By Anvil Welch
awelch@joplinglobe.com
Carl Junction’s Glen Yarbrough credited his mom Carol on Monday for playing a key role in winning the late model points championship this season at Springfield Raceway.
But don’t ask if this is the first title for the veteran driver.
“I’m not sure if it’s my first points championship,” Yarbrough said with a laugh on Monday. “I do know, if I previously won a title, it’s been a long time.”
Yarbrough offered several reasons for success — starting with mom — after missing part of the 2007 season because of her sickness.
“Mom always had watched me race and always wanted me to win a championship,” Yarbrough said. “I’d never really raced before for points.
“But she fought so hard to make it back into good shape. I decided when the season started I was going to win her a championship.”
Mission accomplished, of course, and mom also was a regular in the pits.
Yarbrough, who’ll be 43 on Feb. 9, believes he began driving stock cars competitively in the mid-1980s at several of the area dirt tracks.
“We were pretty fast this season (in a second-year racer from GRT Race Cats, Inc., Greenbrier, Ark.),” Yarbrough said. “We were consistent at running up front each race except when we had something break or a flat tire. I believe we made all of the points races.”
It’s no surprise, considering his success, the high regard that Yarbrough has for the quarter-mile clay track at Springfield Raceway.
“You’ll see real racing in every event,” Yarbrough, a graduate of Joplin Parkwood High School, said. “It’s that kind of a race track.”
Yarbrough, who bested Nixa’s Jeremy Manes for the points title, won two A features in No. 12.
Sponsors this year, in addition to his Glen Yarbrough Auto Sales, 5571 E. Seventh, Joplin, included Hatfield Racing Engines, Auto Xpress Service Center, Cars on the Move, Babe’s Drive In (702 Maiden Lane, Joplin) and Wiland Muffler.
Yarbrough’s help in the pits included his wife Carrie and nephews Jason and Jeremy Wallace of Joplin.
Jeremy also drove a late model — finishing in the top 10 at Springfield — and Jason a sport mod.
Dad (Glen Sr.), of course, joined the family in the pits. The parents live in Joplin.
“Every now and then Jeremy Haddox (a worker for Bill Frye of Greenbrier) would even come up and help out,” Glen Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough’s goals in 2009 naturally start with another high finish in the late model class at Springfield Raceway.
Springfield Raceway will close out its season on Nov. 29 with the second Open Wheel Turkey Classic. Starting time is 3 p.m.
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Mom plays key role in Yarbrough’s title
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