Team Mopar® Driver Jerry Coons Jr. Eyes USAC Sprint Car Championship
Team Mopar driver Jerry Coons Jr. hopes to add another significant line to his already impressive résumé when the United States Auto Club (USAC) wraps up its 2008 National Sprint Car Series with a pair of West Coast events. Coons holds a slim two-point lead over defending champion Levi Jones as the tour heads to two of the best-known dirt tracks in America: Southern California's Perris Auto Speedway, where the USAC contingent makes a three-night stop on Oct. 30–Nov. 1, and the Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix, which hosts a Nov. 7–8 doubleheader.
Already a two-time champ in USAC's Mopar Midget National Championship division, Coons hopes to win his first Sprint Car title in his initial attempt at running the complete series schedule. A three-time Sprint winner in 2008, Coons drives for Hoffman Auto Racing, whose Mopar powerplants are built at Gaerte Engines in Rochester, Ind.
With the standings a virtual tie, the Mopar-powered Coons conceded that his fight with Jones "will probably come down to the [final] main event at Manzanita. Even if one of us has a bad night between now and then and loses 15 or 20 points, you can't say it's over, because it's just going to turn around again. I really believe it's going to come down to the wire."
Long heralded as USAC's "Thunder and Lightning" division, the National Sprint Car Series boasts a long line of famous graduates, from A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Mario Andretti and Johnny Rutherford in the 1960s to more recent racing superstars like Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and J.J. Yeley. In 2008, the series schedule includes 34 dates at dirt and asphalt tracks from coast to coast. For more info on the USAC National Sprint Car Series, visit http://www.usacracing.com.
