Rookie Joe Nichols won his IMCA sport compact heat race last Saturday at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa. However, his hopes for a feature win rolled away. As he battled for third, he felt contact from behind, which spun him. Then, Tucker Zimmerman (46z), of Carson, Iowa, collided with Nichols’ car.
“The other car got underneath me and flipped my car over,” Nichols, 33, of Lewis, Iowa, said. “At the start, I was facing the infield, at the end I was facing the outside of the track. It all happened in pretty slow motion.”
Nichols emerged from the wreck with just bruises on his arm. He sat in a Kirkey seat, with a five-point harness. He wore a head-and-neck restraint. Nichols’ 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier, however, did not have much damage.
“It was dented up, and the back bumper was off,” said Nichols. “The suspension was okay, but [there was] red paint across the underneath of the car.”
The dump truck company owner got into sport compacts earlier this year.
“I have always loved racing, attended tracks locally, and traveled from Talladega and Knoxville for big events for the past seven years,” Nichols said. “I never thought I would be a driver. Then, this spring, I saw this Cavalier sitting on a trailer. It had a roll cage, but no roof, no motor, no anything.”
Nichols bought the car and within weeks had it at the track.
“As I drove, I got better every week,” said Nichols. “Opportunity knocked, and I got the itch to race. My wife, Loni, now realizes that will never change.”
Joe Nichols finished second the week before last at Shelby County Speedway.
“I’m learning to be a good driver,” Nichols said. “It’s hard to build confidence without progress, and we are fortunate to have had progress. We’re racing with a group of drivers who know tracks like the backs of their hands. Competing with them can only make you better.”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Clarified the role of Tucker Zimmerman in the photographed incident (2022-08-19)
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.
