Halo Motorsports comes up big in ‘The World’s Fastest Half-Mile’

Around Sparta, the Halo brand is known for screen printing fun designs and inspirational sayings on t-shirts, but, over in East Tennessee, they may be quickly becoming known as the racing team to beat.

For the second year in a row, Halo Motorsports arrived at Bristol Motor Speedway and quickly went about building a reputation and making a name for themselves.

Bristol Motor Speedway, nicknamed “The World’s Fastest Half-Mile,” is an asphalt NASCAR track that, once a year, has 2,300 truckloads of Tennessee red clay dumped into it so that it can be the site of the Bristol Dirt Nationals.

“It was such an incredible week. Halo Motorsports absolutely dominated the competition. Racing against professionals across the country, multiple NASCAR drivers, one even called in an engineer to see what changes could be made to his car to be faster,” Tiffany Jones said.

Tiffany Jones, along with her husband Billy Jones, owns the car that was raced by the team’s driver, Michael Asberry.

“It was such an honor to see these guys that literally race for a living to be mind-blown of these Upper Cumberland Tennessee country boys with day jobs that came in and dominated the track,” Tiffany Jones said.

She was referring to the week of March 28, which started out with Asberry putting up a phenomenal time in the practice lap. Asberry’s time of 17.597 was the fastest of any of the 143 cars at the track.

Asberry followed that up winning Tuesday’s Heat Race from the six-position on the track, posting a time that 3.761 seconds faster than the second-place car and then went on to win the feature race, with a 1.979 second lead over the second-place driver.

Wednesday and Thursday had Asberry with a pair of second-place finishes and a third before the last race of all of the preliminaries. Asberry finished out the nightly races with one more win and a .374 second lead over his closest competitor.

“We were the points leader for the week,” Tiffany Jones said.  “The heat race wins, along with passing points (the passing positions of other cars - start 6th, pass cars gaining passing points) are accumulated to determine the starting order for the main event.”

For Halo Motorsports, that meant they were going to race from the inside pole for Saturday’s main event, which was a 30-lap race.

“He dominated every lap and won,” Tiffany Jones.

The prize for the main event win included a trophy, an engraved sword, and $5,000.

She said the entire experience was more than they could have imagined, even after the 2021 event that had the Halo Motorsports team winning some races and turning heads.

“There were cameras on us all week and multiple driver interviews throughout the week. They even had our car a part of multiple commercials,” she said about this year’s experience. “The most important thing we can say about our second year Bristol Dirt Nationals experience is that we know we are blessed with talent, and, of course, hard work pays off, but having God’s favor on our team is simply indescribable. We get to do what we do for business and pleasure because of His favor, and, for all of that, we give Him glory.”

There is no answer for how Halo Motorsports will top this year’s Bristol Dirt Nationals or even exactly what is next for the team, which, along with Billy and Tiffany Jones and driver Michael Asberry, includes crew members Jay Ott, Jimmie Gribble, Clarence, Kristy, and Anna Ott, Kim Davis, Sarah Elmore, Garrett and Baley Hubbard, Trevor Sinard, Jace Asberry, Parker Asberry, and Creed Jones. The team, which is sponsored by Halo, CrossFit Mayhem, Gulla Automotive, Roland Digital Media, and Orion Coolers, is just enjoying the ride.

“Our faith and relationship with God is first and foremost,” Tiffany Jones stated. “It’s just a perk in life that we get to screen print shirts and sling some dirt on the weekends for fun.”