Andy Eckrich gets shot of confidence in return to Victory Lane at West Liberty

OXFORD — A lot of factors go into a racecar driver being successful. Of course a fast car and preparation are vital. Confidence, though, could be among the most important factors.

It's fleeting and impossible to quantify, but when a driver can get out of his or her head and trust the job they're trying to do, everything seems to come easier. Late Model racer Andy Eckrich got a heap of that back this weekend with a $2,000 win at the Tri-Track Challenge race at West Liberty Raceway on Saturday.

The last few seasons haven't been Eckrich's best, personally. Focus on family, his business in Precision Performance and helping those customers often put his personal car on the back burner. He had started to doubt himself.

This weekend went a long way to fixing that.

'I was doubting my driving skills, really,' Eckrich said. 'Some of the best racecar drivers out there, they're very confident. They're very sure of themselves. When you have one morsel of doubt running through your mind, you tend to not take the chances you need to. That's where I was at.

'I thought I wasn't doing a good job in the seat. It's hard to get out of that. It was good to get some of that back.'

Eckrich's season got off to a rough start — literally and figuratively.

At the season-opening IMCA Deery Brothers Summer Series for Late Models race at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Eckrich went for a hard tumble in Turn 3 after contact with Jesse Sobbing. He and his crew completely rebuilt that same racecar and made it to West Liberty the next weekend for the second Summer Series race, but the car hadn't shown the speed Eckrich wanted or believed capable.

It was the Memorial Day Summer Series show at Boone Speedway, though, that Eckrich called, 'rock bottom.' He was credited with a 23rd place finish and said he didn't feel at all competitive.

This last week, then, was one of those proverbial 'come to Jesus' types, where he re-evaluated what they were doing to make his car fast. A second-place finish to Justin Kay at Farley Speedway on Friday and the win Saturday was proof positive in the changes.

'Not feeling like I was even competitive or close to the top 10, we just had to spend extra time on my car and thrash on it,' Eckrich said. 'We finally just had to have enough will power to say, 'We're not going to run like this anymore. We're going to do something about it. It's not bad luck; we're not running good.'

'We just found some stuff we probably overlooked."

Eckrich was quick to point out it was just one win, and there's still plenty of work to be done. But even if 'it's not like I went out and won The Dream or World 100,' Eckrich said, there's no denying the restorative effect of winning races.

The Oxford driver's work with his Modified and Late Model customers has been solid so far this year, with plenty ending up in Victory Lane. Having that matched in his own equipment provides a double shot of belief in himself and what they're doing out of the Precision Performance shop in Cosgrove.

'Five years ago I would've said, 'Big deal,' but we've gone through such a dry spell putting our race team on the back burner,' Eckrich said. 'We were getting beat pretty bad by the same competition a couple weeks before.

'As a race team, what we've been good at in the past is doing what the car needs, not what some book or diagram says you need to do. We did what we think we needed to do by the seat of our pants.'

SIMPSON SWEEPS MLRA AT DONNELLSON

Last time Oxford's Chris Simpson went to Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, he was coming off a trip to the hospital. On Friday, in his and MLRA's return to LCS, he was coming off a win Thursday at Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Mo.

On both occasions, Simpson ended up in Victory Lane.

Simpson got his second and third MLRA wins of the season this weekend, sweeping this season's LCS races in MLRA's final trip to Iowa this year. He cleared $5,000 for the two wins this weekend, taking $2,000 from Memphis and $3,000 from Donnellson.

Simpson won ahead of Jesse Stovall and Tony Jackson Jr. on Thursday, and beat his brother Chad Simpson in second and Jordan Yaggy in third on Friday night.

DAVENPORT TO HOLD SPORT MOD CHALLENGE

Davenport Speedway is set to hold is annual Sport Mod Challenge on Friday night, with $2,000 going to the winner.

Last year, Cedar Rapids driver Tony Olson took the win and the big payday. Pit gates open Friday at 4:30 p.m., the grandstand at 5 p.m., with hot laps at 6:15 and racing at 6:45 p.m.

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com