Father helps son start a racing career
Street stock veteran Scott Gardner said he’s making a final full-season effort at Grundy County Speedway to help his son, Scotty, get his own racing career off to a good start.
After that, he’s easing away.
A safer bet would be that dad will want to keep going and challenge his son when he’s really ready to compete.
“You might be right, I’ll leave it at that,” Gardner said with a laugh after winning Friday night’s 25-lap feature at Grundy County Speedway.
The Blue Island native brought back memories of when he was the street stock champion in 2000 at Raceway Park. In Friday’s race, he took the lead from Craig Matteson on lap 11 and held off a major challenge from defending track champion Eddie Ligue.
It’s been a long time since Gardner has been the top dog in a feature race.
“Yep, it sure has,” Gardner said. “It feels great. I was happy to see Eddie behind me. We may not be teammates, but we’re really good friends.
“I can always count on him to race me clean and he can always count on me. Next weekend, it might be the other way around. Let’s have fun with it.”
Gardner’s 19-year-old son, Scotty, is starting his own racing career. He was born the year Raceway Park was torn down.
“I’ve seen some of the old videos from Illiana and Raceway,” the younger Gardner said. “Watching his old Raceway videos was the coolest thing ever. He looked like a superhero on that track.”
Scotty took his first turns last fall when he went on a test drive in his dad’s car at Rockford.
“After that I said, ‘Let’s do it this year,’” Gardner said. “My dad is one of those dads that says, ‘Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you.’
“So I dropped everything else. Now I do his work and I race. I love it. It’s so much fun.”
Scott Gardner was a championship contender for nine years at Raceway Park before winning it all in the track’s final season. He put in one full season in 2009 at Illiana Speedway, but otherwise has spent most of his time focusing on a raising a family with his wife, Kathy.
“I realized there was a lot more to life than racing,” Gardner said. “I took the time off to enjoy the family. Now that my son wants to get into it, I want to come out and
race side by side with him.”
Options open: Scott Koerner has been a familiar sight racing stock cars at Grundy since 1993. But he can also drive an open-wheel midget car with the best of them.
The Joliet native was the class of the field Friday night, winning both the heat and feature as the traveling Illini Midgets series made its first appearance of the season.
“I always liked watching them when I was younger when they used to race at the stadium in Joliet,” Koerner said. “It’s something I always wanted to see, always wanted to do.
“I used to help LaVerne Spencer on the car his daughter, Susan, used to drive. Then when she got out of driving, there was some opportunity for me to drive for them.”
Koerner won the Illini series championship in his own car in 2016. He won two more titles with the Spencer Racing team in 2018 and 2019.
Mid-Am mayhem: The Mid-American Stock Car Series feature went to Ron Vandermeir Jr. over Blake Brown.
Brown was underneath Vandermeir late in the race when a yellow flag interrupted the battle. Vandermeir kept Brown behind him the rest of the way. Billy Rud was third, ahead of Shaun Wiltjer.
Kristi Odom held off a challenge from Cirk Lindemuth to win the 4-cylinder feature.
Rain rules: Saturday’s inclement weather forced the postponement of the ARCA Midwest Tour Wayne Carter Classic. The event will be rescheduled at a later date.