ABILENE, Texas (Oct. 19, 2024) – Kyle Wisdom had impressed at last year’s Southern Challenge Ryan Bard Memorial, racing from his ‘B’ feature to finish fourth in the Friesen Performance IMCA Modified feature.
He turned heads again at Abilene Speedway’s 30th annual season-ending event on Saturday night, this time winning the main event and $2,000.
“I’ve run second here in a SportMod a couple times and raced the Southern Challenge in a Modified four times but have never been able to win it before,” said the hometown hotshoe, newly eligible to qualify for the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational. “It’s something every driver around here wants to do. It means a lot.”
Wisdom had started from the pole in the Friday night qualifier but was a DNF after getting into the wall with six laps left.
Returning to the speedway the next day, he made the most of Scotty Cook’s expertise and the track wrecker “to correct the geometry” and got the wheels and tires on with all of three minutes to spare before hot laps.
Wisdom raced from ninth to third in the ‘B’ and then drew the nine pill for the 30-lap feature.
“It was tough getting past a couple of the cars early,” he said. “We were finally able to work our way forward and passed Josh McGaha for the lead on a lap 18 restart. Then we had a caution with seven laps to go, and those last seven laps felt like 27.”
McGaha, 2024 track champion Kade Ogle, defending race winner William Gould and Charles Brewer completed the top five.
“Friday night, I didn’t think we had a chance after we wrecked out,” said Wisdom, throwing a shout out to fellow Air Force veteran and buddy Roger ‘Chief’ Shaw for his weekend help while noting that son Zach is a former Southern Challenge winner in the junior mini class. “You have no idea what it means to win this race in front of family, friends and sponsors.”
Jason Batt and Cutter Spalding also raced to $2,000 paydays in IMCA Sunoco Stock Car and Smiley’s Racing Products IMCA Southern SportMod features, respectively.
Now a three-time Southern Challenge winner, most recently in 2019, Batt led every lap of his Friday qualifier, despite the best efforts of Dennis Bissonnette, Brandon McElroy and then William Gould.
Saturday saw him take the checkers ahead of former race winners Matt Guillaume and Tommy Fain, with Bissonnette and Damon Hammond next across the stripe.
“This was a big win for us. For sure, it’s the race I want to win. Abilene is my favorite track,” said Batt, who has focused most of his racing efforts this season crew chiefing for daughters Daphne and Paisley in the junior limited endeavors. “Everything worked out perfect for us. We had cautions on laps 11 and 22 and would have gotten into lapped traffic on the next lap both times.”
The win was also good for B & B Racing Chassis All-Star Invitational qualifying eligibility.
Spalding was also a double winner, in a 2013 Express Chassis, powered by a motor almost as old, last raced eight or nine years ago and recently purchased out of Hobbs, N.M.
He won the Friday qualifier despite a wobble in the front end after getting together with another car in the early going.
After trip to the local auto parts store, Spalding led the distance in the big show on a dry slick oval.
“I was really, really good in (turns) one and two. I could have been better in three and four,” he said, “but had to make sure nobody could sneak inside me.”
Mark Patterson, Johnny Torres, Bradley Poor and Lawrence Mikulencak ran second through fifth.
And the $600 Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compact checkers flew for Bryson Broyles. Keagan Haralson, Shawn Miles, Cody Smith and Don Tyra were next across the stripe.
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