Based on his experience, Blake Adams didn’t anticipate setting the world on fire in WISSOTA modifieds — especially since he was a rookie in the class. In fact, the 16-year-old driver expected more success in the Midwest modified class. But, at the end of the year, Adams earned his first WISSOTA modified national championship in his rookie season.
“I only drove a modified one time prior to this season,” Blake says. “At the start of the 2025 season, we were not doing well in the Midwest mods — like one win in 20 starts. When we had a bunch of modified wins stack up, we decided to go for the modified championship.”
Of course, Blake had one of WISSOTA modified racing’s greats in his corner as a crew chief: Buzzy Adams. His old man won five WISSOTA championships, more than 560 features and nine WISSOTA 100s.
“I handed the keys over to Blake and I never turned a lap myself this year,” Buzzy says. “I put my crew chief hat on and set out to make sure the whole Rookie of the Year chase went well for Blake.”
The greatest wisdom Buzzy shared with his son wasn’t just how to set up a race car or a particular driving technique.
“There is always another night,” Blake says of the greatest lesson his father taught him. “If you have a bad night, there is always another to make up for it. I never got down. My dad never got down as long as I can remember. This year we had no terrible nights, just some bad finishes. There were always WISSOTA modified races somewhere during the week to get to that number — 30.”
Thirty — it’s how many of your best finishes that counts to the national WISSOTA title. Blake competed in a total of 129 features among two classes, modifieds and Midwest modifieds, across 15 different tracks in the U.S. and Canada. In the modifieds, he won 25 features, which helped him earn the national title over 12-time WISSOTA champion Shane Sabraski.
“Shane and I raced against each other two out of four nights a week,” Blake said. “We ran neck and neck — and he actually passed me in points at the WISSOTA 100 in September.”
With five races left in the season, Blake Adams won the next two events at Granite City Motor Park. He retook the lead over Sabraski, going on to win the championship by 4 points. The title made him yet another racer in the family with an end-of-the-year trophy.
In addition to his father’s championships, there’s Blake’s grandfather, Tim McCann, who has a championship, too. His uncle, Rodney Sanders, is a six-time USMTS modified champion.
“Growing up with all that racing going on, it was always a dream of mine to win a championship — I watched my dad do it a bunch of times,” Blake says. “At the beginning of the season, I did not think at all that I would be in a situation to win a championship. I just kept my foot down and kept on racing and racing. The dream became more realistic as the season went on.”
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.
