The Rockford Speedway and the Big 8 Late Model Series presented by Gandrud Chevrolet is seemingly a match made in heaven.
First there’s Rockford Speedway, celebrating its sixty-eighth season of continuous operations in 2015. The high-banked quarter mile has long been known as an action-packed bullring throughout its history. Then, there’s Big 8 Late Model Series, which during its ten-plus year existence has featured some of the best Late Model drivers in the Midwest while providing some of the most thrilling short-track races year after year.
For the eleventh straight season, the Big 8 Late Model Series is scheduled to make multiple stops at the Deery family’s famed facility, participating in two highly anticipated annual events.
First up is the 38th Annual Spring Classic Sunday April 12, the event where it all started for the Big 8 Late Model Series back in April of 2005. Again this April, the Big 8 Late Model Series shares the Spring Classic spotlight with the Mid American Stock Car Series while being joined by the American Ethanol Super Truck Series for the first time ever. The Big 8’s best will gather on the second Sunday of April in northern Illinois, looking to secure one of twenty-four starting spots in an 88 lap main event.
Then, on Saturday October 3, the Big 8 Late Models headline “Short Track Saturday Night” as part of the 50th Anniversary National Short Track Championships. The stop at Rockford is part of “Three Races in Three Weeks” to determine the 2015 Big 8 Series champion. The Big 8 main event at #NSTC50 will be 108 laps in distance, the longest and most grueling race on the 2015 schedule. Last September, Edgerton Wisconsin’s Casey Johnson snatched victory on the last lap of the 108 lap marathon, besting Dale Nottestad and Austin Nason in a wild green-white-checkered shootout that ended in a three-wide finish.