By Randall Jett
Register-Herald Sports Writer
May 04, 2008 11:48 pm
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Shane Hitt had a ball racing in the KOM Pro Late Class Friday night at Beckley Motor Speedway.
The Buckhannon native garnered a second-place finish in his first-ever trip to the 3/8-mile dirt track in Prosperity.
“It was a lot of fun actually,” Hitt said. “With this crate (motor) deal, everybody is really equal. When you catch lapped traffic, it’s not like before, where you could kinda motor around them. You’ve almost got to wait to pick the right spot. There was one guy that went off the track, came back on right in front of me and I got into him and busted the radiator late but we started eighth and ended up second. Overall, it’s not a bad night for us.”
Hitt dabbled with racing Late Models in the mid-’90s, but he is better known as a seven-time national champion four-wheeler racer. In fact, he dominated that sport from 1999 to 2002, winning four straight Pro TT titles.
The last time Hitt sat behind the wheel was in 1996. His trip to Beckley was his third race this season as he ran at Tyler County Speedway and Elkins Speedway in April.
He’s shown that he hasn’t forgotten how to get around the track, picking up a fourth-place finish at Tyler County’s season opener and another top five at Elkins.
“It’s been 12 or 13 years since I was in a car,” Hitt said. “I bought this car from Tim Leggett. It was actually Butch McGill’s car from last year.”
Hitt’s car is prepared by Leggett’s crew, which is also based in Buckhannon.
Even though he currently sits third in the King of the Mountain point standings, don’t look for Hitt to compete for the series title.
After a serious crash at an ATVA Extreme Dirt Track Series event at Dixieland Speedway in Elizabeth City, N.C., in 2006 that left him with four cracks in his C-5 vertebra, Hitt has slowed down — a little bit.
“I’ve raced for 20 years on four-wheelers, traveling the world,” he said. “I was doing that to make a living. Now I’m doing a job for KTM where I actually help with developing new bikes and help run a race team. I can only do this on my weekends off, which is like every other weekend or every two or three weekends, so I don’t get to do much. I just thought this crate thing would be something that I could still race — I’ve still got that itch to race — and not go broke.”
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Wayne Hughes was excited to be back at Beckley Motor Speedway Friday after racing out of the area the last few years.
“I’m just glad to be back and running up front,” Hughes said.
Hughes noted that the biggest adjustment was getting used to running on the 3/8-mile after racing on half-mile tracks like Wythe Speedway.
“It’s a little tougher driving the smaller track,” he said. “Things happen a little quicker.”
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Two Beckley drivers had mixed results traveling Friday.
Chris Meadows placed 13th in the Carolina Clash race at Cleveland County Speedway in Lawndale, N.C.
Ricky Williams failed to make the Independent Racing Series feature event at Elkins Speedway.
Things got a little wet Saturday with Princeton Speedway, I-77 Motorsports Park and Ohio Valley Speedway canceling because of rain. Ohio Valley completed its heat races before rain brought an end to the night. Tyler County Speedway managed to get in everything but the Pure Stock and Mod-Lite features.
— E-mail: rjett@
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