[JessicaJ]

Alex Watson Happy With First Trip to Macon Speedway
By Jessica Jenkins

When Alex Watson decided last minute to make a trip to Illinois all the way from Ohio, it was to race on a track he'd never even seen before. The popular 1/5th mile Macon Speedway is a challenge for all drivers, but he was eager to take it on.

Watson and his team unloaded a brand new black #3w that they'd only raced twice before. His first ever laps on the dirt track came in the first heat race where he started on the pole. The Columbus, OH native looked pretty good down on the bottom until he got a bit out of shape and fell to fifth. It did not take him long to regain fourth place and rode in that spot. There was a little excitement about halfway through when the nose of the car jumped up in the air as he accelerated onto the backstretch, but he pulled back into the pits after finishing fourth.

Based off of passing points, the 24-year-old lined up seventh for the feature and looked forward to getting an even better handle on the speedway. However, heading into turn one on the start, an accident occuring ahead of him swept Watson up in the mess and he came to a stop on the inside of turns one and two. When the race went back green, he restarted fifth with a bent left front shock. For the first few laps he ran the bottom lane and worked on taking fourth place. He settled into the fifth spot and switched to the high line as the race worked towards halfway. A yellow re-racked the field with a few laps to go and he instantly moved back to the high side when the green flag waved once more. On the final lap he tried holding off one driver who likely has run more laps in the series than anyone else at Macon and surrendered fifth place as the checkered flag began waving.

All in all it was a great night for Watson and his team, especially considering he had no experience at Macon before showing up a few hours earlier. Afterwards, the reigning 2015 USAC Midwest HPD Midget champion summarized, "It was a really fun little track. The bottom felt really strong at the beginning of the race, but as the track started to slick off, I started losing forward bite coming out and couldn't really keep the car down on the bottom of the track as I needed to. That's when I moved up to the top and there was still a lot of bite up there, so we pretty much ran the rest of the race at the top. The high side is really my kind of style, but it's tricky to figure out on this track. Really tight, high banked corners up at the top and we built up a pretty good cushion, so it was tricky to navigate that, but we started to get it figured out by the end. I want to thank our whole crew: My dad, Jim McMann with Heads1st Racing, Wally Sexton, Chuck Taylor for taking us out here and Hinchman Racing Uniforms. Want to thank everyone at Macon and with POWRi. Everyone treated us really well; I know we're from out of town, so it was pretty exciting to have them welcome us so warmly. Great track, great facility and we definitely want to come back.

Alex Watson primarily races in the USAC Midwest Thunder Midget series, has one win so far this year and sits fourth in points. The next race for that series is coming up on September 3rd. To learn more about Watson and his 3W Racing team, 'like' them on Facebook at 3W Racing or follow them on Twitter @3Wracing1 for updates as he races. You can also visit their website at 3Wracing.com for schedules, bios and more.