Newsmaker of the Week // Jon Keller

‘Last to first’ is one phrase in motorsports that’s guaranteed to make readers and listeners stand up and take notice. In Saturday night’s East Coast Indoor Dirt Nationals 600 Sprint feature, Jon Keller managed to do the impossible, winning the 50-lap ‘Nationals’ from a last row starting spot. He did this after working his way through the full alphabet of qualifiers: E, D, C, and finally, B Mains.

There was the added drama of him having flipped his car in practice, generating a monumental thrash to get the car whole again.

In the feature, Keller missed several crashes, got fenced himself once, but kept on going. When it counted, Jon Keller threw caution to the winds and flew past leader Erick Rudolph to earn an improbable win. After the race, Keller exclaimed, “I can’t believe it”. Neither could the huge crowd, nor his fellow drivers.

Jon Keller was an incredible, unbelievable, last-to-first Newsmaker!