Jimmy Heavlow Scores Second Place in Winter Heat Opening Race

Press Box

Jimmy Heavlow started the Winter Heat season at Lowe’s Motor Speedway with a strong second place finish in the Legends Young Lions category.

After an up and down Summer Shootout, the karting standout returned to Charlotte, this time for the fifth-mile track races, instead of the quarter-mile the Shootout races. Heavlow is the Maryland state WKA champion in every class he contested this year, running undefeated in features at his home tracks. Heavlow and his father flew to Charlotte for the practice session on Friday, staying for Saturday’s races. “I was pretty fast,” reported the recent winner of WKA races at the LMS infield road course. “We were one of the top five cars. We changed some stuff on the car and on Saturday, it was 

pretty fast in the morning,” he added.

Starting his first heat race in fifth, he moved up to second at the checkered flag, after only six laps. Delays in the schedule meant it was nearly dark when the feature race went under the green flag, where he started fourth. “We got around two cars in the first three laps with no problems, then it was just me chasing Dylan Presnell,” described Heavlow. The leader cleared a pair of lapped cars just before a caution flag flew, trapping the Maryland hot shoe behind them.

On the restart, Heavlow described the rest of the race: “I got around  the first one but then there was a caution before we finished one lap, so we got put back behind the two lapped cars. On another restart, I got by one car, then on a green-white-checker restart [for yet another caution] I tried to pass him high, but couldn’t get around Dylan for the win.”

In spite of the runner-up finish, “it was overall a fun race,” said Heavlow. He plans to return to LMS again Saturday morning for the second round in the Winter Heat series, hoping to improve on his previous finish.