HAGERSVILLE, Ontario — Despite qualifying mid-pack, a late-race charge would propel A.J. Emms to a podium finish this past weekend at Jukasa Motor Speedway in Queenston Chevrolet Buick GMC OSCAAR Modified action.

After showing speed in practice, Emms would qualify ninth for the 40-lap event after posting a lap of 19.181 during time trials. He’d run seventh through the first half of the feature, electing to conserve equipment. Though once the race hit the halfway point, he began to make his way forward, moving into the top-five by Lap 25.

From there, he moved into fourth with a pass on quick qualifier Jeff Walt a lap later, before the caution came out on Lap 32 for an incident. Restarting third, he’d battle back and forth with Kelly Balson to the checkered flag for third, ultimately completing the pass with two laps to go to secure the spot.

The third-place finish marks his second podium performance at Jukasa Motor Speedway following a runner-up in 2019. It also marks his 21st straight top-10 finish in OSCAAR Modified competition.

“Overall, solid day for us,” Emms said. “We started off the day strong in practice, ended up not getting the qualifying run we wanted but fortunately, we were able to conserve our stuff there through the feature and come on strong at the end. We definitely need to improve for next race, but we’re going to go home, do some homework, look over some things, and see if we can find some of the ways we went off today.”

When asked about what he felt he was missing in relation to the top-two, Emms noted horsepower as one of the factors.

“But at the same time, there’s definitely some handling characteristics that we need to sort out as well,” he added. “I think overall we are going to review a lot of the things that we were trying this winter and we’re going to see if we want to go in that direction. But overall, a third-place finish, we’re very happy with where we ended up there.”

The 40-lap affair was streamed live via GForce Network. A full replay of the event can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPNm2dZ3peM.

Emms will be back in action at Flamboro Speedway on September 12. Once again, fans are not allowed to be in attendance due to the pandemic. However, the race will be live streamed on www.GForceTV.net.

“Flamboro is one of those places that I love,” Emms commented. “We’re going to go back and look at our notes from year’s past and I think that’s going to really help us this year, especially with less practice and time on the race track. I mean, this event was very new to us, so I feel in terms of going to Flamboro Speedway, we’re going to have rely on our notebook.”

Emms Racing is proud to receive sponsorship support from BAE Environmental, TL Tire, Speedy Glass Orillia, Artech Promotional Products, Peter Built Racecars, and AM Marketing.

Fans are encouraged to stay tuned to the Emms Racing website at http://www.ajemms.com, as well as the team’s facebook page via https://www.facebook.com/ajemmsracing/.

Press Release by Ashley McCubbin / AM Marketing