JOE SHEAR CLASSIC TO NASON

Austin Nason won his first ASA Midwest Tour race of the season when he took the checkered flag in Sunday’s Joe Shear Classic 200 at Madison Int’l Speedway.

Nason basically came out of retirement this season and was able to walk away with the $15,000 first prize by besting the field in the 200-lap race around the high-banked Wisconsin short track.

Gabe Sommers looked like he had the race in hand leading 154 of the opening 156 laps until a suspension problem forced him to exit the track and head into the pits. That opener up the door for Nason, who got around Penn Sauter on a late restart and was able to hang on for the victory.

“I feel like I’ve had a couple taken away from me and some were mechanical failures and somewhere just racing deals, I guess you’d call them,” Nason told the Milwaukee Journal=Sentinel. “So eight years later, we won it again. … This year showed that we had the dominant car and I think the end of the race really showed it.”

Derek Kraus, Luke Fenhaus, Sauter and Andrew Morrisey rounded out the top five finishers.

John DeAngelis, Ty Majeski, Ryan Farrell, Paul Shafer and Riley Stenjem completed the first ten finishers.

Next up for the ASA Midwest Tour is a trip to Wisconsin’s Jefferson Speedway on Saturday, May 23.