The past two weeks have seen Jimmy make the grade in all of the HAT tour events beginning with a visit to ‘The Dirt Track’ at Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte, NC on July 2-3. Mars took his ParkerStore sponsored Chevrolet Monte Carlo to a win in one of the B-main qualifying events in the trip to the sparkling dirt racing facility owned by Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) to make the field for the main event.

Jimmy would go on to post an eleventh place finish in Charlotte. The event marked the third time of the season that Mars and his fellow competitors have competed at an SMI track, with earlier season stops coming at Texas Motor Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway. The HAT series makes a return to Lowes Motor Speedway's 4/10 mile dirt oval on September 22-23.

Following the appearance in the city known as the 'hub of stock car racing', Mars took his campaign to Conneaut, OH’s Raceway 7 (July 6-7) where Jimmy again successfully transferred into the feature event winding up in fourteenth and on the lead lap.

The cigar sponsored circuit then headed overnight to Hagerstown, MD for Saturday (July 8) night’s ‘Maryland Silver Cup Nationals" where Mars overcame mechanical problems to place fourteenth in the final event.

This Tuesday (July 11) Jimmy and the HAT dirt late model competitors returned to Sumter, SC for an event which had been rescheduled due to a rained out date in April. For the third straight event Mars registered a fourteenth place finish on a track, which saw very limited passing and little attrition in the event.

By continuing to race his way into the feature events and based on Jimmy’s progressing strength in the highly competitive dirt racing series, Mars moved past a handful of competitors to crack the top-ten in the national standings on the HAT tour. Through the first 24 events of the 40-plus race season Mars has only been forced to use two provisional starts and now sets his sights on additional top-five finishes and wins on the tour.