In a racing career that has spanned nearly 20 years, Logan Jewell has a new highlight.
Jewell, a 26-year-old Prince George resident, clinched his first-ever season points championship in the WESCAR Late Model Touring Series on the Sept. 17-18 weekend in Quesnel. Jewell posted the fastest qualifying time at Gold Pan Speedway and went on to win the 100-lap main event the next day. In the process, Jewell held off Penticton's Mark Berriau for the WESCAR crown. Jewell finished the year with 469 points while Berriau - who was gunning for his fourth championship - topped off at 449.
"This is the peak of what we've been trying to achieve all these years, so far," Jewell said.
"It's very exciting to finally get it done. We've been runner-up many years, third-places, so it's nice to finally come out on top for a change."
Jewell is the first Prince George driver to win the WESCAR title since Sheldon Mayert in 2008. Other locals who have claimed WESCAR championships are Al Gandy (2000) and Bob Williams (2004 and 2006).
Going into the season finale, Jewell had a 15-point lead on Berriau so he knew he needed to have a successful night to lock up the title.
"Any mistakes could have ended it all," Jewell said. "I'd lie to you if I told you I wasn't worried. I was stressing out a little bit but I had to try to keep my composure and remember that we just had to keep doing what we'd been doing. The car had been fast and we just needed to keep doing that. With my crew reminding me and just keeping me calm, that was the biggest thing."
By winning time trials, Jewell extended his lead on Berriau - who was fourth-fastest - to 18 points. Berriau then took the checkered flag in the A heat, in which Jewell placed fourth, so the advantage was back down to 15 points.
In the main event, which was pushed to the Sunday because of rain, Jewell just needed to beat Berriau across the finish line. But, if Berriau won, Jewell had to place no lower than fifth to still win the championship.
"We just figured, let's go for it - we're not going to sit here and count points, let's try and win (the race), and that was just icing on the cake for us," he said. "It doesn't get any better than that, to end the year like that."
In Jewell's main-event win, he finished one car length ahead of the second-place Berriau. They started the race at the back of the pack, with Jewell on the outside row.
"I saw the inside row start to move so as soon as I could get to the bottom I went down and took off and got in front of Berriau and I never looked back," Jewell said. "I knew he'd be coming so I just kept pressing forward to try and get to the front. Eventually we got to the lead and he was on me for a little while but our car was really, really good - had lots of drive off the corner - and we managed to pull a bit of a lead and keep it."
The main-event victory was Jewell's first of the season. But, throughout the course of the six-race series, he steadily piled up points thanks to top-three results in time trials, heats and mains. In the mains, he had podium finishes on three other occasions - in Williams Lake on May 28 (third), in Prince George on June 11 (second), and in Quesnel on July 16 (second).
Jewell's championship also belongs to car owner Gary MacCarthy of Terrace and to crew members Mark Jewell (Logan's father), Tony Atkinson, Murray Miller and Doug Sketchley.
Logan Jewell started his racing career at the age of seven, behind the wheel of a go-kart. As for trying to defend his WESCAR title next season, that may not happen because Jewell and his team are looking at competing in a super late model class that holds cash events throughout Canada and the U.S. Jewell attended one such race weekend in Edmonton at the beginning of September and, in a different car, ended up fourth in qualifying and fifth in the main event.
"We ran in the top three all 200 laps, basically, until the last 10," said Jewell, who went to the bottom of the track in the late stages in an attempt to stay clear of the two leaders, who were bumping and jostling ahead of him. "Then the one guy straightened out and came down across my nose and I got sent to the back. In those 10 laps, I drove back to fifth place again and so it wasn't so bad."
Jewell said the super late model events and WESCAR are on par with each other in terms of quality of racing, but the super late model class has the lure of the longer main events and the extra challenges they bring.
"The 200 laps, it's a real race of attrition," he said. "You can start seeing guys getting tired and they start to make mistakes so then you try and capitalize on those mistakes."
Jewell would eventually like to race in Pensacola, Fla., at Five Flags Speedway, which hosts a race called the Snowball Derby each December.
"That race is the pinnacle of super late model racing before you start getting into NASCAR stuff," he said. "That Snowball Derby is where guys like Kyle Busch show up with their super late models to go and run - you know, 100 cars show up for 30 spots. That's later in the road (for me) but that's the ultimate goal, to attend that race at some point."
