Results Archives

Olson raises bar even higher with IMCA Northern SportMod national title

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Tony Olson didn’t leave himself a lot of room for improvement when he won 27 Karl Chevrolet Northern SportMod features and three local track titles last season. But he raised the bar even higher in 2016 with his career first IMCA national championship. “It’s kind of crazy how everything worked out,” said Olson, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Last year we were a couple points short but we learned a lot. This year we started figuring some more things out and had about the same number of wins at mid-season. The points race was close and it stayed that way ‘til the end of the year.” Olson won 29 features and repeated as champion at Benton County Speedway, Davenport Speedway and Independence Motor Speedway as well as the Allstar Performance Iowa State king en route to the national title. Eight different drivers led the national points race over the course of 2016. Olson enjoyed a two-week stay in the top spot of the standings in July and captured the national prize when [Read More]

One word describes it: Nichols has phenomenal 2016 season

HARLAN, Iowa – Mike Nichols described his month of June as phenomenal. The same adjective can be applied to his entire season. Nichols won all 15 of his June starts and 54 times in all en route to his career sixth IMCA Sunoco Stock Car national championship. He joined 2016 Hobby Stock king Shannon Anderson as the first drivers to win six national titles in the same division during the modern era of IMCA. Nichols also matched the single season wins record Nate Coopman established in the Mach-1 Sport Compacts two years ago. “We started the season with 11 straight wins but our June was just phenomenal,” said Nichols, from Harlan, Iowa. “You can plan and prepare as much as you can but a month like that defies the law of averages. Our whole season defied the law of averages.” Listen to “Episode 195 Mike Nichols” on Spreaker. He finished outside the top five in just three of 66 starts at a dozen different tracks in four states. Along with the EQ Cylinder Heads Northern [Read More]

Abbey packs a career’s worth of highlights into championship-filled 2016 season

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 [Read More]

Shouse sprints to seven feature wins, IMCA RaceSaver national championship

MUSTANG, Okla. – One of the best spokesmen for the IMCA EMI RaceSaver Sprint Cars is the division’s newest national champion. Andy Shouse won seven features, along with the Sprint Series of Oklahoma and Allstar Performance Oklahoma State crowns in his first full season in the 305 class. He bookended those feature victories with strings of top five finishes at the start and the end of the 2016 campaign. “We just wanted to race. We didn’t plan to chase national points but we looked up one night and saw that we were in the thick of it,” said Shouse. “We really enjoyed this season and had a lot of good finishes. The RaceSaver rules really equalize this division. It doesn’t take a lot of money to be competitive.” Six different drivers from Texas occupied the top spot in the national point standings before Shouse moved in to stay in late July. From Mustang, he became the first driver from Oklahoma to win the Sprint Car crown since IMCA resumed sanctioning the division in 1989. Shouse [Read More]

Time gives Toland a new appreciation of IMCA title

DAVENPORT, Iowa – By no means is Rob Toland ready to hang up his racing helmet. But the oldest IMCA driver to win a national championship has definitely learned to better appreciate his on-track accomplishments. Toland won the national Late Model crown for the third time, as well as track titles at his hometown Davenport Speedway and Quad City Speedway, plus the Allstar Performance Illinois State championship. He turned 55 six weeks after the point season ended. Listen to “Episode 191 Rob Toland” on Spreaker. “With age, we always appreciate things better. This national championship was pretty special to me,” said Toland, who also topped 2001 and 2005 point standings for the premier division. “I was second in points at East Moline and Davenport when I got hurt at work and ended up missing the last half of 2014 and all of 2015, so it was good to be able to come back and be competitive.” “It was an amazing year. I would have never fathomed I would win the national championship and two track [Read More]

Lessons learned in first title chase pay off for Grabouski

BEATRICE, Neb. – The lessons he learned winning his first IMCA national championship paid off again this year for Jordan Grabouski. So did his success at a slew of early-season specials in Kansas and Nebraska. The Beatrice, Neb., hotshoe parlayed a division leading and single season career-best 33 feature wins and two local track titles into the 2016 Xtreme Motor Sports IMCA Modified national title. “When I won my first national championship in 2011, the points really went down to the last weekend and I had to win my last race,” he said. “I had a better understanding that the point season was 50 races and was more patient this year.” “We only finished outside the top five eight times (in 51 starts) this year,” Grabouski noted. “A lot of that was because as you race more, you don’t put yourself in position to wreck or get a DNF.” “We’ve run a crate engine from Friesen Chevrolet for a couple years and that’s been a big boost for us,” he added. “We had another year [Read More]

Improved geometry helps Gray to 17 wins, spot in national Southern SportMod top 20

VERNAL, Utah – Scott Gray has a greater appreciation for geometry after the end of a career-type season that saw him crack the top 20 national standings for IMCA’s Scoggin-Dickey Parts Center Southern SportMod division. The Vernal, Utah hotshoe won 17 of 20 starts, along with Diamond Mountain Speedway and Millard County Raceway track titles as well as the Allstar Performance State championship. “I got a car that was new to me, a 2006 Elite updated in 2013 by Jeff Emerson, and that helped a lot,” said Gray, 19th nationally despite the modest number of starts. “We put the setup on from the old car, minus the shock package, put it on the scale and moved the weights. The front end geometry was better than the old car’s and that helped a lot.” He won 11 of 12 starts at hometown Diamond Mountain, breaking before taking the green flag for the main event on the second night of the season. Gray was almost as good at Delta, with six wins, a second and a third in [Read More]

Decal photo good for $50 Karl Performance certificate

DES MOINES, Iowa – Drivers in all IMCA divisions displaying 10 or more Karl Performance heat win decals are eligible to receive a $50 gift certificate from the Des Moines high performance parts supplier. Drivers should send a photo of their car proving placement of those decals to Marketing Director Kevin Yoder at the IMCA home office by Monday, Nov. 14. Yoder’s email address is kyoder@imca.com. Gift certificates will be presented during the national awards banquet next month.

Lagroon, Grabouski are IMCA Modified winners at Salina’s Mid-America Clash

SALINA, Kan. (Sept. 30-Oct. 1) – When Mid-America Clash checkers flew at Salina Speedway, Corey Lagroon and Jordan Grabouski both went home with $1,500 checks for their Xtreme Motor Sports IMCA Modified feature wins. Lagroon worked his way up from seventh in topping the Friday night feature, passing Derrick Brown following a restart after midway in the 25-lapper to earn a spot on the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational ballot. Grabouski, the 2016 national champion, also used a restart to his advantage on Saturday, motoring by Lagroon with 10 circuits left. “Friday was my fifth win at Salina this season,” noted Lagroon. “There were a couple late yellows and Derrick made it close. He had a pretty good run off the final turn.” Brown led early but settled for second. Larry Sutton, Danny Holt and Kurtis Pihl rounded out the top five. A double winner at Salina’s April DirtFest special, Grabouski started inside row six on Saturday and wound up with the win ahead of Lagroon, Danny Morrison, Tyler Frye and Pihl. “We’ve had real good [Read More]

McGaha, Sessums, Abbey, Pirkle all are $1,500 Showdown winners at Kennedale

KENNEDALE, Texas (Oct. 1) – After he got caught up at work, Josh McGaha couldn’t be caught at Kennedale Speedway Park’s Showdown main event for Xtreme Motor Sports IMCA Modifieds. “I wasn’t going to go but we finally got caught up at work,” said McGaha, who earned $1,500 along with a spot on the ballot for the 2017 Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational for the Saturday checkers. “It turned out to be a good weekend all the way around. They had a good crowd, there was good competition and we got some good luck that played into our hands.” Crewman Jay Grimes had encouraged McGaha to make another racing weekend of it and three-hour tow was rewarded with a bookend trophy to the hardware they took home in 2012. McGaha had gone with “a happy medium” as track conditions changed from qualifying on Friday to the main event on Saturday and, one in front, edged ahead to beat Razor Chassis Southern Region champion and defending race winner Matt Guillaume to the stripe by about four car [Read More]