DU QUOIN, Ill. — There are 42 entries, representing 12 states, primed for the sixth running of the Shamrock Classic presented by Dooling Machine Products at Southern Illinois Center March 11-12.
For the first time, the Shamrock Classic encompasses back-to-back evenings of USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget racing with two complete programs with a 40-lap, $2,000-to-win midget feature on Friday night and culminating with Saturday’s $10,000-to-win, 50-lap feature.
Both races are non-points special events for the USAC Midgets with no national championship points awarded. Â
Two former Shamrock Classic winners are in this year’s field. The 2017 victor, Justin Grant, enters the event having won the first two USAC National Midget events of the season in February. Cannon McIntosh captured the 2019 event and aims to return to victory lane in a USAC-sanctioned event for the first time since 2020.
Grant’s RMS Racing teammate Thomas Meseraull is entered after having won a USAC Midget event inside the Southern Illinois Center in December of 2018. Daniel Robinson will return to the site of his triumph last September during a USAC Regional Midget special event.
The makeup of the field consists of 15 home-state drivers from Illinois, six each from California and Indiana, five from Oklahoma, three from Missouri, and one from Arizona, Kansas, Ohio, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
USAC National champions in the lineup include four-time USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car king Brady Bacon and USAC Triple Crown titlist Jerry Coons Jr. along with Grant, the 2020 USAC Silver Crown titlist.
Grant, McIntosh, Meseraull, Bacon and Coons are among the nine USAC National feature event winners in the field as are two-time Indiana Midget Week champ Shane Cottle, Zach Daum, Kyle Cummins and the youngest ever USAC National Midget feature winner, Ryan Timms.