Saturday night special again for Grabouski with IMCA Modified and Stock Car Spring Nationals wins

Jordan Grabouski won both IMCA Modified and IMCA Sunoco Stock Car features for the second straight year on opening night at Spring Nationals, boosting his record total to 14 career wins at the Beatrice Speedway special. (Photo by Jim Zimmerline)

BEATRICE, Neb. (March 19, 2022) – Opening night of the 2022 Spring Nationals looked a lot like opening night of the 2021 special.

Just like he did last March, Jordan Grabouski won both IMCA Sunoco Stock Car and IMCA Sunoco Modified features at hometown Beatrice Speedway Saturday night. The two sets of checkers upped his Spring Nationals career record total to 14, a dozen of them in a Modified and dating to 2008. 

“It was fun. It’s kind of crazy to think about,” said Grabouski, who motored to B & B Racing Chassis All-Star Invitational qualifying eligibility with the $2,000 Stock Car win before taking the $2,500 Modified victory. “Every year you ask, ‘How can I do it again?’ but we had some luck and it all played out. It was awesome.” 

Grabouski raced from ninth starting to battle Tyler Frye and take over the lead with five laps to go in the Stock Car headliner.

Frye, the Saturday winner at Beatrice Octoberfest last fall, stayed right behind to the finish. Kyle Vanover, Scott Brown and Jed Williams ran third through fifth, respectively.

After falling further off the pace from his fifth starting spot in the Modified feature, Grabouski rallied to pass defending national champion Jeff Larson for the Modified lead.

Larson, Jordy Nelson, Johnny Saathoff and Todd Shute followed at the stripe.

“We hadn’t raced since last year and spent all winter getting ready. It doesn’t get any better than this,” said Grabouski, already Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational qualifying eligible.

The 29th annual special brought more than 170 entries to Beatrice. 

Former Spring Nationals Sport Compact winner Dillon Richards drove from eighth starting to win the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stock feature. Two-time king Roy Armstrong was second, Justin Frederick third. 

Lee Horky reigned at Spring Nationals for the first time, topping the IMCA Northern SportMod main event ahead of Lance Borgman and Tyler Nerud.

And Devin Schmidt captured his first Mach-1 Sport Compact crown, with Kaden Murray and Zach Bohlmeyer scored next.

Inclement weather and wet track conditions on Friday forced postponement of Spring Nationals to Saturday and Sunday.