Full Throttle

Where in the world were Kenny Wallace and Kenny Schrader Tuesday evening?

If you know the slightest idea how they feel about racing, especially the short track variety, you’d be safe in assuming they were racing.

And you’d be correct.

You’d also correct if you assumed both St Louis natives would race close to the old homestead at the areas Fairbury American Legion Speedway.

On a special NASCAR night, Kenny Wallace and Ken Schrader brought the fans to their feet as they qualified first and second, respectively, in a 29 car field of modifieds.

Schrader and Wallace each agreed that “qualifying doesn’t mean anything” unless “you lock yourself in.” The veteran NASCAR drivers from St. Louis set the fast time of the evening with times of 14.02 and 14.04 seconds, respectively in their modified qualifying efforts.

Schrader dominated the field as he had done in the fast heat race. A caution flag flew with one lap complete as Dave Porth and Jim Farris came together, both drivers were done for the evening.

With 14 laps to go in the 20-lap feature, Schrader pulled away from Manhattan driver Mike Spatola, Fairbury’s McKay Wenger and Bloomington’s Gary Cook Jr. Wallace was riding fourth when a bobble in turn four sent him back to the sixth spot.

Another caution flag flew with 10 laps to go as Chatsworth’s Lance Dehm stopped in turn two. Schrader assumed the lead again and pulled away from Spatola and Cook. With seven laps to go, Cook slowed down coming out of turn two and was done for the evening. Schrader held off the competitors and won by 12 car lengths.

“It feels good to be in victory lane here,” said Schrader. “I really enjoy running modifieds. No one got lapped and it shows there are good cars here. Last year, we were disappointed when we had a flat tire in the feature of the late model race.”

“I didn’t do as good as I wanted in the heat and feature,” Wallace said.

Following Schrader to the stripe were Chad Evans, Spatola, Wenger, Wallace, Kevin Hastings, Jason Hastings, Chad Osterhoff, Jeff Curl and Ben Hulse, Heat winners were Jason Hastings, Porth and Schrader. Winning the semi-feature was Jeb Friedman.

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