Jimmy Phelps has dealt with the peaks and valleys of Big Block Modified racing for more than 20 years.
But as the Super DIRTcar Series prepares for its fifth annual SummerFAST, Aug. 16-19, the Baldwinsville, NY driver is at the top of one of those peaks before one of the season’s toughest stretches.
Phelps has won two of the last three Super DIRTcar Series Features, earning his first multi-win season in points-paying events since 2018. Not only are those two victories something to celebrate for Phelps and Heinke-Baldwin Racing, but they’re also what Phelps called a relief.
“I really felt like our cars have been really good and my guys have given me cars that can win a lot of races,” Phelps said. “We’ve had a couple of events we got tore up a little bit, and in other cases we’ve put ourselves in position with good track position and then made poor setup choices in the Feature. It was just really good to put some good nights together.”
One reason for his recent surge, which includes wins at Mohawk International Raceway and Airborne Park Speedway, is a change he made to begin 2026. Phelps decided to run Land of Legends Raceway on most Saturday nights, forcing him to get away from what he was used to weekly.
“I think that getting outside my comfort zone and running there more on a weekly basis has definitely helped us in situations at tracks I haven’t been historically great at,” Phelps said. “I think we’ve worked on that a little bit.
“Even at the beginning of the year at Georgetown (Speedway), I thought we had speed and qualified real well. We might’ve messed up on tires and setups in the [Feature], but it’s a big track I wouldn’t normally expect a lot, and I thought we had a car that could’ve gotten it done if we made some better choices.”
Those setup choices are one of the factors that determine who’s in Victory Lane at the end of the night in a Super DIRTcar Series race. Compared to when Phelps started racing Big Blocks, he said it’s gotten even harder to win a Series race because of how close the competition is every night.
“There’s a lot of variables,” Phelps said. “They’ve always been there, but it seems like the difficulty has increased to the point where there’s like three phases. You have to unload good off the truck because you need to get yourself into the redraw. You need to draw really well because, at the end of the day, there’s so many fast cars and things are so even that it’s really difficult to start in the third and fourth row and expect you’re going to drive by them.
“Then you have to obviously put however many laps together and keep the thing up front. We’ve had some nights lately we’ve capitalized on good Qualifying runs and had speed to capitalize.”
With Phelps and HBR building momentum, they’re excited to run at Weedsport Speedway, Brewerton Speedway, Land of Legends, and Utica-Rome Speedway on consecutive nights during SummerFAST. Each of these is a track where Phelps has won a Super DIRTcar Series or DIRTcar 358 Modified Series event in his career.
“We’re starting to fire our way back a little bit, and we’re coming to this stretch of tracks we’re excited about because we have some history, got a notebook, and inevitably have had success at over the course of several years,” Phelps said. “They’re tracks we’ve highlighted on our schedule to be a really good stretch for us.
“Obviously we’re excited, but we know there’s 15-20 guys in the same boat that are excited to capitalize on this SummerFAST opportunity, too. So, we still have to do everything right, try to have really good speed, and obviously a little luck, too.”
Phelps aims to keep that momentum rolling when the Super DIRTcar Series kicks off the fifth annual SummerFAST on Sunday, Aug. 16, at Weedsport Speedway for the Hall of Fame 100.
Then, the Series visits Brewerton Speedway on Monday, Aug. 17, Land of Legends Raceway on Tuesday, Aug. 18, and Utica-Rome Speedway on Wednesday, Aug. 19, where a SummerFAST champion will be crowned.
Where can you watch the Super DIRTcar Series? Live on DIRTVision.
