HARLAN, Iowa (Sept. 21, 2024) – Jack Hearty won two races on Saturday night at Shelby County Speedway.
The first was just to get his IMCA Sunoco Late Model on the track.
The second was to win the Tiny Lund Memorial and Brandon Saltzman Showdown main event.
Hearty, just 22 and from Omaha, won his career-first IMCA Late Model feature and $3,098 on a night dedicated to both the hometown hero and 1963 Daytona 500 champion and to the late 2021 track champion.
“There have been a couple races where I’ve led late and had a tire blow out, or lost the lead after a late caution,” said Hearty, who got up at sunrise Sunday, walked from his camper and sat at the track, letting everything from the night before set in. “We had a caution with four to go and I knew Cory Dumpert was right behind me. I just told myself ‘Let’s go do what we know we can’ and it all worked out.”
Dumpert, the five-time defending national champion, and Sterling Perkins completed the top three. Kale Kosiski, who grew up racing with Saltzman and finished mid-pack, his father Ed, Saltzman’s car owner, and mother Trish shared Hearty’s post-race excitement.
“Winning this race meant a lot to me and seeing how happy they were was cool,” he said.
Hearty was a DNF on opening night after missing on his set-up and spinning out. He regrouped “pretty well on Saturday, leading all but one lap after transmission woes in his heat race.
“We thrashed pretty darn hard just to get on the track for the feature,” said Hearty, crediting his father Mike and brother Sam and Nick for their above and beyond efforts. “Everything just worked out. I couldn’t have picked a better night to win my first feature.”
Colby Fett and Todd Shute had similar sentiments following $2,500 IMCA Sunoco Stock Car and $1,800 Friesen Performance IMCA Modified feature wins, respectively, at Harlan on Saturday.
Fett, who hadn’t fared so well in a previous Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMod outing at Shelby County, took the lead five laps in and ended up beating Friday winner Mike Nichols to the checkers.
“I was just trying to find my line and my rhythm,” said Fett, already eligible for the B & B Racing Chassis All-Star Invitational. “I knew he (Nichols) would be there. I was just rolling along kind of calmly and everything went my way.”
His margin of victory was a second. Ryan Webb rounded out the top three.
“The season has been a weird one. We started on a special note, then had a slew of DNF’s running the Stock Car and the SportMod. A lot of fluke stuff happened,” said Fett. “Then we went to Spencer and beat Jake Masters and Kelly Shryock (at the Battle of the Blue Ribbon). “It’s kind of crazy to intertwine my name with those guys. They’re two of the best Stock Car drivers out there.”
Colby Fett found his line, found his rhythm and then found his way to victory lane following his $2,500 IMCA Sunoco Stock Car win Saturday at Shelby County Speedway. (Photo by Shotz by Sam)
Shute is one of the best IMCA Modified drivers out there but hasn’t won at Harlan since he began once or twice a year visits there in 2007. Making up for a disappointing finish at Davenport’s Corn State Nationals the prior Saturday figured in his race day decision to make the trip.
“We were so bad at Davenport. I had to get out of that funk,” said Shute, who did just that, finding the fast line down low and leading all 20 circuits. “I had some ideas and obviously they worked. It’s good to put all that (from Davenport) behind me and it’s good to have that (Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational eligibility) notch on our belt already.”
Runner-up was Monte Most and Cody Thompson was third.
$2,000 winners were Cole Wayman in the Northern SportMods an Adam Wasserman in the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stocks. Shannon Mahlberg scored the $650 Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compact victory.
Joining Nichols, already B & B qualifying eligible, in victory lane on Friday were Travis Denning in the Late Models, Jake Sachau in the SportMods, Mike Smith in the Hobby Stocks and Johnny Thomas in the Sport Compacts.
Both nights of the Tiny Lund Memorial and Brandon Saltzman Showdown were broadcast by IMCA.TV.
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