Jason Feger put together a nearly perfect night at Kankakee as he won his 31st career Summer Nationals race and his first this year.
Feger started the night off strong posting the second fastest time of 15.526 in Qualifying Group B only behind Tyler Millwood who ran a 15.418 fast lap. That time allowed him to start on the pole of Heat 4 and he took advantage of it by bringing home the win. With the win in the heat race he started on the outside of the pole for the feature
He wasted no time getting to the lead, ripping around the lip through turns 1 and 2 and getting a huge run down the backstretch to blow past Dillon McCowan, who started on the pole. Feger stormed to a commanding 1.7 second lead jetting around the top before he reached the tail end of the field and lap traffic by lap 10 of the 30 lap feature. Once he got into lap traffic, Millwood closed the gap to about a second, but Feger was able to maneuver his car to the inside and clear both Christian Hanger and Clay Stuckey. After clearing them, he extended it back to 1.6 seconds.
A caution for debris flew at the halfway mark that allowed Millwood a chance to overtake Feger. However, on the ensuing restart Millwood over rotated going through turns 1 and 2 and saw his chances at a win evaporate. Miraculously, the entire field was able to avoid him without anyone making contact with him.
On the next restart, Feger gapped the field again extending his lead to nearly a second within a single lap over McCowan. While Feger put distance between himself and McCowan, Billy Moyer and Mark Whitener began working their way through the field. Moyer got up to fourth after restarting seventh while Whitener moved up to 6th after restarting in 13th.
Defending Summer Nationals Champion Tyler Erb, who was running in 12th would bring out the next caution after he spun in turn 2 on lap 21. It appeared he made contact with Drake Troutman while attempting to drive underneath him.
Whitener would continue his charge to the front on the next restart moving up to fifth while Feger continued to keep both McCowan and Shirley nearly a second behind him. Moyer faded to sixth with Frank Heckenast Jr. getting back around him. However, Heckenast would eventually lose that spot as Whitener expertly worked around him with less than 5 to go. However, he ran out of time to make any more progress foward and Feger took home the win a 2.2 second lead over eventual second place finisher Dillon McCowan.
In victory lane, Feger said, “Well, it’s been a rough start to the year for us, but we feel like we’ve been working really hard and getting better and better. It feels good to get a win in the Summer Nationals early in the Hell Tour. Second night. So that takes that pressure off and now we can just focus on racing.”
He added, “It ended up being a pretty good race. I felt like early I could maneuver really well. Top. Bottom. Middle. Towards the end though it definitely started getting-. We had to be up top.”
Official Finishing Order
- Jason Feger
- Dillon McCowan
- Brian Shirley
- Mark Whitener
- Frank Heckenast Jr.
- Billy Moyer
- Braiden Keller
- Drake Troutman
- Kyle Bronson
- Trey Mills
- Dennis Erb Jr.
- Shannon Babb
- Joseph Joiner
- Tyler Millwood
- Brenden Smith
- Tyler Erb
- Rusty Griffaw
- Clay Stuckey
- Chase Osterhoff
- Oakley Johns
- Christian Hanger
- Paul Parker
The 2025 Hell Tour is back in action tonight at Peoria. It will be at Tri-City on Friday and then wraps up the week at Fairbury on Saturday.
What do you make of Feger leading flag to flag to claim his 31st Summer Nationals win and his first of the year?
NEXT: Bobby Pierce Reveals Why He’s Not Competing In The Hell Tour This Year