Ross Bailes Has Been Taking Notes In Preparation For Screven

Ross Bailes Has Been Taking Notes In Preparation For Screven

Ross Bailes has been racing a variety of races and track sizes as he prepares for Ultimate Late Model season-ending race at Screven Motor Complex.

Nov 9, 2017 by Dan Beaver
Ross Bailes Has Been Taking Notes In Preparation For Screven

Ross Bailes will join the Ultimate Southeast regulars for their final race of the 2017 season at Screven Motor Complex in Sylvania, GA, next weekend, which will stream LIVE on FloRacing. Between now and then, the driver will debut his new motor at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City, AL, in the National 100 this weekend.

“I'm looking forward to it,” Bailes said about the National 100. “I've never been to East Alabama before. So I get to try out a new track and we just got our new motor back. We're looking forward to testing it out, see how we can compete against the National guys.”

An unsanctioned race — on a fresh track — will give Bailes and his team a good idea of how the new motor will perform for them.

Once that data is in the books, Bailes will be on more familiar ground at Screven. While it's far from being a home track, he’s turned the wheel at the oval four or five times and feels good about it.

“It's pretty neat,” Bailes said. “It’s a smaller track, but when you get out on the track it seems a lot bigger because it's so wide. If you run around the bottom it's really small, but if you run around the top you cover a lot more distance. It's different than anything you see anywhere else.”

With the width of the track, most drivers try to claim the bottom and run the shortest distance, But the real action of the night will come if a driver decides — or is forced — to risk the cushion.

“Most people like to run the bottom,” Bailes said. “But you can do some passing if you get a good run up top.”

Last weekend, Bailes joined the World of Outlaws for their season finale at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, NC. Bailes was coming off of a great run at Whynot (MS) Motorsports Park, and the team went into the weekend with high hopes.

“We didn't do as good as we were expecting,” Bailes said. “I was going into the weekend thinking we could make both shows and compete with those guys. We didn't make the first one and we made the second one but then fell back during the race. We didn't do as good as we expected, but you’ll have that every once and a while. We’ll try to regroup and finish the year strong.”

Bailes notched another top 10 for the season at Whynot and was challenging for the lead before hitting the wall.

“I was running second and got up too high, jumped the cushion, and hit the wall," he said. "But we ended up finishing eighth. I've never been there either so it was a nice first run.”

With two races on the docket, the team will focus on what it did right at Whynot and where it could’ve improved at the World Finals.