By Brett Zerfowski

(Macon, IL) The return of the POWRi Midgets & Micro Sprints brought better than 150 racecars to the world’s fastest 1/5th mile dirt oval with 90 racecars being from POWRi. Thrilling side-by-side and three-wide racing excited the crowd in both the open wheel and stock car divisions.

Bubba Altig of Mechanicsburg, IL., is familiar with Macon Speedway but not familiar with Victory Lane. Until Saturday night. Altig whipped through the 30-lap A-Main feature at the top of the oval giving little chance to the other 21 competitors and winning his first POWRi Midget feature. From the start of the race, Altig dominated his way atop Macon Speedway and was only slowed by the five racing stoppages, four yellows and one red due to a flip. Finishing behind Altig was California native Rico Abreu as he raced and performed many slide jobs with third place finisher Austin Brown.

Austin Andruwskevetch hung on to take the POWRi Micro Sprint feature and winning the 20-lap feature event. Of the 54 signed-in Micro Sprints, Andruwskevetch topped the field and beat the current points leader Joe B. Miller, who took second. Trent Beckinger, defending Micro Sprint champion, took third.

In the stock cars, the Billingsley Towing Modifieds raced to an exciting finish as Guy Taylor won his sixth feature of the year and for the second-straight week beating out Randy Huffman. It was practically déjà vu for Huffman as last week’s Lite Beer Twin 50s event had Huffman leading and lost the win due to a late caution in which Taylor came strong and won. This week, the same thing happened. Taylor made the pass on the high side with five laps remaining and Huffman was runner-up again. Dave Crawley, Jr. tried to follow Taylor along the side banks but couldn’t pass for any higher than third. Darcey Wey of Heyworth finished strong for fourth place and Tommy Sheppard, Jr. of New Berlin snatched fifth place.

Nick Macklin of Argenta was the winner of the Street Stock feature event. It was his first Street Stock feature win. He is the defending Sportsman champion but hasn’t won a Sportsman feature this season. This was his second race in the Street Stock and his first successful night.

Jeremy Reed was finally topped in the Pro Hornets class but only by Billy Justice, his first Pro Hornet victory. Reed was passed late in the race and was battling Adam Webb to hold on to second. Michael Gossett found the winner’s circle at Macon Speedway for the first time since July 9, 2011, in the Amateur Hornet class.

The next show at Macon Speedway is the ever-popular 95Q Firecracker 40s, featuring the Late Models and Billingsley Towing Modifieds running 40-lap features and the huge fireworks display at dusk.