It’s no easy task to beat 110 entries in the Southern Street Stock Nationals, and Chad Thrash knows. He’s won the race twice, including the 2022 edition, for the second year in a row. Thrash did so in dominating fashion, leading every lap of the Crate Racin’ USA (CRUSA)-sanctioned event at Whynot Motorsports Park in Meridian, Mississippi. (For more on last year’s win, read “Chad Thrash: Bittersweet Victory at Whynot”.)
“Personally, it is a big accomplishment to win two in a row at the track I grew up at,” Thrash, of Meridian, Mississippi, said. “My dad and mom raced at Whynot Motorsports Park. I learned how to drive a race car there by driving the packing truck. I bet I’ve got 10-million laps around the place. The Southern Street Stock Nationals is our World 100.”
Thrash may have led every lap, but it did not come easy, according to the veteran driver.
“It’s not common at all to lead every lap of a race with a field that big, which is also uncommon in street stock racing,” said Thrash. “T.J. [Herndon, of Atwood, Tennessee,] was on my back every lap—sometimes he was even besides me.”
Thrash builds street stocks at his company, Project X Racecars. Three of his cars made the 38-car starting field. However, the car of his closest competitor, Herndon, ran also featured Thrash’s winning touch.
“T.J. brought me a bare frame — a Fike Fab chassis,” Thrash said. “I assembled it like one of my cars, with the same setup.”
Chad Thrash now sets his sights on $5,000-to-win Mississippi Street Stock Series race at Deep South Speedway in Loxley, Alabama. But, before he ventures there during the Labor Day weekend, he’s busy fielding calls about his chassis.
“People are calling for cars,” said Thrash. “I’ve got six sold that we are building right now.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
