MACON, Ill. — Nine years ago, Macon Speedway’s racing community was in grief over the loss of one of their racing favorites, Kerby Damery.
The Macon driver passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. Kerby’s widow Nikki made sure that her late husband’s honor would carry on through the KerbyStrong Foundation as well as a special night at his favorite race track that would be named KerbyStrong.
One of the premier divisions at Macon Speedway is the Decatur Building Trades Pro Late Models.
The late models saw Damery win the championship in 2004. Braden Johnson has been pursuing a championship after constant top five finishes and three feature wins. Johnson rolled out to a front row outside starting spot and blasted out to the lead.
With green flag laps mounting and Johnson stretching his lead, things were on cruise control for him. Then, a caution flag came and buttoned up the line. That allowed Dakota Ewing, Chris Dick, Jarod Shasteen and Blaise Baker a chance run closer to the leader. Only Ewing was able to stay close to Johnson as they ran the top side of the track but ran out of time as Johnson claimed his fourth feature of the season.
Kerby Damery was a Sportsman track champion in 1990 and is one of Macon Speedway’s top classes this year as it relates to car count.
Another solid car count saw the Weddle Performance Engines Sportsman class bring Steven Mattingly to the winner’s circle. Mattingly, from Chenoa, raced in the lead with Scott Landers and had a charging Wes O’Dell coming to the front. Landers came solidly to fight for the lead as they ran through the turns but Mattingly was too strong on the straightaways as he grabbed the checkered flag.
The final class that Kerby Damery raced was the modifieds.
Though he never experienced a lot of success, he did get the checkered flag a few times. Tim Luttrell has started to build a resume with a lot of checkered flags, especially recently in the Red’s Place Modifieds, and continued to add to that total with his fifth feature win of the season.
The race started off with Zach Rhodes in control. A caution flag gathered the field together and then Austin Lynn made his move to make the pass with more than half the race complete. Lynn looked to headed back to victory lane but with two laps remaining, Luttrell charged up to the front and passed for the lead.
Dalton Ewing returned to dominance in the Pro-Modified class as he notched his sixth feature win of his campaign. The race was hard-fought as Guy Taylor, Zach Taylor and Kevin Crowder came running to the lead.
Ewing kept his distance during green flag laps and made it an easy race.
Hayden Harvey came through the final turn to pass Hunter Pruitt for the checkered flag in the Pure Max Racing Oil HART Non-Wing Micro Sprints Presented by Bailey Chassis. For Harvey, it was his second win of the season in the micro sprints.
The final race of KerbyStrong was the Hornet feature which saw Billy Mason pull away from Tristin Quinlan and Allan Harris for the feature race win. Mason scored his fourth feature win of the year.
Pro Late Model Feature Results
1. 14J-Braden Johnson[2]; 2. 25-Dakota Ewing[6]; 3. 22-Chris Dick[4]; 4. 77-Blaise Baker[3]; 5. M77-Joe Rokos[8]; 6. 11-Ryan Miller[10]; 7. 14S-Derek Smith[7]; 8. 32M-Cody Maguire[5]; 9. 21-Jarod Shasteen[1]; 10. 9B-Brandon Miller[12]