Patience is paying off for Joey Polewarczyk Jr. these days. In more ways than one.

The 19-year-old Polewarczyk has signed a one-race deal with Dave Davis Motorsports to race in the Camping World East Series at New Hampshire Motor Speedway next month. Polewarczyk will drive the No. 03 Chevrolet in the Heluva Good! Fall 125 on Sept. 12.

The Hudson, N.H., native replaces Rogelio Lopez, who was ousted from the seat when sponsorship fell through for the remainder of his season.

"It’s just the one race," said Polewarczyk, a two-time winner on the American-Canadian Tour this season. "Realistically, though, it’s my biggest shot to make something out of all this."

The race marks Polewarczyk’s second East Series attempt this season. He rented a one-race ride in a car owned by Vermonter Barney McRae at Thompson International Speedway in July, where he qualified in the top half of the field and then finished 16th.

Polewarczyk is seventh in the ACT standings with five races left in the season. He won the season-opener at Lee USA Speedway and then won the Dunkin’ Donuts 150 at Oxford Plains Speedway in June. He followed that Oxford performance by challenging Sprint Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick – a former Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 champion – for the win in the TD Banknorth 250.

Following that run, he and his family-owned team started looking at purchasing an East Series car of their own, and they turned to Buzz Chew for a car. Chew suggested they call Davis – whom he’d bought the car from originally – to find out all of the details about the piece, and Davis informed them he had the open seat for Loudon.

Polewarczyk said he may still end up buying a car of his own, but for now he’s going to concentrate on this opportunity.

The plan is to have the Davis Motorsports car sent to his New Hampshire race shop this weekend, where it will be fitted with Polewarczyk’s own seat. Polewarczyk will then join the team when tests at NHMS next week – in the hopes of being approved by NASCAR to compete on the 1.058-mile oval.

Davis is a Maine native based in Denver, N.C., who first noticed Polewarczyk in the Thompson race. He’ll give the youngster every opportunity to be competitive at NHMS, too – bringing the same car that won the pole for the September race there a year ago.

"It’s going to be special," Polewarczyk said. "I’ve been going there since I was little. I’ve just been thinking about how cool it’s going to be."

Polewarczyk’s had an up and down year, on and off the track. He was supposed to run both the ACT and some select PASS North Series races, but a sponsorship deal exploded prior to the season that sidelined his PASS North efforts with the successful Richard Moody Racing team – the same team that fields cars for multi-time series champion Ben Rowe.

Then Polewarczyk suffered through a disastrous five-race stretch in the first half of the season in which he had one DNQ – a wrecked race car at Waterford Speedbowl – and didn’t finish in the top half of the field in any of his four other starts.

But he won at Oxford to end that stretch, picked up the McRae seat, challenged Harvick and then found his way into an East Series ride on that series’ biggest stage.

Patience has been the key along the way.

"In the (TD Banknorth 250), it was patience, patience, patience," Polewarczyk said. "I knew I could do good in a car, but when I first went ACT racing, I just wanted to go, go, go – and I usually ended up wrecking... I just learned to get every opportunity out of the car that I can, because it’s all there.

"That (Thompson) race helped me a lot, too. I learned a lot, because the (East Series) cars are a lot heavier than the Late Models I’m used to – the way the enter the corners is different, the way you use more brakes, everything is different. It takes so much more effort to throw these things into the corners. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got plenty to learn still about them, but I feel a lot better having run in them before."

The eyes of New Hamsphire, New England and an entire NASCAR garage will be upon him.

Posted at 10:05 p.m. by TBarrett