He won a NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model championship at the fairgrounds track in 2008. More recently, Harraka has dominated action there in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West – winning from the pole in the last two series visits and garnering three pole awards overall.
He hopes to continue his domination at Roseville when the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West returns to the third-mile track for the Toyota/NAPA Auto Parts 150 on Saturday, Oct. 16. It is one of two events remaining of this season’s 12-race schedule. The race is to be televised on SPEED at 3 p.m. PT on Oct. 21.
Harraka, who turned 21 last month and is in his junior year at Duke University, won last year’s Sunoco Rookie of the Year title in the series. He attributes his success at All American Speedway to a couple of things.
“First of all, I know that track really well,” he said. “I won late model races there and a late model championship there, as well. And that certainly plays into it, having that experience there. But further, I think it plays into what our race team does best. Bill McAnally Racing, on the whole, we run really well on short tracks. BMR has a great, great short track program and it’s all come together for us really well at Roseville.”
BMR’s success on the short tracks is the result of hard work by the team, said Harraka.
“It’s something that we work really hard at,” he said of the multi-car team that is based near Roseville in Antelope. “We spend time testing and working on our short track program. As a team, we work really hard on that package. We tend to do very well on the short tracks. Everything just kind of comes together at a place like Roseville. Having it in BMR’s backyard, it’s our team’s home track. And that’s just an added bonus when you do well there.”
Although he has set the fast mark three out of four times in qualifying, Harraka says winning the pole is just a bi-product of having a good race car.
“You don’t want to go in to the race saying, ‘we are going to be on the pole’,” he said. “You just don’t know. And we’re not there to qualify on the pole. We’re there to win the race. If you qualify on the pole, that’s an added bonus. With that said, I feel confident going into the race because (crew chief) Duane (Knorr) and I know where we need to start. We’ve got a great setup to start with. I know what I need out of a race car there. We’ll slowly work at it and get where we need to be. I’m confident going in, but you never want to go in with the belief that we can’t lose, because you can always lose. You can beat yourself.”
Although qualifying up front is important on short tracks like Roseville, it is not critical to be on the pole, according to Harraka.
“Last fall, we essentially led nearly every lap and won the race,” he said. “In the spring race, we didn’t. We qualified on the pole, but we fell as far back as third. We just kind of waited until the right time. Qualifying is important. I think, though, as long as you’re within the top five, you’re in an okay position. The focus for us is on the race setup. If we’ve got a good race car, generally at Roseville that means you qualify well, but not always.”
Harraka heads to Roseville just 37 points out of second place in the championship standings. Although he knows it would be all but impossible to overtake his BMR teammate Eric Holmes (No. 20 NAPA Toyota) for the championship, Harraka is hopeful of moving past David Mayhew (No. 17 MMI Services/Ron’s Rear Ends/KHI Chevrolet) for second in the standings before the season concludes.
“We came into this season wanting to win a championship,” Harraka said. “It’s definitely a stretch – if nearly impossible mathematically to catch Eric at this point – but we’re zeroed in on Mayhew and would like to catch and pass him for second place.”