Rusty Ballenger
Rusty Ballenger has proven that he can win races and championships close to his Seymour, Tenn. home. Indeed, the young driver already has multiple feature wins and a Late Model track championship at 411 Motor Speedway on his resume. But over the past couple of weekends, the graduate of Seymour High School has scored victories at relatively unfamiliar venues to add even greater depth to his list of accomplishments.
On consecutive weekends, Ballenger found Victory Lane in a weekly Crate Late Model feature event at Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA and a United Crate Racing Alliance sanctioned race at Thunder Hill Raceway Park in Summertown, Tenn.
Ballenger’s recent run of success came after a tough outing at I-75 Raceway in Sweetwater, Tenn. in which he crashed during a NeSmith Dirt Late Model Series event and got a bit banged up himself in the process.
“That was a low point,” Ballenger declared of the circumstances at I-75 in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “I was pretty frustrated by that night, but you’ve just got to keep digging.”
Both of his recent victorious trips proved to be eventful on the way to the track as well as on the track.
“We were on our way to Moulton, Ala. two weeks ago when that race got rained out,” Ballenger explained. “We never really intended to race there but we were already in Cleveland so we just headed to Boyd’s and wound up getting the win and that felt pretty good. It had been a rough year and seven months since I last won. Before that race I had never won anywhere in a Late Model except at 411. I wanted to win somewhere else besides there.”
Rusty Ballenger’s No. 29
The driver of the No. 29 machine competes on a regular basis with the UCRA circuit so he followed up his Boyd’s triumph with a trip to Thunder Hill for an event with that travelling series.
“It played out rough to start out with,” Ballenger recalled. “The truck broke down on the way. The alternator went out so we barely made it for the drivers meeting. We went out and hot lapped pretty good. When it came time to qualify, of course I had never been there, and I was the first car out so I didn’t get to see nobody else qualify, but we got the pole. We finished second in out heat to Forrest Trent after he got me on the outside.”
Despite the issues in getting there, Ballenger felt as if he could do well, even in unfamiliar territory.
“After winning at Boyd’s the week before we had some momentum going in because the car has been rolling real good,” he said. “I was pretty confident going into this track because I had watched it on YouTube and it seemed like a fun track. But I never expected to roll in and get the pole then win like that.”
Although that track is located in middle Tennessee, the east Tennessee native found similarities to more familiar facilities. Ballenger reported that he used the same gear as he would have at 411 while noting that the shape and banking of the venue looks like the Tazewell Speedway without an outside wall.
After lining up behind front row starters Eric Hickerson and Trent at Thunder Hill, the No. 29 found its way to the front of the pack fairly quickly.
“In the feature we started third and got by Hickerson around lap 10 on the bottom then me and Forrest caught lapped traffic and he couldn’t maneuver around them on the bottom and I could. I got by him about halfway, I guess. They said I got about a half straightaway lead for the rest of the race. I never really saw anybody else.”
Ballenger enjoys his time on the road with his father, his wife, his step-mother, and some friends who occasionally go along as they compete for wins and championships around the region. Currently, the team leads the UCRA series standings after three races.
“It’s been pretty fun travelling and seeing other racers. There were guys there at Thunder Hill that I had never seen or talked to before. It’s fun to try something different and it’s more of a challenge.”
The next UCRA race is scheduled for May 14th at Tennessee National Raceway in Hohenwald, Tenn.
