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Watson Managing Full Plate, Looks for Second Outlaws Win in as Many Races on Friday Night.

Watson Managing Full Plate, Looks for Second Outlaws Win in as Many Races on Friday Night.
By Chuck Corder

Right now, it’s the calm before one heck of a storm for Timothy Watson.
If you think the 18-year-old driver from Panama City has a busy schedule now, juggling a blossoming short-track career with school, wait until this summer when Watson’s dance card will be wall-to-wall racing.
“It’s gonna get rocky in a few months,” Watson admitted with anticipation in his voice.
It’s pretty slammed right now.

Watson looks to defend his season-opening win in the Faith Chapel Outlaws on Friday night at Five Flags Speedway. Almost immediately after the Outlaws 30-lap feature is decided, Timothy and dad Michael Watson will drive to Montgomery and get a few hours of sleep before booking it to Atlanta Motor Speedway by 9 a.m. Saturday for a Legends car race. Timothy Watson will cap the weekend off by testing his Pro Late Model car Sunday, hopefully back where he started at Five Flags.

If it sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. But Timothy Watson would not have it any other way.
“Every car we’ve run this year performance-wise, we have exceeded our expectations,” Watson said. “We’ve won six Legends races and finished second in the other three. We’ve had some really great runs in the Pro car, but just a string of bad luck. We expected to be pretty good in the Outlaws, but not this fast.”

The Outlaws will be joined by the Modifieds of Mayhem (50 laps), which make their season debut in Pensacola, along with the Pro Trucks (25) and Lloyd’s Glass Pure Stocks (20). Gates open at 5 p.m. Friday. Admission is $15 adults; $12 for seniors, military and students; and free for children ages 11-and-under.
Earlier this week, the Watson men were back in the shop.

“Dad does setup right now, but I’m trying to learn it,” Timothy Watson said. “If there’s any kind of maintenance that needs to be done, I take care of it.”
Father and son were reinstalling a recently rebuilt motor that sprung a leak during his win a few weeks ago at Five Flags where he topped 18 other stout drivers and continued to earn the praise and respect of his competitors.
Pensacola’s Logan Boyett raved about Watson’s composure in the seat and praised the humility he shows anytime he is in Victory Lane.

“It boosts your confidence a lot to hear something like that from someone like Logan, who I’ve admired for a long time,” Watson said. “Logan raced Legends a while back for the same owner I currently race for. And the chassis on our Outlaws used to be Logan’s. It’s neat to have that connection.”
Connection aside, Watson earned the win earlier this month by passing Boyett early in the 35-lap race and holding him off down the stretch as Watson navigated his way through lapped traffic. The pair battled door-to-door, but cleanly for several laps before Watson took the long way around and cleared Boyett on Lap 12.

“Lapped traffic scared us,” Watson admitted. “I was maintaining a little bit of distance on (Boyett), but I didn’t wanna jump out too far and not have tires at the end where he could blow by me on a late-race caution.
“Then we got to lapped traffic, and my spotter kept telling me, ‘He’s four back … now two back.’ I thought, ‘Oh Lord.’ It was nerve racking up until the last lap.”

It marked Watson’s second Outlaws victory at the famed half-mile asphalt oval after his win last May. With a points championship already under his belt—he captured the Outlaws track title at Crisp Motorsports Park in Cordele, Ga., last year—Watson hopes that experience will guide him through what promises to be a hectic but rewarding summer in the months ahead.

“Last year, we were just getting settled into the (Outlaws) class, figuring out what it was about and how to race in it,” Watson said. “I truly believe that if we had made one more race, we could’ve won the championship in Pensacola because we were only 30 points back and missed two races.”

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