August 25, 2024

A proven winning combination at the Snowball Derby and elsewhere has won again, this time in the ASA STARS National Tour Michigan 200 at Owosso Speedway.

Talking Rock, Georgia’s Chandler Smith made the trip north to drive the Wilson Motorsports number 22 in place of Gio Ruggiero, who had prior obligations with the ARCA Menards Series today at the Milwaukee Mile.

As a reminder, the Michigan 200 was rescheduled to this date due to a poor forecast on the original date of August 17th, causing the scheduling conflict for Ruggiero.

Smith drove from a fifth-place starting position to not just win the feature, but also win Stage 2 of the Michigan 200. Kyle Steckly won Stage 1.

The final stage saw Smith battle with Austin Nason for the lead, and contact from Nason moved Smith up the track and backwards towards the start of the final stage.

Smith, however, quickly made his way back up to the front, taking the lead away from Nason in similar fashion.

Simply put, it was short track bump-and-run galore.

Nason would go on to finish in second place behind Smith, with Gavan Boschele rounding out the podium. Dawson Sutton and Casey Roderick finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Despite the show it may have put on, both drivers were not particularly pleased with each other.

“I get no benefit from running into people, moving people in this stuff when I come and do it,” said Smith. “The only time I’ve really moved somebody was for the [Snowball] Derby win.”

“He can be mad all he wants. He drove into me, about wrecked me, so when I got back to him I paid him back for it. I’m not gonna get ran over just because I don’t do this thing full-time.”

A both physically and mentally overheated Nason shared his side of the story to Liberty Racing Review.

“I lost my hose about lap 100 and we tried to fix it at that last stage break. My shield kept falling down and I was holding on. Lost brakes with five to go and was just holding on for everything I had.”

On the contact with Smith, Nason stated, “I’m just mad about the restarts. I might’ve got a little jump on the first one but nothing major. We raced fine there, didn’t touch each other. Get tires and I just get ran over on both restarts going into 1.”

“He races NASCAR. We’re not here to wreck each other’s cars. All these other cars don’t have a single tire mark but our two. We all gotta learn a little respect and I didn’t feel like I got respected today.

The next stop for the ASA STARS National Tour is the Glass City 200 at Toledo Speedway on September 14th.

ASA STARS Michigan 200 Results

1. Chandler Smith
2. Austin Nason
3. Gavan Boschele
4. Dawson Sutton
5. Casey Roderick
6. Kyle Steckly
7. Chase Burda
8. Chase Pinsonneault
9. Albert Francis
10. Jonathan Knee
11. Michael Simko
12. Billy VanMeter -3 laps
13. Blake Rowe -39 laps
14. Evan Shotko -70 laps
15. Dylan Stovall -78 laps
16. Guy Fire -161 laps
17. Brandon Varney -182 laps
18. David Liaeff -188 laps
19. Evan Varney -193 laps
20. Chris Munson -198 laps
21. Josh Ebbert -199 laps

Cover photo: Reid Scott/Liberty Racing Review