Some champions are unbeatable, and Kelly Shryock knows. In USMTS competition, he won the national championship nine times. In IMCA stock cars, the man to beat was Mike Nichols, a 13-time national champ.
“I never thought of the possibility or concentrated on being [the IMCA stock car] champ before,” Kelly, of Fertile, Iowa, says. “I realized I could not compete with Mike Nichols’ bonus points.”
[Mike Nichols: 13-Time IMCA National Champ Moving to Texas]
Those bonus points stemmed from track championships and winning races with more than 15 cars competing. To win a national championship, you need both, and Mike excelled at that.
However, this year, Mike moved to Texas. This opened the opportunity for a national stock car championship to others. From the outside, Kelly, with more than 600 feature wins, seemed poised to pounce on that opportunity.
“IMCA takes your best 25 finishes out of 50 nights,” Kelly says. “The pressure is on to win — and I’m not used to racing that way. My dad taught me to race to have fun, do the best you can, load the car in one piece and always look forward to tomorrow. In championship racing, it is not about just doing the best you can — second is the first loser. That’s not how I operate. Putting myself in position to win every night is new to me — even after all these years.”
Kelly earned 21 wins in 44 starts. He also won three track championships: Clay County Fair Speedway, Hancock County Speedway and Kossuth County Speedway. Kelly beat John Oliver Jr. by two scant points, 1023 to 1021. He says it took “every tool available” to achieve the feat.
“It was tough and nerve racking,” Kelly says. “John Oliver is a super good guy, and runs a first-class stock car operation. He’s won a ton of races. He faltered just enough though, and kept a little pressure off of us at the end of the season. I only raced with him at Arlington Raceway and at Boone Speedway. Luckily, I never had to go to 34 Raceway to race with him one on one on his home turf.”
Part of those tools included debuting a new orange stock car in July. His silver car accounted for 11 of his wins, the orange car racked up 10. Mike Hauan, of Lake Mills Motorsports, owns both rides. Kelly Shryock turned 60 this year, Mike Hauan 72. They proved that old guys still rule.
“We’re just a couple of old guys who won a championship,” Kelly laughs. “You can thank Mike Nichols for moving to Texas.”
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.
