HENNESSEY, Okla. – Social media has helped Hesston Shaw follow who’s won what at the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s for the past two years.
He hopes to give his Facebook friends plenty to talk about this September.
The Hennessey, Okla., driver makes his first trip to Boone Speedway to experience the motorsports event everybody’s been telling him about since he started racing an IMCA Sunoco Stock Car two years ago.
“When I moved up to the Stock Cars, I ordered a new Jet from Johnny Saathoff and everybody was talking about Super Nationals,” said Shaw. “The last two years I’ve kept up with it on Facebook. It’s pretty much the biggest race I’ve ever heard of. There’s a lot of racing and I can’t wait to be part of it. I wish it was this weekend.”
Shaw has been racing for nearly half of his 24 years. He started at the age of 12 in a pure stock class, moving up to the factory stocks, sportmods, pure stocks and ultimately the sanctioned Stock Cars.
A nine-time feature winner in his rookie season, he’s won seven of 13 starts at Longdale Speedway so far this year and had a streak of six straight checkered flag runs.
“I love the full-bodied cars. I’m not an open wheel kind of guy,” admitted Shaw, who also has a single outing this year at Outlaw Motor Speedway. “There are times you have to make sacrifices to do what you love and for me, that’s racing a Stock Car.”
Making the Saturday night main event at Super Nationals is his first objective. Winning it, of course, would be the ultimate goal.
“Hopefully we can make the big dance. If we can do that, I’ll scratch it in my book as a win,” Shaw said. “Regardless of how we do, we’ll load up at the end and say we had fun.”
His father Harold owned and promoted Enid Motor Speedway before selling it to go racing with Shaw, and now helps Jackie Walters on the crew.
Aton Engine and Clutch of Hennessey has backed Shaw since he started racing.
Other sponsors include Daniel Construction and Choate Oilfield Services, also of Hennessey; CWS Wireline of Dover; and BB Machine and Dunsworth Machine, both of Enid.