Words and photos by Dale Wilson
Layout by Marissa Gaither

We’ve all heard of racers “doubling up” at a big race -- a win in both Stock and Super Stock, or in Super Gas and Super Comp, all in the same day. But here’s one for the books -- a bracket win on the first race on a Saturday and a runner-up finish on the last race on Sunday. Okay, so that’s cool enough. But what about that same runner-up on Saturday getting the win in the last race on Sunday against the same guy who beat him on the Saturday race?

It happened at a Super 7 Race, the fifth of a seven-race series at Montgomery (Alabama) Motorsports Park over the July 4th weekend. It was a four-race event held over three days, with two of those races played out on Saturday. That first race and the last race on Sunday was when the winner-runner-up and the runner-up-gets-winner deal took place.

The racers in question were A.J. Ashe of Gulfport, Mississippi (above and the winner of the Saturday race and the runner-up of the Sunday race) and Stephen McCrory of Dallas, Georgia, the runner-up of the first and the winner of the last race. It was a big bucks go, with nearly a hundred Super Pro racers going off for $5,000- to-win on Friday, two $10,000 to the winners on Saturday, and $10,000 to the winner on Sunday. The weather was hot, but the track was unaffected, as attested to by the dozens of dead-on runs in both lanes throughout the weekend.

Some background: Jim Howard of Birmingham, brother of famed promoter George Howard, started the Super 7 races when he took over Montgomery in 2007.