In the final appearance of Illinois on the 2025 edition of the DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models season, it was a home-state native who boosted his chances of winning the overall title.
Through 40 laps of racing around Sumner, IL’s Red Hill Raceway on Independence Day, Jason Feger drove to his fifth victory of the tour as he sits nine races away from his second career championship with the Hell Tour.
Dillon McCowan and Tyler Millwood led the field to the green flag, with McCowan’s No. 75 flying around the top of the cushion around the Thursday night winner to take the lead.
Jason Feger used the bottom while Millwood used the top in their battle for second place. However, Feger’s pace on the low side helped him prevail ahead of Millwood on Lap 3 as he eyed McCowan’s position.
Feger crept up to McCowan after making up a one-second deficit by keeping his car stuck to the bottom lane. McCowan stuck to the cushion while Feger stayed low as they battled side-by-side for the Feature lead. Feger threw a slide job through Turns 3-4 to take the lead until McCowan countered his move in Turns 1-2 to retake the position.
McCowan held onto the lead, but Feger kept the Adam Family Motorsports No. 75 within reach with a 0.5-second interval between the two. When McCowan attempted to use the bottom to squeeze Feger, he was unable to keep the car planted as Feger secured the lead on Lap 19 off of Turn 4 with speed from the bottom lane.
McCowan charged back at Feger, riding the cushion, but the “High Side Hustler” kept McCowan out of an opportunity to take the lead with a 0.8-second distance as lapped traffic on the bottom prevented McCowan from passing Feger.
While lapped traffic kept to the bottom of the 0.4-mile oval, Feger grew the lead to 1.3 seconds over McCowan as he planted the No. 25 Feger Racing Longhorn Chassis towards his 35th career Hell Tour win.
The final Illinois triumph helped Feger get away from Tyler Erb by 82 points entering the final eight races, and leads Erb and Mark Whitener in the Week 4 standings by 24 markers.
“I was just patient,” Feger said. “This place is really hard on tires. And Dillon, I wanted to get in the top of (Turn 2), but I didn’t think my car would be as good as it was around the bottom. and drove around it pretty effortlessly. I felt really good, so I was gonna stay down there as long as I could. I just kept pressuring Dillon and kept running harder and harder, and I could see his grip starting to give up. Just a wily veteran and patient, so it makes my job easy.”
Up Next: The DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models and DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals visit Indiana for the first time in 2025 with a trip to Haubstadt Speedway on Saturday, July 5.
If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision – either online or by downloading the DIRTVision App.
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 25F-Jason Feger[3]; 2. 75-Dillon McCowan[2]; 3. 5-Mark Whitener[10]; 4. 14JR-Trey Mills[7]; 5. 1-Tyler Erb[4]; 6. 90-Brian Rickman[17]; 7. 28B-Carson Brown[5]; 8. 21-Billy Moyer Sr[6]; 9. 14-Haiden Cowan[15]; 10. 81-Jason Riggs[12]; 11. 388-Jackson Hise[14]; 12. D48-Derek Groomer[13]; 13. 15-Clay Stuckey[20]; 14. 17SR-Brody Smith[22]; 15. 31M-Tyler Millwood[1]; 16. (DNF) 5S-Kyle Hammer[8]; 17. (DNF) 11G-Gordy Gundaker[11]; 18. (DNF) 17SS-Brenden Smith[16]; 19. (DNF) 18-Shannon Babb[21]; 20. (DNF) 29-Christian Hanger[19]; 21. (DNF) 47-Cyle Forgy[18]; 22. (DNF) 4-Cody Mahoney[9]
