As the DIRTcar Summer Nationals begins to wind down in the home stretch, Tanner English is still bringing the heat.
The Benton, KY-racer led the final 28 laps of the main event Thursday night at Butler Motor Speedway to get his tenth career Hell Tour triumph and his fourth win of the summer. 2026 has been a summer that has seen him finish in the top 10 every start he’s made thus far on tour except one, showing just how dominant a force English has been in 2026.
“It’s just amazing when things start falling your way, they just fall your way. It’s been a great year, and I can’t thank everybody enough,” English said. “I think we pretty much got the national deal wrapped up since Jason (Feger) is gone, which is a big weight off my shoulders. We still got work to do and we’re just going to try to win every race from here on it, that’s the goal. Now I feel like we can try some stuff and get out of our comfort zone to get even better.”
Michigan native Chad Finley led the field to green in the 30-lap main event with points leader English on the outside of the front row. Finley got a good start on the initial green flag and led the opening lap of the Summer Nationals’ seventh appearance at Butler.
English found the bottom lane was clear and showed the nose to Finley as the No. 42 washed high exiting Turn 4. Finley and English drag raced to the line and English led by only .012 seconds over Finley on Lap 2.
English nailed the bottom once more as Finley struggled to find traction on the top in Turns 1 and 2, which allowed English to pull away on Lap 3. Finley began to backtrack a bit as Ryan Unzicker found some traction on the top side of the speedway and moved around Finley down the back stretch to take second place.
Tim Hunt Photo
Unzicker began to close English’s gap in lap traffic on Lap 10 as he continued to make the top work around Butler. But English was consistent on the bottom, maintaining space between himself and Unzicker over the next 20 laps as he drove the field back around to collect his fourth checkered flag in the last nine races on the Hell Tour.
“I dreaded every car I got to because it was pretty bottom dominant, but I kind of surprised myself a few times when I’d go to the outside and I’d get right around them,” English said. “The slower cars were keeping a really good pace and were hard to pass. It was just really dirty and there was nothing much outside the bottom. I was counting laps and looking for that white flag.”
Unzicker finished second, Finley finished third, Frank Heckenast Jr. rebounded after a broken rear end last night to finish fourth, and Luke Morey rounded out the top five.
UP NEXT
The DIRTcar Summer Nationals heads to Crystal Motor Speedway in Crystal, MI, on Thursday, July 9. Tickets will be sold at the track on race day.
How can you watch every DIRTcar Summer Nationals race if you can’t be at the track? Every race is broadcasted live on DIRTVision.
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 96-Tanner English[2]; 2. 24-Ryan Unzicker[6]; 3. 42-Chad Finley[1]; 4. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[3]; 5. 49-Luke Morey[5]; 6. 16S-Sam Seawright[12]; 7. 89-Mike Spatola[9]; 8. LIL91-Carter Schlenk[4]; 9. 6M-Dona Marcoullier[8]; 10. 41-Mike Vandermark Jr[11]; 11. 27-Eric Spangler[7]; 12. 19M-Carter Murday[10]; 13. 21B-Rich Bell[14]; 14. 18-Chase Burda[16]; 15. 32-Chad Roush[13]; 16. 4-Travis Stemler[17]; 17. 74-Mitch McGrath[19]; 18. 07-Rylee Knoll[15]; 19. 30-Mark Voigt[22]; 20. 46-Colin Shipley[18]; 21. 15-Austin Harnick[21]; 22. 1*-Kyle Moore[20]
