Josh Hamner Gets Through The Rattler to Finish Sixth

Sometimes, you just have one of those weeks.

Thus was the case for Josh Hamner and his team this past weekend as they doubled up with a Blizzard Series Super Late Model race at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida on Friday night and then a Miller Lite Super Late Model event at Mobile International Speedway (AL) on Saturday night.

Hamner would nominally be a contender in both events, but this weekend a variety of circumstances kept him back to a 10th-place finish at Pensacola and an 18th-place finish at Mobile.

“It was a rough weekend for us,” said Hamner. “We did a lot of work, but had disappointing results.

“We tested on Wednesday and tried something with the differential. That proved to be very temperamental. At Pensacola, we qualified decent, but the car was just very inconsistent in the race. One lap, it would be tight off the corners and the next lap, I'd be coming off the corners sideways.”

That meant some extra work for Hamner and his team.

“We went to Donald Long's shop and worked on the car until six in the morning. We confirmed the rear end problem and put a different rear end in the car.”

The change worked wonders, but it couldn't change Hamner's run of bad luck.

“The car was good at Mobile. We got up to Mitch Cobb and I think that we were about to pass him for second place when the oil flow on the oil tank started splashing oil down on the headers. It started smoking and then caught on fire. So we were done for the race without having an opportunity to see what could have happened.”