OREGON, Wis. — Jacob Gomes has established himself as one of the West Coast’s top late model stars, having won multiple championships and big races in and around California.
Gomes is scheduled to compete in the May 7 Joe Shear Classic that will be the second stop on the ASA STARS National Tour schedule at Madison Int’l Speedway.
Gomes has won a trio of Southwest Tour events already this season and finished eighth in the ASA STARS National Tour opener at Fives Flag Speedway in March.
“I’m really looking forward to going to more different tracks than we usually go to. Just looking forward to going to Wisconsin and racing there,” said Gomes. “There’s a lot of good guys that race over there, it would be cool to get some driving time there.
“I know we’re going to Madison and if it all goes well and we somehow pull a top-three and not get tore up, I think our plan is to go to Wilkesboro. We definitely plan on going to a couple more, I’m not sure what we have on the list. We’re going to try to run a lot more races on the East Coast and get more time over there.”
As will be the case for most of the races on his schedule, Madison will be a track he sees for the first time when he arrives for race weekend. A look at past Joe Shear Classic races has helped him get as ready as he can be ahead of next weekend’s race.
“I’ve been watching a lot of the past Joe Shear Classics, trying to see how restarts are and seeing how everything works out. I looked on iRacing and it wasn’t a track on there, so it’s just watching a lot of videos from previous races.”
Perhaps no driver on the West Coast has been hotter since the start of last season than Gomes. He won three races en-route to his second SRL Southwest Tour championship in 2022, and this year has started out even better, having won all three races contested so far with the series this season.
“We had a really good year last year, went on a streak and got the championship. This year we’re on another little streak, but we’re willing to give up a streak to go learn as much as we can and go to where all the competition’s at,” Gomes said. “It’s cool when you have four really good guys on the West Coast, but you go to the East Coast and you have our four good guys going there and all the good guys from back there. It’s cool to be competing against good competition.”
The Joe Shear Classic will be live-streamed by SPEED SPORT Network affiliate MidwestTour.tv.