Nick Hastings Sweeps $15K Races, Randy McFarland Banks $50,000 at Autoland Door Car Challenge

Byron Dragway played host to one of the most action-packed bracket racing weekends on the Midwest calendar. When the smoke cleared at the Autoland Door Car Challenge, it was Randy McFarland of Fargo, North Dakota, who made the long haul home with the biggest check of the weekend, a $50,000 purse from the main event. Randy Weller of Edwardsville, Illinois, pushed McFarland all the way to the final round and walked away with a very respectable $7,500 runner-up payout for his efforts.

Kruse Opens Strong, Engler Collects Runner-Up Money in Warm-Up Race

Before the big money started flowing, the weekend kicked off with a $10,000 warm-up race, and it was hometown hero Doug Kruse of nearby Rockford, Illinois, who got things started on the right note. Kruse took home the $10,000 victory while Nick Engler of Becker, Minnesota, made the drive worth it with a $1,500 runner-up payout. Getting that early-weekend win is always a confidence booster, and Kruse delivered in front of what had to be a friendly crowd.

Hastings Owns Friday and Sunday

If there was a story of the weekend beyond McFarland’s big-money triumph, it was the performance of Nick Hastings out of Shelby, Ohio. Hastings didn’t just win one of the $15,000-to-win races, he swept both of them, taking down Friday’s race over Brett Williamson of Rockford and then coming back Sunday to do it again, this time with Brian Folk of Durand, Illinois, finishing as runner-up. Williamson and Folk each collected $3,000 for their final-round finishes, but it was Hastings who owned the weekend with a level of consistency that’s genuinely difficult to pull off in high-stakes bracket racing.

Folk didn’t leave empty-handed beyond his runner-up check, either. He picked up an additional $250 bonus through event sponsor Autoland Outlets’ Big Money Bracket Racing Contingency Program, because at events like this, the contingency money is real money too.

Zimmerman Takes King of Byron, Ince Jr. Closes Out Friday Night

Friday was a full day at Byron, and it wrapped up with two more race results worth noting. Grant Zimmerman of Pekin, Illinois, took the crown in the “King of Byron” winner-takes-all race, pocketing $5,000 and the bragging rights that come with that title over runner-up Nick Folk of Durand. Then, as Friday wound down, Bobby Ince Jr. of Kewanee, Illinois, closed out the evening with a gamblers race final-round win over Stephen Liss of Elgin, Illinois.

The DiPiazza Family Make Saturday Night Special

Liss bounced back from that Friday night runner-up finish in a big way on Saturday. Behind the wheel of the Johnny DiPiazza-owned Vega, Liss drove to the Quick 16 race win over Tommy DiPiazza, who was piloting a freshly restored Firebird raced in memory of Jerry DiPiazza, the patriarch of the DiPiazza racing family. That’s one of those moments that transcends the win-loss column. A restored race car honoring a family patriarch, competing in front of friends and fellow racers who understood exactly what it meant, that’s the stuff that makes bracket racing more than just a numbers game. The fact that Liss and Tommy DiPiazza squared off in the final only added to the moment.

Jaquish Earns 2027 Entry the Hard Way On Two Wheels

Every good bracket race weekend has a crowd moment, and Jeff Jaquish of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, provided it. Jaquish wheeled his hard-launching Chevy S-10 to a wheelstand that was entertaining enough to earn him a free entry into the 2027 Autoland Door Car Challenge. That’s the kind of payoff that makes a driver want to keep the front end pointed at the sky. The crowd loved it, the promoters rewarded it, and Jaquish is already locked in for two years from now.