Sometimes they say change is good and for Jason White, that has exactly been the case.
At the beginning of the year, White announced that he was going from a team owner/driver to the role of just a driver as he teamed up with last year’s Canadian Tire Series champion D.J. Kennington.
“I moved on from my own, obviously, and working with DJ’s flying horsepower with Triple Sport and Derek Lynch and his group are supplying the cars and crew for me,” the driver of the No. 21 A&W Dodge said. “It’s a great group of people that have come together. Everybody is working really hard to put the cars on the track and that is really awesome for me.”
The results have showed on track as so far this year, White has three top 10s in four races, including a sixth in the last race at Mosport.
“I’m extremely happy with how things are going,” he said. “I moved to a new team and I’m not the owner and manager anymore so a lot of the stress from that sort of stuff has been relieved so I can just concentrate on driving and the results are showing with the two-top 10s here in the first four races so I’m really happy with how the first half of the season is going here.”
This weekend, White heads into Toronto sitting sixth in points, 154 points behind points leader Scott Steckly.
“I think with the amount of the cars that I am looking at here in the garage right now,” he commented. “I think it’s going to be about keeping your nose clean and being there at the end. A top 10 will probably be the attainable, but everybody is going to have drive smart to be there at the end for sure. It’s going to be a good one.”
The Honda Indy in Toronto marks one of the biggest races of the year for the series, though White says it doesn’t bring any more pressure.
“There’s not more pressure on this race than any other race for me,” he said. “I love racing and wherever we get the opportunity to do it, we do it and we go from there.”
With the success that White has had on the road courses so far this year, it’d be no surprise if Toronto adds more happiness to the season and why right now, he prefers the road courses on the split schedule over the ovals.
“Road coursing makes you a better race car driver in general so with the five road courses we have,” he added. “It just goes well for being a better race car driver and we’ll take that experience to the ovals as well.”
For the driver from Sun Peaks, British Columbia who fell in love with racing by following his dad around while his dad raced super modifieds, there have many lessons learned, including patience, though also many memorable moments. The one that stands out so far would be the 2008 Canadian Tire Series Rookie of the Year Award, however hopefully five years down the road, White says he hopes to be called a series champion.
