2017 All American 400

The All American 400, held at the Nashville Fairgounds Speedway was for a number of years the highlight of my fall. 400 laps of noisy, smelly, fast, frantic stock car racing held under crisp, clear fall skies! What’s not to like? But times change, as do political climates, and for a number of years it apparently was not held. But it’s back and for the past several years it has been one of my early fall favorites.

Today’s schedule included a 100 lap Pro Late Model race as well as the 400 lap All American 400, so let’s get started!

100 LAP PRO LATE MODEL RACE

I have a place at this track that I like to use for photographs. It’s a little farther from the track than I’d like but the ground falls off dramatically right in front of where I stand and I shoot completely over the pit area. Other than light poles, which I have many, many photographs of, I have a clear and unobstructed view of the back straight through turn 3. As usual it worked out very well today!

The All American 400 started pretty much right on time. It might have been a little late due to wrecks during the Late Model race but that’s a given on a short track. As usual the teams put on a good show for most of the afternoon.

I have no idea where this “Competition Caution” nonsense came from, but like their NASCAR brethren the silliness is starting to show up at short-track races as well. At least the tracks I go to haven’t started breaking the races up into “Segments” yet. I keep waiting for NASCAR to have a “Competition Caution” every 2 laps and a “Segment Break” in between them.

And after a 10 minute or so break for the first “Competition Caution” we are back to what we came to see and what we PAID to see: Racecars in competition and not just going around in slow circles.

Not a lot of accidents during the race, these guys typically do a pretty good job of not hitting walls or each other, but I did capture a sequence of one of them …..

2017 ALL AMERICAN 400

Congratulations to Donnie Wilson for winning the event! The results were:

FIRST PLACE

Donnie Wilson
Oklahoma City, OK
Owner: Larry Wilson
Primary Sponsor: Wilson Ford Parts and OKC Auto

SECOND PLACE

Spencer Davis
Dawsonville, GA
Owner: Bond Suss
Primary Sponsor: Street Toys

THIRD PLACE

Christian Eckes
Cornelius, NC
Owner: Christian Eckes Racing
Primary Sponsor: Quality Bus Sales

FOURTH PLACE

Cole Rouse
Fort Smith, AR
Owner: Kyle Busch
Primary Sponsor: JBL

FIFTH PLACE

Mason Mingus
Nashville, TN
Owner: Richard Wauters

Position	Car Number	Driver

6	58	Tyler Ankrum – Colton, GA
7	26P	Bubba Pollard – Senoia, GA
8	54	Matt Craig – Kannapolis, NC
9	7	Casey Roderick – Fayetteville, GA
10	15T	Austin Thaxton – South Boston, VA
11	96	Danny O’Quinn, Jr – Coeburn, VA
12	43	Dennis Shoenfield – Van Buren, AR
13	4M	Kyle McCallum
14	121	Joseph Meyer – Mt. Juliet, TN
15	26C	Chandler Smith – Jasper, GA
16	05	Nathan Davis
17	5	Casey Johnson – Verona, WI
18	66	Steven Wallace – Mooresville, NC
19	99	Raphael Lessard – St. Joseph, ON, Canada
20	42	Chad Finley – Dewitt, MI
21	57	Cole Timm – Mooresville, NC
22	51N	Stephen Nasse – Pinellas, FL
23	26AA	Willie Allen – Bon Aqua, TN