COMANCHE, Texas – Jeffrey Abbey packed a career’s worth of highlights into his fourth Scoggin-Dickey Parts Center Southern SportMod season.
Along with the national championship, the Comanche, Texas, High School Senior won the division’s debut at the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s just four days after celebrating his 18th birthday.
And while more than doubling his career win total in the class to 47, he paced track point races at Boyd Raceway and Kennedale Speedway Park while reigning again in Allstar Performance Texas State standings.
“We had a good year last year and didn’t change much. We freshened the engine and freshened the shocks,” said Abbey, the national runner-up in 2015. “We came into this year hoping to get more wins and run for the national championship.”
“I couldn’t pick out a season highlight. Winning Super Nationals and the national championship were both outstanding,” he continued. “And I ended the season winning the Bryan Mize Memorial at 85 Speedway. If you’d told me at the start of the year that I’d do all that, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
Ten of Abbey’s point season checkers came at Boyd, seven more at KSP as he defended track titles at both. He also won twice at Red River Speedway and Southern Oklahoma Speedway, and once at both Heart O’ Texas Speedway and 85.
He also ventured to Abilene Speedway for a $1,700 Southern Challenge payday in mid-October.
“I like the competition in this class. It’s one of the toughest around,” Abbey stated matter-of-factly. “There are good cars no matter what track you go to.”
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Abbey’s older brother Dean is a two-time national champion in the same division and now races an Xtreme Motor Sports IMCA Modified, while younger brother Westin was most recently crowned champion of the EQ Cylinder Heads Southern Region for IMCA Sunoco Stock Cars.
There’s a friendly competition between the three about who has the most wins or more big checks on display in the shop. Another brother, Steven, was the national Southern SportMod rookie of the year in 2009 and raced with Jeffrey at a post-season special in 2015. He works for Penske Racing where he is a data engineer and was on the pit stand every race this season for IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud.
“Southern SportMods are the first division I ran on dirt. Dean taught me everything I needed to know,” said Abbey, who has worked his way up from the go-kart, bandolero and legend classes. “We bounce ideas off each other and right now I’ve got things figured out.”
He’ll attend Texas A & M this fall and plans to major in mechanical engineering.
“I’m going to stay in the SportMod in the near future,” Abbey said, “But I will moved to a Modified. It’s only a matter of time.”
Starts: 54
Wins: 23
Additional Top Fives: 25
HIS CREW: Father Randy, brothers Dean and Westin, and Robert Scrivner.
HIS SPONSORS: Abbey Racing of Comanche; Berta Built Bodies of Waco; 517 Designs of Whitney; TM Racing of Keller; Swenson Shocks of San Antonio; Brass Monkey Racing Products of Ada, Okla.; Tumbleweed BarBQue of Stephenville; Dynamic Drivelines of Des Moines, Iowa; and KS Engineering of Albert Lea, Minn.