WISSOTA’s loss

The WISSOTA Promoters Association’s biggest week of the year celebrated multidivision winners at the WISSOTA 100, including Late Model racer Chad Becker of Aberdeen, S.D., but a midweek tragedy was never far from mind at I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls, Minn.

WISSOTA board member and I-94 track official Scott Engfer died from injuries sustained when he was crossing the track on his four-wheeler and struck by a street stock early in Wednesday’s program. The 68-year-old from Litchfield, Minn., whose wife Debra also woks at the track, was mourned and remembered, including with drivers carrying helmets through the grandstands to collect monetary donations for the family.

"All of us at WISSOTA are heartbroken and devastated by the tragic accident,” the organization issued in a statement, calling it an “unimaginably difficult time as we all grieve this painful loss.”

Chris Stepan, the veteran announcer and director of the Structural Buildings WISSOTA Challenge Series, worked with Engfer in various capacities over the years.

"He lived and breathed dirt track racing and loved every minute of it,” Stepan told DirtonDirt. “He was deeply involved in many aspects of the sport and made many impactful contributions along the way. He was a friend to many and will be greatly missed.”

Engfer’s obituary said “he was a man who found his passion at the racetrack, not just managing it, but truly living it.”

Besides his wife, he’s survived by son Travis and his wife Nikki and four grandsons, among other family members. Visitation is 4-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16, at Johnson Hagglund Funeral Home in Litchfield and the hour before the 11 a.m. Wednesday funeral at First Lutheran Church in Litchfield. Burial will be in Ripley Cemetery.

Engfer was struck while crossing the track at the end of the backstretch, unaware of a trailing race car completing a heat race. OSHA officials arrived at the track Thursday, tightening up track-crossing moves including preventing pedestrians in staging. Photographers were also limited to safer shooting positions and weren’t allowed to move while race cars are on the track. — Contributor Alex Ostenson and track reports

Meaningful victory

Ashton Winger didn’t hold back how he felt about winning Saturday night’s 50-lap Billy Clanton Classic at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway. He made it abundantly clear when he popped his body out of his Jeff Mathews-owned car’s window in victory lane, was handed two cans of Real American Beer and began … well, smashing them into both sides of his head.

“That headache’s gonna be worth it, man,” a beaming Smith said of his unorthodox celebration.

The 25-year-old driver from Hampton, Ga., simply couldn’t hold back his joy after earning a $15,000 triumph on the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series. It came at his home track and with plenty of other factors that added extra meaning.

For starters, Winger noted the significance of the race being the Billy Clanton Memorial, an annual event held in honor of the late racer and father of Dirt Late Model veteran Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga. He remarked that he says it “all the time” that the Clanton family — as well as the Smith family that includes veteran driver Clint Smith and his recently-deceased father Roscoe — “mean so much to me.”

Beyond the race, though, Winger’s victory came at the end of the week in which Naomi Smith, the wife of late Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer Freddy Smith, passed away. Winger knew the Smiths well because his father, Gary, was Freddy Smith’s crew chief when he was born and remained close to Smith in the ensuing years.

In addition, Winger mentioned the recent death of “Pops” from 77 Speed Shop in Griffin, Ga.

“It’s really kind of been not a great week,” Winger said. “This don’t make up for it, but it helps.”

Winger said he was “worn out” after his winning performance, not only emotionally but also physically. He wasn’t overtaken after passing Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., for the lead on lap seven, but he ran a hard path to his fifth career WoO triumph and first since Feb. 16, 2022, at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.

“When I got the lead the way I did, I was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna have to cowboy up for the rest of this thing,’” Winger said. “(The cushion) was real thin down there, and I don’t know … I mean, I drove in the fence a couple of times.”

The race’s closing moments were especially nerve-racking for Winger, who had to deal with Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., for the final circuits following a caution flag on lap 46. That yellow flag, though, was the result of Tanner English spinning in turn two after contact with Winger.

“Well, I mean, hell, it was my fault. I got into Tanner there,” said Winger, who previously won a WoO feature at Senoia in October 2021. “The line I was running in one and two, I had to like enter off of (the cushion) and drive to it leaving. I just kind of misjudged it whenever I turned in right behind Tanner. I think he was side-by-side with somebody and I didn’t really know where I needed to be.

“I knew if I ended up in the fence and Tanner, like, just come across the racetrack, I was gonna lose my nose, and my stick guy or my signal guy was showing me that my gap (over McCreadie) had gone. So in all honestly, when I caused that caution, I thought I was screwed cause I caused it. It was 100 percent my fault. I apologize to Tanner. I feel like he’ll understand. It gets pretty lonely in there and there’s a lot of s--- going on when you have a big lead and it’s as thin as it is and you have to be committed to one certain line.”

The 51-year-old McCreadie, however, didn’t view the caution flag as a positive. He felt he was closing in on Winger before the slowdown.

“He’s really good here, everybody knows that going in,” McCreadie said of Winger. “And I just probably got married to the bottom a little too much until mid-race, but when I started seeing that the lapped cars were catching him on the bottom, I thought, Well, get as much of the brown (moisture) as you could. Then I got a little lane in the middle working and I thought, Maybe.

“I didn’t really need to see the yellow. It probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference, but it made it a lot easier for Winger to cool his tires down and then he could do what he’d been doing most of the race.” — DIRTVision and staff reports

Holladay’s return

Chad Holladay of Muscatine, Iowa, has been among the Hawkeye State’s steadiest racers for many seasons, but after selling out his team late last season, the 45-year-old has been absent from the track in 2025.

That is until September when, driving a 2021 Longhorn Chassis owned by Adam Kinion of Kinion Classic Cars in Clarence, Iowa, Holladay has returned to the track with hopes to continue his connection with Kinion into next season.

Holladay, the 2023 Malvern Bank East Series champion who operates Holladay Trucking, put his racing on hold primarily for financial and family reasons after selling out to Shannon Van Rees, who hired rookie Dallon Murty to drive the car in 2025.

Holladay entered the weekend's MARS-sanctioned Corn State Nationals at Davenport (Iowa) Speedway.

“When racing is in your blood, of course, it’s addictive and we all love it,” Holladay said, who with wife Nikki have three children, Kaelyn, Anistan and Emmery. “It's just financially hard and I don't have the means to do what I used to do. The kids are busy in sports and a full-time job, so that comes first, kids and family, and just lack of funds basically.”

Holladay posted a runner-up finish in IMCA action at Davenport on Sept. 6, and he realized that diving into MARS competition was a step up.

“We come here and obviously haven’t raced all year and show up to a MARS race knowing we're out to lunch, honestly,” he said. “We get that, but we're here to make some good laps and get the rust off, so to say. We might hit a couple Malvern Bank races after they go to Knoxville. There's still three left that we might try to dabble in. That's kind of where we belong.”

Holladay added that he’s “fortunate with the opportunity we have here with Kinions, letting me pilot his car, and hopefully we just, the goal was for the weekend to try to make an A-main and we'd be happy with that,” he said. “If that doesn't happen, if we make some good laps without getting tore up and make improvements on the race car, that's key also.”

If it works out to return in 2025, Holladay suspects they’d look toward the Joe Kosiski-directed Malvern Bank tours, where he’s a five-time winner.

“That's kind of where we enjoy and Joe does a good job and his crew,” he said, “and we like racing for them and I think that's kind of where we belong.” — Mike Ruefer

Debut victory

Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., didn’t do a lot of homework heading into his debut at Needmore Speedway, but it all worked out as he captured Friday’s World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series return to the Norman Park, Ga., oval.

Driving a new car, Hoffman raced under fellow front-row starter Tim McCreadie on the 17th lap at the egg-shaped track and wasn’t challenged the rest of the 40-lapper for his fifth WoO victory of the season and 11th of his career. Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., who chased Hoffman to the finish, saw his four-race winning streak end while Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill., was third for his fifth consecutive top-five WoO finish.

“This place is just shaped, when I looked at it today, it’s shaped like something I’d like. Just very circular where I can carry momentum,” said Hoffman, who started on the pole but briefly slipped to third behind Shirley after a lap-eight restart.

"I've never even seen a lap at this racetrack coming into today,” Hoffman later added. “I never watched any film or anything and just kind of came here blind and (the track) just fit me.”

Hoffman’s Tye Twarog Racing Longhorn Chassis, built by Derek Doll and completed by his crew this week, had been run a few laps at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C., for a NOS Energy Drink commercial, and it’s now 1-for-1 in competition.

While Hoffman started on the pole, he drove relatively conservatively early in chasing McCreadie, who faded to an 11th-place finish.

“We just knew that this place was gonna make a lot of tire heat. We'd seen that in the heat races. We were all on the same tires, but it was just a matter of trying to cruise those first couple of laps,” Hoffman said. “The outside lane could fire off a little bit better and (McCreadie) was able to get out front … I just paced him and made him kind of charge a little bit harder than he probably wanted to and just kind of kept my tires underneath me and was able to charge in the middle stages of that race.

“I just felt like I was a little bit snugger than he was where I could get down the racetrack. He was kind of relying on a little bit of that moisture and, yeah, it just worked out.” — Series and staff reports

Finding speed

Jason Feger of Bloomington, Ill., immediately understood the significance of his victory in Friday night’s 40-lap Corn State Nationals opener at Davenport (Iowa) Speedway.

“Davenport’s usually not my best track,” Feger said after his $5,000 triumph in the MARS Late Model Championship Series event. “I mean, we’ve struggled here quite a bit. We’ve just been trying to work hard to get a package for here and the car felt really good all night.”

It was a breakthrough performance indeed at the quarter-mile for the 47-year-old Feger, who seized control off the outside pole at the initial green flag and never looked back. He dominated the race that was slowed by just a single caution flag on lap three, finding an extra gear to pull away whenever Ryan Unzicker of El Paso, Ill., appeared ready to offer a challenge.

Feger beat Unzicker by 1.191 seconds to kick off a MARS doubleheader that concludes with Saturday’s 50-lap, $10,000-to-win headliner. He recorded his second straight and seventh triumph of 2025 on the MARS tour.

While the checkered flag wasn’t Feger’s first at Davenport — he scored a $10,000 World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series win there on Aug. 25, 2022 — he’s traditionally found it difficult to circle the bullring with the strength of a contender. Entering Friday’s action he had made 22 feature starts at Davenport since 2020 and managed to tally just five top-five and 10 top-10 finishes.

All those frustrating visits to Davenport — including four runs outside the top 10 in six starts just two years ago — were forgotten with his flawless outing that pushed his overall 2025 win total to 14 and extended his MARS points lead as he chases a third consecutive title.

“It’s probably the best race car I’ve ever drove here, so hopefully that continues,” Feger said. “The car was really good, so I can’t say enough about Longhorn (Chassis). They've been helping me a bunch, (led by staffer) Matt Langston.

“It feels good to get a win here. Hopefully we can do it again tomorrow night.” — Series and staff reports