By Larry Woody
The Wilson Post, Main Street Media of Tennessee
During the early part of the season at Nashville’s Fairgrounds Speedway, Jackson Boone was nowhere to be seen.
Then, suddenly, he was easy to spot — running out front and rattling off straight victories.
That recent surge has Boone nipping at the heels of a pair of Wilson County frontrunners, Lebanon’s Dylan Fetcho and Gladeville’s Hunter Wright, and what at one time was shaping up as a two-driver championship battle is now a wide-open shootout between the three.
“It’s been absolutely incredible,” says Boone, a 23-year-old past track champion from Franklin. “I’ll continue to ride the momentum.”
Boone will try to make it four wins in a row, and potentially take the points lead, in the next race on July 29.
Fetcho, 22, the defending and two-time champion, has held the lead since winning the season opener in April. Wright, who won the second race, is in second place. But Boone has not just whittled away at their lead – he has taken a chain-saw to it.
Fetcho leads Wright by 13 points, with Boone hovering just four points further back.
He is not surprised by his current rally.
“I feel like I’ve had the car to beat in almost every race,” he says. “But I broke an axle in the first race and got off to a bad start. It took me a while to catch up, but my team has done a tremendous job to get us back in the picture.”
Boone won the 2019 championship, and Fetcho claimed it in 2020 and 2022. Wright, 21, is chasing his first title in the premier Pro Late Model division after losing it to Fetcho in last season’s final race.
Battling among themselves for trophies is nothing new for the three talented young racers.
“Dylan, Hunter and I started racing go-karts together when we were six or seven, and we’ve been competing against each other ever since,” Boone says. “We’re good friends and we have a friendly rivalry. We all want to win, and we race each other hard. But when the race is over, we shake hands.”
Boone was not in title contention last season due to skipping three Fairgrounds events to race out-of-state. This year he came back full-time, focused on claiming a second championship.
Noting his opening-night struggle before rebounding, he says, “In racing, these things tend to run in cycles. You’ll have bad luck, then suddenly things will go your way. Hopefully this good run will keep going for a while longer.”
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway will roar back to life Saturday, July 29th for the, 500 Sprint Car Tour, Pro Door Manufacturing 40 and the JEGS/CRA All Stars Tour Pro Late Models. Plus, all 6 local ¼-mile divisions. Tickets will be available soon and can be purchased at www.nashvillefairgroundsspeedway.racing.