Joey and the Dodd team in Victory Lane at Wilmot (Jeff Burba Photography)
(Bill W) June 5, 2017 – For Joey Moughan, it was better to be lucky than good on Saturday night at Wilmot Raceway in Wisconsin. The Springfield, Illinois driver led the distance in the feature event despite some skips in the motor to give car owner, Darrell Dodd, a win for the fifth straight decade in sprint cars. This weekend, Joey will take his own #29 to race with the All Stars at Lincoln Speedway in Illinois before returning to Wilmot to run with Dodd and the IRA on Saturday.
Joey and the team worked on the car on Saturday. “We found a few things with the car that we were able to fix in the shop,” he says. “We qualified fifth, and the motor still wasn’t running perfect. We’ve been fighting a miss in the engine and that gave us issues all night.”
He would start outside row one for the feature. “We took off and led some of the race,” says Joey. “The miss in the engine came back more and more. There was no cushion in the heat. If I kept it wound up, it would run better, but we had to run the bottom. I lost a couple of spots and we ended up third.”
Joey got some luck with the feature draw. “We changed everything under the sun, other than the ignition,” he says. “Luckily, for the feature, they drew an invert that put us on the front row outside. We just committed to running the top. That was the only way we were going to keep the car wound up and running.”
He would stay out front despite the persistent miss in the engine. “Luckily, the bottom had blown off enough that the top was even with it,” says Joey. “We were able to run hard on the cushion. We led the whole way. We would get in lapped traffic and other cars would catch me. By the end of the feature, the miss was so bad that if I got out of the gas at all, we lost momentum. We were also lucky enough to have some yellows that gave us some clean air.”
The win was Joey’s second in as many weeks. He won in his own #29 a week ago Friday in Jacksonville with MOWA. “I’d rather be lucky than good any day,” he says. “I’ve been on the other end of that plenty! To be on the good side of it is actually nice for once.”
He revealed who actually runs Dodd’s team. “Darrell’s grandson, Collin, is four years old and runs that team,” says Joey. “It’s amazing how much he knows already. He’s loading the trailer. He’s a lot of fun and he’s there all-night long. It was good to give him a trophy at the end of the night.”
Joey and the JM Motorsports team would like to thank: Moughan Electric, Conaway Handyman Service, Modern Paving and Scrap, Glenn Brothers Garage Doors, Jared Culbertson Transport, AED Motorsports, DMI, Simpson, Butlerbuilt and Maxim.
Photo: Joey and the Dodd team in Victory Lane at Wilmot (Jeff Burba Photography)
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