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NICK SCHWIEN • Hays Daily News Vincent Jasper (K-2) competes in a sport compact heat race Saturday night at Rush County Speedway in La Crosse.

Jasper holding his own in sport compact

By NICK SCHWIEN

nschwien@dailynews.net

A lot of thoughts circled through Vincent Jasper's mind.

Most of them probably were because his car was doing barrel roll after barrel roll down the front stretch at RPM Speedway in Hays during a race last year.

One thought not going through his mind, though, was being afraid to get back into a car again -- or wrecking again, for that matter.

"I ain't scared of dying in that race car," Jasper said. "I ain't afraid of hitting the wall or wrecking it. If you're scared, you're going to be lifting all the time and wrecking. It's just a real blast; it really is. It's an adrenaline rush, and either you can do it or you can't. There's no other way to explain it."

Jasper's wreck last season was one of the most violent RPM has seen. But he survived and lived to race another day.

Now, that wild ride is not even a blip in his memory. Instead, the sport compact driver of the No. K-2 car from Utica is focusing on the future.

"I just want to be there at the end,"  Jasper said. "Trying to keep my car clean. No more big rolls down the front stretch."

By being there at the end, Jasper hopes to notch his name atop the track standings at RPM in the division and become only the fourth different driver in six seasons to grab a track title.

"Overall, I've just been enjoying the season, trying to keep things going one at a time,"  Jasper said. "Hopefully I can be there at the end for the points championship."

Jasper and the rest of the sport compact field will compete at 7 p.m. Saturday at Hays' dirt oval, along with modifieds, stocks, sport mods and hobby stocks.

Jasper already has a win at RPM this season, that coming April 28 when he bested the field. In four races this year at the track, he's finished 12th, first, second and 10th in a wide-open division.

"We've got a lot of fast cars this year," he said.

This year's four sport compact features have produced four different winners. Monte Honas won the opener, followed by Jasper's win. Shyla Hughes won the third feature, and Trevor Schmidt won last time out May 26.

Schmidt might have become the first multiple winner this year in the class. He was leading the May 5 feature, but his car died on the last lap, allowing Hughes to sneak away with the win.

Honas has been fast all season and won Saturday night's race at Rush County Speedway in La Crosse.

"What I've really, really liked about it is we've had four different races at Hays, and every race we've had a different winner,"  Jasper said.

"That's probably the most impressive part of the season so far -- all the different winners. It's not just one guy going out and dominating or two guys going out and dominating."

Jasper is hoping to reach victory lane again Saturday -- for his fans and his success to continue.

"Without the fans, we wouldn't be able to come out and afford to do this because we wouldn't get any money back,"  Jasper said. "There's a lot of us who don't have a lot of money, and that's why we stick with these smaller cars because you can wreck them and get them pretty cheap."