After Kassey Harrell bent the right-front wheel of her Crown Vic in a collision during the feature, she kept digging. Harrell lost the handling of the car once, sliding into the infield of Mobile International Speedway. Undeterred, she got on the gas and finished ninth in the 20-lap feature.
“I knew something was bent in the front end,” Harrell, of Grand Bay, Alabama, said. “I decided I needed to learn to drive my car as it was that moment. I kept my foot in it. After sliding I learned I had to turn the steering wheel to go straight.”
Harrell’s family has a never-give-up attitude. Her grandfather, Dewey Johnson, was killed at the track she currently competes at.
“He passed away in 1965,” said Harrell. “He flipped his car, the seat belt broke, and he was thrown onto the track. He got ran over by another racer. But that wasn’t the worst of it — his wife had just found out she was pregnant with my mom.”
Harrell’s family stayed in the sport after her grandfather died.
“Of course, they still wanted to be involved in racing,” Harrell said. “Racing was our life — we loved it then and still do now. I wasn’t raised as a girl. I carried two tires on my shoulders and a short-block motor in my arms in the pits. The boys couldn’t keep up. I’ve had a passion for working on cars since day one. Many times, I’ll push the guys aside to jump in and work on a race car — it’s that much of a passion.”
Prior to running Crown Vics on pavement, Harrell raced pure stocks on dirt, where she won races. However, Harrell has struggled with Crown Vics.
“My first Crown Vic was full of gremlins,” said Harrell. “When we finally got the bugs out, I came off the second turn and got the right-side tire off the backstretch. That slingshotted my car around and across the track. I got T-boned.”
Harrell fixed that car and it now competes on dirt at Southern Raceway. She built her current Crown Vic last year.
“I’m my own worst enemy,” Harrell said. “I can’t get the wreck out of my head. It is also a constant battle to get the gremlins out of a Crown Vic. I felt great accomplishment when I finished ninth last week.”
Kassey Harrell remains determined, though, to conquer pavement. After all, her family doesn’t give up.
“A driver has to figure out what it takes to win — we’re all digging,” said Harrell.
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.
