short track
STARS Photo: Tom Macht
Photo: Carmen Josefson
Avoca, Iowa
JASON FUSSELMAN - PURSUING A LIFELONG HOBBY by Lee Ackerman
IF YOU’RE A MAINSTAY of the local racing scene, odds are that you just love to race. Jason Fusselman is one of those guys. He enjoys racing, he enjoys the fans and he enjoys the other racers. After the races you will usually see a large group of fans gathered around Fusselman’s number 55 Hobby Stock. Pictures are taken, kids sign their name on the trunk lid of his race car and he hands out hero cards. Sometimes a lucky child gets to take home the trophy. Fusselman got started racing when he drove a friend’s car in a mechanics race. He started racing at the Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa, with his brother in the two-man cruiser class. After that car was claimed by a spectator, they built another two-man cruiser and numbered it 28 after their hero Davey Allison. At the end of the 2000 season, Fusselman’s mother won a two-man cruiser in a raffle at the season ending Tiny Lund Memorial at Shelby County. The car carried Tiny Lund’s number 55. Jason took the #55 cruiser and raced with a friend and his brother kept the #28. 55 has been Fusselman’s number ever since. For the 2003 season, Fusselman
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switched to the hobby stock class and was the Rookie of the Year at Shelby County and except for a brief stint in a SportMod that has been his class ever since. In 2010, he switched back to a hobby stock and posted his first career win at the Shelby County Fair race. Since then, Fusselman has continued to race locally in the hobby stocks about 35 races a year. Along the way, he has competed at approximately 25 different tracks in five different states and likes to venture out and add a new track or two every year. About five years ago, some friends told Fusselman that they were going to make him a winner and they started changing things. Every race night they changed something until they found what worked. That become the winning formula for Fusselman, who has now claimed 45 feature wins and five track championships, three at the Shelby County Speedway and two at the Crawford County Speedway in Denison, Iowa. Most of his racing has been at IMCA sanctioned tracks but he has ventured to NASCAR tracks (I-80 Speedway and Adams County) and to some USRA tracks as well.
DIRT EMPIRE MAGAZINE • ISSUE 04 - 2021
When asked what his most memorable night was, Fusselman said, “Well actually I have two. My first feature win in 2010 at the Shelby County Fair stands out because I ran door-to-door with one of the best drivers in the Hobby Stock class in Shannon Anderson. We never traded paint and I was fortunate enough to win by inches.” Another memorable win for Fusselman was in 2017 at the Super Nationals in Boone, Iowa. It was the Race of Champions and Fusselman started tenth in a ten-car field, racing against the best drivers in his class in the nation. Fusselman stormed through the field and on the last lap made the winning move to take the win. “You might say I went from the outhouse to the White House,” said Fusselman. Last summer, Fusselman won the Midwest Madness Tour for Hobby Stocks last year. Over the course of the seven day event, he scored one of the seven nights of racing with a win at Shelby County Speedway in Iowa and bested 96 other drivers who competed during the week. Fusselman has a pretty strong pit crew which in addition to his mom includes Keith Knop, Bill Osbahr, Dave Hulsebus,
