This battle for the lead in the sport mod heat race among Kevin Wills (left) and Blake Sheets was one to remember. It occurred at Atomic Speedway in Chilicothe, Ohio.
The two duked it out until both spun.
“I was leading, Kevin threw a slide job on me in turns one and two,” said Sheets, of Waverly, Ohio. “I checked up and crossed over going down the backstretch. I tried to throw a slide job on him, and he tried to block me.
“We barely made contact with each other. He was trying to pinch me to keep me from sliding back under him. Neither one of us would give an inch.”
Wills gave his perspective.
“Blake took the lead — he was outside pole, I was second row inside,” Wills, of Chillicothe, Ohio, said. “I slid him going into one and cleared him. He got a run off of the top and crossed me – in turn three. I tried to protect his slider and we got together.”
Then, just after the photographer Nathan Wade took this shot, both cars spun into the infield.
“I almost saved it but not quite,” said Wills. “We battle like this every weekend. It’s extremely competitive at Atomic [Speedway] in the sport mods. We get 25 to 30 cars every night, [and] 10 to 12 cars can win on any night.”
Those battles include Wills and Sheets duking it out.
“This wasn’t the first run-in Kevin and I had,” Sheets said. “It is the first time he spun to the infield with me. Every other time, I wound up in the infield and he did not.”
Despite the heated action, both drivers incurred no damage to their cars. They finished one-two in the B-main, with Wills getting the upper hand, and qualified for the feature. Blake Sheets finished sixth in that event, Kevin Wills 15th.
“I never saw a photo like that — it’s one we will keep forever,” said Sheets. “The photographer took it right at the point where we barely touched — it was the end of a heated battle that lasted more than a lap.”
The Outside Groove Director of Photography 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.
