Nason scores emotional victory
TOWN OF RUTLAND - Austin Nason
really wasn’t supposed be racing this year.
And, to be honest, his mind might hasn’t been as focused as he should be on racing or work.
He didn’t have the best car Sunday at the Joe Shear Classic. Or second best. Or third best either.
Yet the 22-year-old landscaper from Roscoe, Ill., left Madison International Speedway with the trophy, $10,000 and the envy of some of the Midwest’s top asphalt stock-car drivers, a NASCAR truck champion and a Southern hotshot.
“The last year we’ve shown a lot of speed and just haven’t had any luck,” Nason said after winning for the first time in 32 starts on the ARCA Midwest Tour over three-plus seasons.
“It might take me till Wausau (on May 19) to sink in. We’ve came so close to winning so many big races. To finally park it here is amazing.”
Nason led only two laps, taking the position after the fuel pump on Casey Johnson’s car failed under caution. And Johnson had led only 14 laps after Bubba Pollard sputtered to a stop, also under the yellow flag. Pollard, a big-money racer from Senioia, Ga., was out front for 114 of the 200 laps.
Nason looked stunned in victory lane, and if he had been trying to hold back tears, he failed.
Beyond the magnitude and money, professional and personal stresses made this his biggest victory all the bigger.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be racing this year,” Nason said. “I had the little one on the way. I’m supposed to be taking over our company. It’s been a hectic year.”
The little one — Levi — also has had medical issues that have had him in and out of the hospital on and off throughout his first month.
“We run a landscaping company down in Roscoe," Nason said. "We were just crazy busy. It’s hard to get working on four race cars with just me and five other guys. It’s just hard. They’ve got jobs, I’ve got jobs. If we can keep going, I think we’re going to be pretty tough this year.”
Dan Fredrickson, a two-time series from Lakeville, Minn., didn’t have enough to challenge Nason in a two-lap shootout and finished second. Nick Murgic was third, Paul Shafer Jr. fourth and Dalton Zehr fifth.
“I think this event is going to turn into one of the biggest in the whole United States,” Nason said. “To win $10,000, Bubba Pollard showed up, Johnny Van Doorn ... the only person we were really missing was Ty Majeski and it would have been fun to race with him but he had other obligations. This is going to become a big short-track event right here.”
Van Doorn, who chases special events out of Michigan, finished 14th. Johnny Sauter, the 2016 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion who lives in De Forest, finished 18th, dropping out with 10 laps to go after tangling with Jonathan Eilen in a battle for second.
“I think we had a shot at maybe topthree, but not winning this thing,” Nason said.
Before the final green flag flew, Nason had a flashback to last June, when he led most of the Midwest Tour race at Rockford Speedway, his home track, only to get beat on a bump-and-run by Majeski, the four-time champion and NASCAR development driver.
Nason’s father, Doug, was spotting for him and wasn’t going to let that happen again.
“He just told me to be patient run my race, do what I had to do, and then be easy on that rerstart,” Nason said. “For a couple of them we smoked the rear tires coming off, but we did it easy.
“He was calm ... until I hit the start/ finish line here. We both broke down. We were both yelling so loud I don’t remember going through Turn 4.”