Jimmy Blewett Is Sure The Time Is Right To Return To Racing

On Sept. 2, 2006 Jimmy Blewett went to Martinsville Speedway and won his first career Whelen Modified Tour event.

His older brother John, who had mentored him through his racing career couldn’t be in Virginia that day with him. John Blewett III was racing for a championship at the family’s home track, Wall Township (N.J.) Speedway that night and was already home and in bed by the time Jimmy called to tell him about the victory.

How emotionally invested John was in Jimmy’s career was something the younger brother always understood well, but it was just recently that he got a more enlightening picture of what that victory meant to the older brother who guided him so much.

“His girlfriend told me last week that all day long when I went to Martinsville last year John was telling everybody ‘Jimmy’s going to win tonight, I can feel it.’” Jimmy said. “ . . . She told me when I called and told him I won that after got off the phone he was jumping up and down and crying. That’s the kind of bond that me and him had.”

Saturday Jimmy will get back into a racecar a little more than three weeks after John was killed in a crash during the Whelen Modified Tour New England Dodge Dealers 150 on Aug. 16 at Thompson International Speedway.

He will get back in a racecar at Martinsville Saturday that his brother drove weekly at Thompson, an SK Modified that car owner Eddie Partridge has conformed to Modified Tour standards.

The Whelen Modified Tour had its first event since John’s death last Saturday at Mansfield (Ohio) Motorsports Park. Sunday Jimmy called his car owner, Eddie Partridge.

“I had just got off the phone with [Modified Tour veteran] Jamie Tomaino,” Jimmy said. “Jamie said to me on the phone, ‘You going to Martinsville next week?’ I said ‘I don’t know, Martinsville’s next week ain’t it?’ Then I called Eddie.

“He said ‘How’s everything going, whatever.’ I said ‘Martinsville’s this week you know.’ He kind of laughed a little and he said, ‘Do you want to go?’ And I said ‘I was thinking about it.’ He said ‘Let me know within the next half hour if you want to go.’ We got off the phone and I called him back 10 minutes later and I said ‘I’m ready when you guys are.’ He said ‘Are you sure?’ And I said ‘I’m positive.’”

Said Partridge: “I want to get back too. You kind of wander around and think about what happened. The racetrack will be a good place for us and if he wants to go I’m ready to go too.”

For more on Blewett getting back in the car at Martinsville today check out this story from Saturday's Hartford Courant: Jimmy Blewett Returns To Racing

Shawn Courchesne, 12:14 a.m.

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Comments

[Linda Case]

Shawn: Your article in the Courant on Jimmy returning to racing is flat-out awesome......