Rodney Childers will always love late model stock car racing.

The discipline helped prepare Childers for life in the NASCAR Cup Series, where he captured the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series championship as crew chief for Kevin Harvick in addition to 40 victories at NASCAR’s top level.

That’s why he’ll always remember his victory in the inaugural running of the Fall Brawl at North Carolina’s Hickory Motor Speedway, an event that celebrates its 25th anniversary Saturday.

RELATED: Watch the Fall Brawl from Hickory live on FloRacing

In 1998, Childers was one of many young late model stock car competitors who were pursing their dreams of racing in the Cup Series. He spent his Friday nights racing at Tri-County Speedway in Hudson, North Carolina, where he quickly became a dominant force.

“That particular season was my first year running late model stocks full-time. My home track was actually Tri-County up the road running on Friday nights,” Childers said. “The thing I remember most about the Fall Brawl is Shane Huffman had won a ton of races at Hickory that year. I don’t remember how many it was, but it was in the teens. I think I had won 10 or 11 at Tri-County.

“One of his guys came to Tri-County one Friday night, it was like the last race of the year, and was running his mouth saying that I was scared to come to Hickory because I knew I would get beat.”

Like any good racer, Childers didn’t back down from the challenge. He spent the few weeks prior to the inaugural Fall Brawl in 1998 rebuilding his race car to make sure everything was perfect before he went to Hickory to challenge Huffman’s dominance.

“I did everything I could do to it to make it better,” Childers said.

When race weekend came along, Childers was ready. He was fast in practice and qualified third for the main event while Huffman qualified on the pole.

The early portion of the race saw Huffman in control, with Childers following in his tire tracks. It wasn’t long before Childers began to realize Huffman’s car wasn’t handling nearly as well as his own.

“We followed Shane for a long time, and about every lap his right-rear tire would smoke just a little bit off Turn 4,” Childers said. “My spotter kept saying, ‘I know you see it. His right-rear is smoking.’ I knew at that point that I had him, because I was just riding and could still keep up with him.”

Childers passed Huffman on a restart and led the remainder of the race, becoming the first winner of the Fall Brawl in the process. It’s a moment he still cherishes.

“I learned a ton that day,” Childers said. “It was a cool race, it was a lot of laps, it was something that a lot of us hadn’t done before in a late model. Obviously winning $10,000 was a huge deal back then. It was a big day, for sure.”

In the years since Childers won the first Fall Brawl, many other recognizable names have added themselves to the winner list. They include 48-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner Denny Hamlin, 2021 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Ben Rhodes and 2020 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national champion and current NASCAR Xfinity Series competitor Josh Berry, among others.

“It’s a hard race track. It’s hard to win at, and it’s a race that if people are really good, they want to go race it,” Childers said. “I think that’s why that list kind of stands out. You’ve had a lot of good people that want to go race and end up winning it.”

RELATED: Everything to know about the Fall Brawl at Hickory

The Fall Brawl is one of several late-season major events for late model stock car competitors in the Southeast. It serves almost as a proving ground for many rising stars hoping to follow the footsteps of Childers, Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr., all of whom got their starts racing late model stock cars at tracks across the Southeast.

Childers, who is currently building a late model stock car for Harvick that the two hope to debut sometime next year, believes it’s important to support grassroots racing as a whole.

Without that level of the sport, Childers said, many current NASCAR stars would never have made it to where they are today.

“There are so many good racers out there that never get an opportunity,” Childers said. “They don’t get a chance. With me coming from late model stocks and Dale coming from late model stocks and Denny coming from late model stocks, it’s a huge deal for us. If it wasn’t for that, none of us ever would have made it.

“I want to see it succeed, and I want to see short tracks succeed.”

Some of the best Modified drivers in the Northeast will converge on New York’s Riverhead Raceway this Saturday afternoon for the sixth edition of the Islip 300.

Honoring the history of the now-defunct Islip Speedway in nearby Islip, New York, the 300-lap event for Modifieds requires determination and patience for those hoping to collect the $7,000 first-place prize.

RELATED: Watch Saturday’s Islip 300 live on FloRacing

While only in its sixth running, the Islip 300 has quickly become a marquee event for Modified competitors, and it annually draws one of the strongest entry fields of the season for the popular track located on Long Island that features NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series racing during the summer months.

In addition to the headlining Modified class, Crate Modifieds and Legend Cars will also be on the docket Saturday afternoon, with more than 100 cars in total expected to take part in the event. The event also serves as the finale of the track’s Crown Jewel Series, which will award the Ted Christopher Cup at the conclusion of Saturday’s Modified main event.

Below is everything you need to know about the 2022 Islip 300 at Riverhead Raceway.

What TV channel is the Islip 300 at Riverhead Raceway on?

All of the on-track action for the Islip 300 at Riverhead Raceway can be viewed live on FloRacing, the official streaming home for all NASCAR Roots properties.

The racing action will not be shown on a television network.

Below is the complete schedule for FloRacing’s coverage of the Islip 300.

Date	Start time	How to watch
Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022	Noon ET	FloRacing

Complete schedule for the Islip 300

This year’s Islip 300 is scheduled to take place Saturday, Nov. 12.

Four divisions of race cars will take part in Saturday’s event at Riverhead, including Modifieds, Crate Modifieds and Legend Cars. The event will be headlined by a 300-lap event for the Modified class.

Below is the complete race-day schedule at Riverhead Raceway.

Time	Event
7:30 a.m.	Pit Gates Open/Tire Draw Opens
9 a.m.	Modified Drivers Meeting
10 a.m.	General Admission Opens
9:45 – 10:15 a.m.	Legend Car Practice
10:15 – 11 a.m.	Modified Practice
11 – 11:30 a.m.	Crate Modified Practice
11:30 a.m.	Vintage All Stars Expo
Noon	Modified Qualifying
Followed by…	Crate Modified & Legend Car Heat Races
Followed by…	Consolation Races (All Divisions If Applicable)
Followed by…	Opening Ceremonies/National Anthem
Followed by…	Legend Car Feature (40 Laps)
Followed by…	Crate Modified Feature (50 Laps)
Followed by…	Islip 300 for Modifieds (300 Laps)

Official format for the Islip 300

The starting field for the Islip 300 will be set by a combination of qualifying and, potentially, a consolation race depending upon how many Modifieds are entered. The top 23 drivers in qualifying will lock into the 25-car field, with one driver locking into the race via the consolation race.

The final starting position will be awarded to the highest driver in Riverhead Raceway weekly points who is not yet qualified for the race.

The Islip 300 will not feature stage breaks, but instead the caution flag will wave anytime 75 consecutive green flag laps are completed. Caution laps will count until Lap 275, with the final 25 laps to be run under green flag conditions only.

Islip 300 entry list

The entry list for Saturday’s Islip 300 features some of the top Modified stars from the Northeast.

Headlining the list of pre-entries is J.B. Fortin, the defending winner of the Islip 300. He’s one of three Islip 300 winners on the entry list, with 2018 race winner and 2022 Riverhead Modified champion Kyle Soper and inaugural event winner Dillon Steuer also entered.

Tommy Baldwin Racing, the team that recently claimed the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour owners’ championship, will be in the field with Jimmy Blewett scheduled to pilot the team’s No. 7 entry.

Keith Rocco, who won the 2010 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national championship, will join the field for the Islip 300 alongside Mike Christopher Jr., who won his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event earlier this year at Jennerstown Speedway.

Other notable entries include Matt Hirschman, Craig Lutz, Chuck Hossfeld, Anthony Nocella, Kyle Bonsignore, Timmy Solomito and Dave Sapienza.

Car No.	Driver
01	Artie Pedersen III
02	Allan Pedersen
07	Kyle Bonsignore
2	Joseph Bertuccio
5	John Beatty
7	Jimmy Blewett
10	Dylan Slepian
11	Dillon Steuer
12	Matt Hirschman
14	Cory Osland
15	Kyle Soper
21	Chuck Hossfeld
24	Justin Brown
24	Andrew Krause
34	J.B. Fortin
36	Dave Sapienza
45	Jack Handley Jr.
45	Brett Meservey
46	Jeffrey Goodale
50	Anthony Bello
57	Keith Rocco
66	Timmy Solomito
69	Jason Agugliaro
70	Mike Christopher Jr.
73	Paul Hartwig Jr.
78	Walter Sutcliffe Jr.
78	Ken Heagy
80	Michael Rutkoski
81	Christopher Turbush
82	Craig Lutz
88	Roger Turbush
92	Anthony Nocella
96	Matthew Brode

Islip 300 history, winners

Created by late Riverhead Raceway owner Eddie Partridge in 2007, the Islip 300 has quickly become a signature Modified event for competitors in the Northeast.

The race also shares the name of a NASCAR Cup Series event that took place at New York’s Islip Speedway in the 1960s and early 1970s. The event honors the history of Islip Speedway, which closed in 1984, with race winners typically posing with an Islip Speedway Feature Winner board in Victory Lane.

The inaugural event produced a surprise winner, with then 15-year-old Dillon Steuer scoring a shocking victory in the 300-lap event.

Ryan Preece, a winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, is the lone multi-time winner of the Islip 300. He won the 2018 running of the event and collected his second Islip 300 win in 2020.

Kyle Soper, who recently claimed his fourth Modified track championship at Riverhead in the last five years, won the Islip 300 in 2019 and J.B. Fortin bagged the top prize in 2021.

Below is the complete list of winners of the Islip 300.

Year	Winner
2017	Dillon Steuer
2018	Ryan Preece
2019	Kyle Soper
2020	Ryan Preece
2021	J.B. Fortin

Race weekends are about more than just racing for Dylan Zampa.

Before every event, the 18-year-old participates in various fundraisers and charity events, whether it’s going to visit and drop off snacks for patients at the Ronald McDonald House near his home track of All American Speedway or helping raise money for food banks, Zampa uses his racing for more than just wins on the track.

Zampa got into the charity work while competing this summer in the Kulwicki Driver Development Program, which was established by the family of late NASCAR champion Alan Kulwicki to “help worthy drivers along the way in reaching their dream.”

“They want the drivers to go out there and change someone’s life, and that’s kind of what I’ve been doing the last couple years,” Zampa said of the charity work.
“That’s actually one of the best parts about race weekends. You get to hear before the races who won the fundraiser or go the Ronald McDonald house where I get to go in and drop off all the snacks, and all the kids see the snacks and go crazy.

“That’s always probably my favorite part of the race weekends is seeing people’s faces light up.”

RELATED: 2022 NASCAR Weekly Series track champions

Went down to my local food bank today and helped them with putting food boxes together for the elder homes here in Napa. Always love coming to my neighborhood food bank to give where I can.#KDDP | #Racing4Alan pic.twitter.com/rXSedehi2s

— Dylan Zampa (@zampa_dylan) October 26, 2022

The charity work has come a bit easier for Zampa since he gained such a big following at All American, a third-mile NASCAR-sanctioned paved oval in Roseville, California. In the track’s late model division this season, Zampa won 11 of 13 races, had six fast times and broke a track record for victories.

His success has given him even more of a following, which has helped with his charitable fundraising efforts.

“Ever since I started using Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all that stuff, I feel like my follower count has definitely gone up, obviously, and that makes it more known when I go to tracks and I do fundraisers,” Zampa said. “It’s like, ‘Oh I follow him. He does something every weekend, we need to donate.’ So definitely having fans that go to every single race makes a big difference also. They’re always buying tickets and trying to win the big money, so it makes it a lot easier having really big fans and supporters every single weekend.”

This season was Zampa’s first championship at All American, coming in his first full season racing at the track.

Last year he was only able to get in about seven races at All American, but he still came away with a handful of wins and finished fifth in points.

This year, he won the track championship by 62 points.

“It’s just something about that track with me. And what my dad can do with the setup is just crazy,” Zampa said. “Even though the competition is really stout, we seemed to have it figured out every weekend, which made it a lot nicer for me.

“There was some pretty good competition this year… it was a good season all around. The team worked very hard all season, and we never gave up.”

Zampa credited his success to his team and their work all summer. The entire Zampa family is involved with the race team. His dad, Joey, is Zampa’s crew chief, and his mom is there with the team every week. They also have family friends who work on the car.

“It wouldn’t be possible without my mom or my dad,” he said. “They worked their tails off every day, even Saturday and Sunday when were mostly racing every week. I just couldn’t do it without my parents and everyone that’s on my crew. Our crew members are family friends. No one gets paid; they all just do it out of love, so that makes it a lot better at the race track.”

Improving on the racetrack has been a life-long effort for Zampa, who first started practicing in the car when he was 4. His great grandfather tried racing but didn’t like being behind the wheel himself. He instead built cars and was a crew chief, which eventually got Joey into the sport.

Joey raced quarter-midgets, legends and super late models until his two sons were old enough to start driving.

“He gave up his racing career to let us do what we want to do,” Dylan Zampa said of his dad.

Zampa’s older brother raced for a time but has now stepped out of the car to pursue playing rugby in college.

“I’m kind of the only one racing right now, so it kind of feels good to keep the racing legacy going,” Zampa said. “I’ll probably keep it going forever.”

Working as a team on the car is the biggest racing lesson Zampa learned from his dad.

“It takes a team effort. It’s not just about one driver,” he said. “One driver isn’t going to make you win. It’s about teamwork, how you execute the weekend, how the driver executes in the race. It’s just everything that makes a race team; that’s what makes a race-winning team.

“When you’re racing 20-something races, sometimes one of them can get on your nerves… But most of the time it’s great because they know exactly what you need. If it’s really hot out, someone already knows if I need a water or if my dad needs help. Everyone knows exactly what to do. When we go to the racetrack, my dad doesn’t need to give orders or that type of stuff. Everyone knows exactly what to do. That makes it’s a lot nicer that we’re not running around looking like maniacs. We look like a nice race team, and we have our stuff together, so that makes it 10 times easier having people you know.”

“ANNOUNCEMENT TIME”
IT’S OFFICIAL…..I will be going super late model racing next year. I will be piloting this brand new CRF for Randy Hedrick with Sierra Speed Technology. Stay tuned for more updates as we close out 2022 and prep for 2023!🏁#KDDP | #Racin4Alan pic.twitter.com/ujpwHWRG0y

— Dylan Zampa (@zampa_dylan) October 28, 2022

Next season, Zampa will race full-time on the SPEARS Southwest Tour Series in the Pro-Late Model division, where he’ll race all up and down the West Coast. He’ll join a team as their first full-time driver, making 2023 even more exciting.

As he continues the family legacy of racing, it’s a sport Zampa said he wants to be involved in “forever.”

“I don’t really know what it is, but it’s just something that feels right to me,” Zampa said of racing. “If I don’t race, I kind of feel like all those years that I spent practicing and perfecting what I do kind of went to waste. I feel like just being in a race car is kind of what defines me.

“That’s how I introduce myself to people: ‘I’m Dylan Zampa, and I race race cars.’ If I said all that without racing race cars, I feel like I wouldn’t be who I am.”