2/28/2025
Eagle Raceway
Interview with 2024 Sprint Car Champion Jason Danley
By Greg Soukup
Almost a month and a half seems like a LONG time to wait for us fans to see the Friday portion of the Icebreaker Challenge kick off the 2025 Eagle Raceway season on April 18th. The featured class will be the Nebraska's Best IMCA Modifieds. Also on the card will be the Avid Realty IMCA Sportmods, A1 Iron Stock Cars and the Valentino’s IMCA Hobby Stocks.
Then, on Saturday the Nebraska's Best IMCA Modifieds will again headline the show with the Avid Realty IMCA Sportmods, A1 Iron IMCA Stock Cars and the Nebraska Septic IMCA Racesaver Sprints being the support classes. Check the website for details. www.eagleraceway.com
To try and ease everyone’s need for racing, I’m continuing my interviews with last year’s track points champions. This time I spoke with Jason Danley who, as I mentioned in my last interview bested Cole Wayman by a mere 9 points to take the crown in the Nebraska Septic IMCA Racesaver Sprint Cars.
Jason is a long-time fixture at Eagle Raceway, having competed in the 360 sprints before making the transition to the IMCA Racesaver sprint car. His racing goes back even farther than that, from racing bikes as a youngster for 2 years to piloting go karts for 8 years and making the leap to sprint cars in 1988. I told him he knew his way around a dirt track, and he said, “I’ve definitely been doing this for a while.”
I mentioned what a slim margin he had at the end of the season, to which he replied “It was a little closer than I would have liked it to be. The last night we had kind of a bad night. We had someone spin out in front of us and he tried to do a 360 to keep going but when he did, he hit the right rear of my car, breaking the shock and Jacobs Ladder off the car. That was on lap 3 of the feature, so we went into survival mode from that point on. Luckily, we had a little bit of a points cushion going into the night, but we were just hanging on to get whatever we could get.”
I then asked for his overall opinion on his 2024 season at Eagle Raceway. He stated “It was kind of up and down. We had some good runs but early in the season we didn’t have the consistency that I would like to have had. In about the middle of the season we got to rolling better and became a lot more consistent. At one point I think Cole had a pretty decent point lead on us. I honestly wasn’t planning on running the whole season. We had planned to do more 360 racing but with the way that things worked out with rainouts and some other issues we ended up at Eagle every week. We got rolling pretty good about mid-summer and pretty soon we were sitting second in points. It was like ‘Well, do we keep going ?’ and we decided to do that. From there to the end of the season we were really consistent and were happy with our decision.”
I inquired about the difference between driving a 360 sprint and the IMCA Racesaver sprint. Jason said “There are some little differences on setup between the two, but the biggest thing is the power. When you get into the cushion the 360’s have the power to help get you out of trouble where the Racesavers really don’t. The overall speed, especially at Eagle, they’re really not that much different. I mean, there’s a little bit of difference but not a whole lot. Now, if you went to a place like the ½ mile at Knoxville, the speeds would be considerably different. As I said, the biggest difference is the power. With a 360 you can pretty much spin the tires whenever you want, if you’re trying to do that. With the Racesaver, I don’t want to say that they’re easier to drive, it’s just that they are a little more forgiving when the track is slick, versus the 360”.
Next, I asked about his plans for this coming season, and he related “Nothing is really concrete yet. I’m not saying that I won’t race at Eagle weekly, but nothing right now says that I am either. I’ve been discussing it with my crew because I can’t go racing by myself. I tried it once or twice over the years and it’s not a lot of fun. We do plan on doing some 360 stuff this year. I don’t know how much at this point. It will depend on fuel costs and stuff. Right now, it’s all up in the air. If we have some really bad nights at the beginning of the season, we may take a couple of nights off to regroup. I’m definitely building a Racesaver car and a 360 car so that I’ll be able to do both hopefully. If it is up to me, I’ll race every weekend, but I rely on other people too.”
He ended our interview by stating “I really want to thank my sponsors. We had a couple of new ones that came on board last year and that really helped us. Neff Towing, Suncoast Designs; and Climatech Heating and Air have been with me for a long time. Without them and my crew I wouldn’t be having any success. It is definitely a group effort. Having raced this many years and having people who are still willing to help out is really great. I’ve done this for a long, long time and I’ve seen people come and go. But I’m still having fun and that’s why I’m still doing it!”
I thanked him for doing the interview and told him I hoped I could interview him a few times at Eagle, and he replied “That would be nice! I do like seeing you because that means we had a good night.” It’s odd that I have that effect on the racers. It must be my sparkling personality.
Submitted By: Racine Thompson
