In the 39-year history of the DIRTcar Summer Nationals, only six men have eclipsed 30 Feature wins. Jason Feger added his name to that list Thursday night in the 2024 season finale at Sycamore Speedway.
Feger, the 2010 Hell Tour champion from Bloomington, IL, led every lap of the main event for his fourth win of the summer, joining fellow Summer Nationals champions Don O’Neal (39), Brian Shirley (42), Bobby Pierce (49), Billy Moyer (100) and Shannon Babb (101) as the sixth driver in series history to win 30 Features.
The $6,000 triumph came as his first ever at the 3/8-mile oval, breaking Shirley’s win streak at the track with the Summer Nationals after he swept the event in 2021, 2022 and 2023. It also marks Feger’s 21st Summer Nationals victory in his home state, where each of his four wins this summer have been.
After winning his Heat Race and redrawing the outside pole for the Feature, Feger and polesitter Shannon Babb took the green flag and raced side-by-side into Turn 1. While Babb stuck to the bottom lane, Feger made his way around the top through the first two corners and got a great drive off Turn 2 to take the lead down the backstretch.
Feger soon began to stretch his lead, which grew to almost two seconds before the first caution flag was displayed on Lap 14 for a slowing Cody Overton. On the restart, Feger got the jump he needed to keep Shirley and Dennis Erb Jr. at bay behind him.
From there, Feger began to drive away with the lead while the battle for a spot in the top-five raged on behind him between Shirley, Erb, Babb and Frank Heckenast Jr. When Erb got by Shirley to take second on Lap 23, Feger had a 1.2-second advantage on Erb. Five laps later, the gap was over 2.3 seconds.
As Feger crossed the start/finish line under the white flag, still maintaining his large lead, it looked like smooth sailing to the checkered flag. And then, red.
Contact between Sean Mattingly and Titus Sneed on the backstretch sent Sneed’s car into the outside retaining wall and into a barrel roll by the opening before Turn 3, bringing out an immediate red flag. Sneed climbed from his car uninjured while the rest was towed back to the pits.
This presented Feger with one final test and his longtime Illinois rivals with one final chance on the restart.
“Coming to get the checkers, it’s definitely frustrating, but that’s part of racing,” Feger said. “Dennis is good and [Shirley] is good, so anything can happen. You can have a tire go down or you can just mess up that one time.
“I knew the car was really good; I could go anywhere I needed. I just needed to make sure I hit my marks and not just give it away – make them earn it the hard way.”
But, as he’d done before, Feger got a strong restart, gapped Erb behind him and led the field back around to the checkered flag unchallenged to secure the win in the final Late Model race of the 2024 Hell Tour.
Though he made history with the milestone win in the season finale and two weekly points championships, Feger said in Victory Lane that he expected more from his 2024 Summer Nationals efforts.
“I felt like we’ve been really fast this summer, but it definitely wasn’t the Hell Tour we were looking for,” Feger said.
He said he and the crew found a damaged shock partial way through their Summer Nationals schedule, which may have hindered his performance in the races he ran.
“That was frustrating; I wish we could start over and bring our A-game,” Feger said. “We worked hard, we kept digging and figured out what was wrong.”
Erb held on for second while Heckenast got by Shirley for third on the final lap. Babb completed the top-five.
Feature Results (31 laps): 1. Jason Feger, 2. Dennis Erb Jr, 3. Frank Heckenast Jr, 4. Brian Shirley, 5. Shannon Babb, 6. Bob Gardener, 7. Spencer Diercks, 8. Rich Bell, 9. Mike Provenzano, 10. Jaden Fryer, 11. Mark Voigt, 12. Dale Markham, 13. Jeremy Spoonmore, 14. Mike Lofgren, 15. Doug Tye, 16. Sean Mattingly, 17. Titus Sneed, 18. Cody Overton, 19. Jeff Riddell, 20. Mike Spatola, 21. Mike Mataragas, 22. John Provenzano
