Sheppard and Taylor Take 50 Lappers at Macon Speedway

MACON, IL June 16, 2012) – Steve   Sheppard, Jr. and Guy Taylor won the Miller Distributing Lite Beer Twin 50s   at Macon Speedway Saturday night. The annual event started in 1985 and   Sheppard has now won a record seven times. Taylor won his first Modified   50-lapper, only the fifth in the event’s history, and became the third Taylor   to win a Lite Beer Twin 50s event behind Dick Taylor and Matt Taylor.

Sheppard’s victory was   impressive, leading all 50 laps and during a 29-straight green flag run,   Sheppard had come close to lapping the seventh place car of the 15 starters.   The race saw only three yellows and was finished in 17 minutes. Matt Taylor   started second row inside and fell back to the middle of the pack after   congestion slowed the red & yellow 24 but thanks to the 25 extra laps of   the feature, he worked his way back up to second. John Beck, front row   starter along with Sheppard, took third. Ryan Little, fastest qualifier, took   fourth and finished ahead of current points leader Greg Kimmons.

The Billingsley Towing   Modifieds had a more difficult time getting through the 50 laps as they   proceeded to have ten cautions and their longest stretch of green flag laps   was 16. The 50 laps were completed in 28 minutes as Taylor went back and   forth with Dave Crawley, Jr. and Randy Huffman. Taylor took the lead from   Crawley on the seventh lap and then after a caution flag, Huffman bypassed   Taylor on lap 37. Another caution flag led to Taylor regaining the lead on   lap 46 and held on for the final four laps.

Taylor’s victory was also   his fifth of 2012 at Macon Speedway in 2012. Huffman finished second, Crawley   in third. Jeremy Nichols came from 14th position to take fourth place and   Danny Smith finished fifth ahead of Clark Robertson.

Dave Crawley, Jr. did win   a feature Saturday night, the Sportsman 15-lap A-Main. Taking control from   Dennis Vandermeersch on lap seven, Crawley steamrolled his way to the   checkered flag and his third victory in the division. Defending track   champion Nick Macklin finished second. Rick Roedel was in third,   Vandermeersch took fourth and Tim Bedinger finished in fifth.

Jeremy Nichols won the   Street Stock feature, his first since September 2011, the Street Stock   Championship race. He only led one lap, the last one, as he trailed George   Ewing to the 11th lap and took the lead on a Ewing spinout. Nichols became   the leader with one lap to go and beat Terry Reed, Gene Reed, Mike Pundt, Jr.   and Jonathan Drake to the finish line.

The 4-cylinder Hornet   cars provided some of the best and most exciting racing of the evening.   Jeremy Reed won his ninth of ten features and snuck by defending champion   Adam Webb. Austin Harbin, 17-year-old, of Argenta, won her second career heat   and her first Amateur Hornet feature as she held off two drivers in the heat   (Nick Matherly and Michael Gossett) and three in the feature (Matherly,   Gossett and Zach Perryman).

The evening finished just   in time as Mother Nature delivered some very much needed rain. Just as the   final feature completed, the skies opened and the rains fell. Nice timing.

The next show at Macon   Speedway will be the third annual Building Systems of Illinois Mini Sprint   Nationals and POWRi Midgets. A full stock car racing show will accompany the   open wheel racers. Two weeks from Saturday is another big race for the Late   Models and Modifieds with the 95Q Firecracker 40s and a huge fireworks   display.