DIRTcar Summer Nationals / Summit Modifieds

Since building a new team from scratch, Tanner English had been checking every box with the DIRTcar Summer Nationals to show it was worth it. But one box remained empty – a win.

That changed Wednesday night at Farmington Empire Speedway when English went uncontested to score his seventh career Summer Nationals victory, and first since 2024.

“It’s pretty cool to get this done finally,” English said. “I feel like we should’ve had five or six. Man, super grateful to be here.

“I know nobody wants to hear this story, but I started this deal from scratch with a lot of good people behind me. I can’t thank my family enough and everybody behind me. I appreciate them a ton. In March, I didn’t have nothing. Pretty cool to be here.”

English entered the night in a close point battle with reigning Series champion Jason Feger, and they brought that title fight to the front row of the 30-lap Feature with English on the pole and Feger to his outside.

The Kentucky driver moved ahead of Feger as they took the green and entered Turn 1. Feger pounded the cushion but was unable to find any momentum and backtracked through the field early on.

English maintained a healthy race lead as the race hit Lap 20, but a caution for a spinning Dean Carpenter stacked the field up and gave Sam Seawright, who worked his way to second, an opportunity to catch the No. 96.

English fired off on the bottom and pulled away, leading the final nine laps en route to the victory and extending his overall points lead.

“It feels really good just to get everyone to quit talking about it,” English said on his winless drought. “We’ve been really close and just made the wrong moves. It’s a big weight off my shoulders to get this done, just so I can just race and try to win more races and not worry about points. I get in my head a lot, and this is big.”

Seawright finished second, Clay Stuckey was third, Tyler Millwood was fourth, and Kyle Hardy finished fifth. Feger ended the night seventh.

UP NEXT

The DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models head back to the “Land of Lincoln” with a return to Illinois’ Lincoln Speedway on Thursday, July 2.

How can you watch every DIRTcar Summer Nationals race? Every race is streamed live on DIRTVision.

FEATURE RESULTS

Feature (30 Laps): 1. 96-Tanner English[1]; 2. 16S-Sam Seawright[3]; 3. 15-Clay Stuckey[4]; 4. 31M-Tyler Millwood[5]; 5. 99-Kyle Hardy[10]; 6. 91-Rusty Schlenk[7]; 7. 25-Jason Feger[2]; 8. LIL91-Carter Schlenk[11]; 9. 09-Michael Leach[9]; 10. 51B-Brandon Carpenter[17]; 11. 89-Mike Spatola[13]; 12. 49-Luke Morey[8]; 13. 25B-Chevy Boyer[15]; 14. 17SR-Brody Smith[18]; 15. 2-Charlie Cole[23]; 16. 16-Rusty Griffaw[20]; 17. 30-Mark Voigt[19]; 18. 147-Kyle Stolzer[21]; 19. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[6]; 20. 74-Mitch McGrath[14]; 21. 21-Billy Moyer Sr[16]; 22. 10-Daryn Klein[12]; 23. 51-Dean Carpenter[22]

Two weeks ago, Damian Kiefer was ecstatic to just get one DIRTcar Summit Modified Nationals win. Now, he has two and his name associated with a historic milestone.

Kiefer, of Ste. Genevieve, MO, picked up the win at Farmington Empire Speedway after a battle with Mike Savage in the Summit Modified Nationals’ 400th Series race.

Savage bolted from third to the lead in the opening lap after pole-sitter Ray Bollinger washed up high in Turn 4. However, they had to reset with the start being called back.

On the next attempt, Bollinger led the opening lap. But Savage made another quick march to the front, using the bottom line to race his way back to the lead on Lap 2.

Behind Savage, who checked out, Kiefer was charging from the ninth position. He was sixth on Lap 2, fifth on Lap 4, and second on Lap 9.

The long green flag run allowed lap traffic to become a factor, and that proved to be what Kiefer needed to catch Savage. Building a run on Lap 10, he was able to pass the No. 13 for the lead down the backstretch on Lap 11.

Kiefer led the final 14 laps to grab his second career Summit Modified win in the Series’ debut at Farmington.

“It’s an honor to even be on this stage,” Kiefer said. “We got a great piece of equipment under us here, and I can thank each and every person that gets me up and down the road. I just had to stay calm and hit my marks. It felt like I made a few mistakes, but all in all, we got the job done.”

Savage finished second, points leader Bollinger finished third, Dylan Sharp was fourth, and Zeke McKenzie rounded out the top five.

UP NEXT

The DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals heads to Lincoln Speedway in Lincoln, IL on Thursday, July 2.

How can you watch every Summit Modifieds race? Every race is streamed live on DIRTVision.

FEATURE RESULTS

Feature (25 Laps): 1. 0-Damian Kiefer[9]; 2. 13S-Mike Savage[3]; 3. 77-Ray Bollinger[1]; 4. 23-Dylan Sharp[7]; 5. 24-Zeke McKenzie[4]; 6. 27G-Jason Garver[5]; 7. J82-Treb Jacoby[8]; 8. 18-Brent Thompson[10]; 9. 74-James Hileman[16]; 10. 21-Chasten Boen[13]; 11. 7-Tim Nash[20]; 12. 1-Shane Blair[12]; 13. T23-John Toppozini[15]; 14. 98-Joshua Hawkins[11]; 15. 13K-Kodi Savage[14]; 16. 94-Mark Clary[2]; 17. 52-Bradley Stanfill[19]; 18. 14-Dalton Lane[22]; 19. (DNF) 4G-Paul Schrempf Jr[17]; 20. (DNF) 27J-Johnny Crump[18]; 21. (DNF) 23W-Tyler Worley[6]; 22. (DNF) 22-Jordan Borgmann[21]