Chris Madden and his crew have already accomplished much in 2022
Winning is nothing new for Dirt Late Model star Chris Madden. The Gray Court, SC native has been winning Dirt Late Model feature races and championships for a long time, but in 2022, the Rocket Chassis racer has been taking his success to a whole new level. As a matter of fact, the five-time Schaeffer’s Oil Southern Nationals champion who has won such major events as the North-South 100, the USA Nationals, and the Topless 100 has already earned more money than most drivers will over the course of the entire season… and it’s only June.
So far this year, Madden has chalked up four $50,000 paydays with his total earnings just from his victories alone adding up to $283,000. Add to that, he earned $100,000 for a race he didn’t even win when he finished second to Jonathan Davenport in the Eldora Million at Eldora Speedway.
“We had a great time running the Million,” Madden recalled. “We started 19th and made it to the lead and raced with JD for the lead. We’ve had an outstanding race car all year and its been really good. My guys have done an outstanding job giving me a good race car to drive and doing their part and I’ve been making sure that I don’t make any mistakes and give it up for them.”
One of Madden’s lucrative triumphs came in his most recent race in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Mountain Moonshine Classic at Smoky Mountain Speedway. As the ending approached, near disaster struck. In past seasons, such a thing might have ended badly for this driver. But this is a career year for the racer known as ‘Smokey’.
“Tonight we had one incident with a lapped car and we got in the fence pretty hard coming to the white flag,” Madden explained to InsideDirtRacing.com. “That was a nervous moment there, but overall, we’ve had a really good season.”
That good season was included wins at Bristol Motor Speedway, The Dirt Track at Charlotte, Tazewell Speedway, Volusia Speedway Park and Cherokee Speedway. Madden points out that at 47 years of age, he is not sure how many more opportunities there will be to enjoy such success.
“It’s been amazing and a blessing to be able to have a great team and a great race car and to be able to do as well as we have,” he said. “It’s the best year I’ve ever had in my career. I don’t know how many more years I’ll be doing this so to have a year like this so late in my career is pretty amazing.”
More remarkable about this run for Madden is that it is being done against some of the toughest competition in the history of the sport. At Smoky Mountain, the No. 44 had to outrun Jonathan Davenport and Brandon Overton.
“It’s a great bunch of guys we’re racing with right now. Between JD and Brandon, they’re extremely good racers and you’ve got to be on top of your game. Right now, our Rocket race car and my team are doing a great job to get it done so I’m proud to be a part of it.”
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