Xtreme Sprint Series to make Bristol debut Oct. 1
BRISTOL, Tenn. — The Xtreme Sprint Series already owns Bristol Motor Speedway’s all-time lap speed record, and series star JoJo Helberg now unofficially owns the record for spinning out at the highest speed thanks to a broken axle during tire testing Thursday.
Helberg said the spin occurred as he was turning laps about 2/10ths off the 13.245-second all-time track record time set by Xtreme Sprint driver Jason Blonde during a special event at BMS this past March.
He blamed the mishap on a lightweight performance axle he was using to try to get as much speed out of the car as possible. Luckily, Helberg avoided contact with the wall and learned a valuable lesson.
“We’re creating so much downforce, and it puts so much of a load on the moving parts that are not sprung by the shocks, and you can only compress the tires so much until things start to break,” said Helberg, who sits third in the series point standings. “I usually run a non-winged series, so I’m a little unaware of how heavy duty you need to make all the parts. We try to make the thinnest, lightest parts that we can, but this is definitely something that is a lot smarter to go safer than l i g h t e r.
“Luckily it happened on the straightaway. We broke the axle, the wheel fell off, and the thing went spinning down the front stretch.”
Three drivers from the Xtreme Sprint Series were at BMS Thursday to test tires in preparation for an Oct. 1 race, which will be the BMS season finale.
On the heels of Blonde’s record-breaking run on March 19, BMS Executive Vice President and General Manager Jerry Caldwell said Thursday the track is offering a $1,000 prize, as well as an all-glass trophy to the Xtreme driver who “shatters” Blonde’s record in qualifying Oct. 1.
At a press conference held during lunch, series founder Jim Hanks said the series is close to signing a TV deal that will more than double the number of households that can see the series to about 165 million. Beginning with the Bristol race, the Xtreme Sprint Series will be shown tape delayed on the NBC Sports Network, which is currently known as Versus.
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