadows won several races and championships in the bandos and hopes he can match that success in his racing future with full sized cars. ” For the 2012 season, all I’m trying to do is get used to the car and try not to tear up anything. I hope to get rookie of the year and maybe win a few races along the way” he continued. ” I hope that one day I will achieve my goal of making it into the big leagues of NASCAR” .
As for his racing heroes, Calvin has some familiar names.
“Dale Earnhardt Sr.is my all-time favorite driver, but I didn’t get to see much of his racing because he died when I was young. Now I aspire to be like Kyle Busch because he is the best racer NASCAR has and I would love to race against him one day”.
Meadows got a harsh dose of reality in his second outing in a limited as he was involved in a multi-car crash on the Ace frontstretch , ending his chance for another strong finish. But if attitude and determination are any indication, this young man will be a talent we will be watching for many years to come.
Don’t pass on PASS ….
If you’re a short track fan and you haven’t been to a PASS South event, the question shouldn’t be if you’re going to go , but how many you will attend.
The series made a return to Orange County Speedway on April 21 and put on the usual outstanding show. There were four different leaders in the 150-lap contest as Ross Kenseth made the final move to the front with three laps to go. The son of NASCAR star Matt Kenseth passed the ailing car of Preston Peltier to garner his first victory in the series. Peltier was poised to take the win before a left front shock broke in the waning laps.. Peltier held on to finish third behind Kenseth and Brandon Ward. A strong field of 26 super late models took the green flag for the first of two 2012 PASS events at the three-eighths mile speedplant in Rougemont, N.C.
