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In fast company

P.G.’s Logan Jewell testing his talents on U.S. stock car circuit
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Logan Jewell has his car at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. – Handout photo

Prince George stock car racer Logan Jewell is thriving in the desert heat.

The 28-year-old Super Late Model Series driver qualified 14th out of 25 Friday at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and finished third in the heat race.

Only the top-24 qualify for today's 150-lap Senator's Cup Fall Classic main event.

"We've been racing Super Late Models this year pretty well, we went and got a 620-horsepower engine and we've been going all-out," said Jewell. "The next step up is NASCAR.

"The competitiveness has gone way up and the quality of drivers is very high. I have to be better. I'm racing guys who have been racing in Xfinity, guys like Noah Gregson and Jeremy Doss, who win a lot of races down here."

Jewell started the season racing in the Northwest Super Late Model Series. In May at the Galloway 150, reaching speeds of 210 kilometres per hour on the high-bank five-eighths mile oval at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Wash. He went on to finish eighth in the main event.

In July, Jewell qualified sixth out of 27 for the Montana 200 Super Late Model race in Kalispell, Mt. He also raced the Idaho 150 and was the lone Canadian in the Late Model race in Wenatchee, Wash.

"We've had a few mechanical failures that have taken us out of some races but we've been wicked fast wherever we seem to go," sad Jewell.

"It's a huge step up. I get to have all the fun behind the wheel and I can't thank (team owner Gary MacCarthy) enough for it."

Jewell also raced Late Model events this year in Edmonton and Saskatoon. He qualified second in Edmonton and finished third in the first half of the main and eighth in the second 100-lapper.

Most of the races on the Late Model Series are 100 or 150 laps and take as much as two hours to complete.

He ran with a crate motor last year as a rookie in the Super Late Model Series. The additional horsepower has been a huge change.

Jewell has been involved in racing since he was seven years old, starting out on the kart track at PGARA Speedway in Prince George. By the time he was 14 he was racing stock cars and he climbed the ladder quickly, jumping from bombers to hobby stocks in the Prince George Auto Racing Association.

While still in his late teens, Jewell made the jump to WESCAR, the provincial late-model series and got to the winner's circle often enough to draw sponsorship interest from Terrace auto dealer MacCarthy. That led to Jewell winning the WESCAR points championship in 2016.

Jewell has his dad from Prince George, Mark, along with him in Las Vegas as part of his pit crew, along with Tony Atkinson, Corey Price and Glen Witt. The crew has been following the advice of Travis Sharp of Racing Dynamics in Montana to get the car set up.

MacCarthy GM and Prevost RV and Marine in Terrace are the team's primary sponsors.

Logan Jewell works in Prince George at University Hospital of Northern B.C. as a power engineer.

"This year we're just tiptoeing our feet down here to see how we'd do in these big races and we're coming up pretty competitive, so next year we're going to take part in as many $10,000-to-win races as we can," said Jewell. "The risk or reward is huge. If you go to local shows but you're only going to get a couple grand, but if you go to these shows, I think we can win 15 grand US this weekend."