During a cold week of practice (at least for us Floridians, you know in the 40’s) at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL, star Fountain Motorsports driver Jeff Choquette finds himself on the wrong side of luck and a huge opportunity missed. Having spent the days leading up to the 42^nd Annual Snowball Derby dominating the time charts, the FMS crew were high flying heading into Friday’s time trials. Bolstering their confidence was the late season addition of Alex Query as their Crew Chief.

Choquette and Fountain Motorsports settled in for the start of Sunday’s race in 19^th position with extremely high hopes; less than two-tenths of a second separating the first 19 Super Late Models. As the field took the green flag the fireworks began almost immediately as Jeff raced passed several cars on his way to the front, which featured the likes of non other than NASCAR’s Kyle Busch. As the first 40 laps clicked off, Jeff was picking apart the field, obvious to any observer as the hard-charger early on. By lap 44, Jeff had raced his Fountain Motorsports #33 from over a half track behind the leaders to 4^th position and less than a quarter-track separating him from the front.

 Tragedy strikes.

 Several cars tangled in the middle of turn four blocking the exit. Jeff dives into three, locks up the brakes and spins his Super Late Model in unison with the car in front of him. He receives the brunt of the damage as the entire right side is torn wide open. As the #33 limps back to the pit, we watched, holding our breath that maybe just maybe the damage was only cosmetic. The crew proceeds to put new right side tires on the car and whisked Jeff back around the track, avoiding going a lap down. A bright glow starts to be clear through the wheel well coming from under the hood. Choquette’s car is on fire. As he comes around to enter the pit a second time he has to be extinguished by the fire crew, it becomes evident that the race is over for Jeff and Fountain Motorsports. A severed oil line finally ends the day for Jeff and Fountain Motorsports.

 With the unfortunate events of this past weekend behind them, Jeff Choquette and Fountain Motorsports are very optimistic about the future, mainly in light of the tremendous strides they have made with Alex Query.  We are very optimistic and looking forward to next season and the many developments that are coming for Jeff and the Fountain Motorsports team. Stay tuned!