09/09/2026
Willamette Speedway’s first NASCAR season has helped Oregon drivers rise to the top of four West Region divisions — and Joey Tanner may be on the verge of something never before seen in weekly racing history
LEBANON, Ore. — For years, some of Oregon’s best short-track racers have done their talking in the places where only the locals could hear it. They raced in Lebanon. They raced in Coos Bay. They built reputations on dirt, in front of grandstands filled with people who already knew exactly how tough it is to win in this state. The talent was always here. The national spotlight often was not.
That changed in 2026.
NASCAR handed Willamette Speedway a measuring stick, and Oregon drivers started beating people with it.
In Willamette Speedway’s first season as a NASCAR-sanctioned facility, Portland’s Joey Tanner has climbed to the top of West Region Division I in the Albany Toyota Late Models. Madras racer Tyler Pagel has risen to the top of Division II in the J&K Auto Body & Collision Street Stocks. Lebanon’s Jesse Shanklin II has put himself atop Division IV in the KRKT 99.9 FM Hornets. Several hours south, Jordan Stevens, representing Coos Bay Speedway, has added another Oregon racer to the championship picture, putting drivers from Oregon tracks in position to claim four of NASCAR’s five West Region divisions.
That is not one racer getting hot at the right time. That is not one class having a fluky year. That is depth. It is proof of the kind of weekly racing Oregon has quietly produced for years, and it has turned the state into one of the most compelling stories in NASCAR weekly competition.
Willamette Speedway just happens to be standing at the center of it.
That is especially remarkable because while Willamette Speedway is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2026, this is also its first season under NASCAR sanctioning. Race cars have been circling the one-third-mile Lebanon clay since 1966. Generations of racers and race fans have grown up at the track. Championships have been decided there. Rivalries have been born there. More than a few race cars have gone home from Lebanon carrying extra sheet metal damage and a healthy coating of Linn County clay.
But under NASCAR, this is Year One.
Owners and promoters Cory and Sandy Penfold made the decision to bring Willamette Speedway into NASCAR weekly racing, a move that gave the track’s competitors an opportunity they had never had before. For the first time, performances on a Saturday night in Lebanon could directly affect NASCAR state, regional and national standings.
That decision is impossible to separate from what has followed.
The talent did not suddenly appear when NASCAR came to Willamette Speedway. Tanner did not suddenly learn how to drive a Late Model. Pagel did not suddenly become one of the top Street Stock racers in the Northwest. Shanklin did not suddenly figure out how to win in a Hornet.
They were already here. They were already good.
What Cory and Sandy Penfold did was create the pathway for those performances to mean something on a bigger stage. Without that decision, Tanner could still have been having an extraordinary season. Pagel could still have been piling up strong finishes. Shanklin could still have been thrilling his hometown crowd. But Oregon would not be dominating NASCAR’s West Region standings if Willamette Speedway had never taken the step to become sanctioned.
Someone had to open that door.
Cory and Sandy did.
When NASCAR announced Willamette Speedway’s sanctioning, Cory Penfold made clear why he believed the move mattered. “We’ve got a lot of talented drivers right in the Pacific Northwest, which I believe is the most untapped market in the nation,” Penfold said. “It’s time to put these drivers in a national spotlight and give them opportunities to be seen without them having to travel halfway across the country.”
Six months later, that statement sounds a lot less like optimism and a lot more like a scouting report.
Apparently, Oregon was not lacking talent.
It was lacking witnesses.
Willamette Speedway’s NASCAR weekly program runs deeper than the names sitting atop the regional standings. The Albany Toyota Late Models represent Division I. The J&K Auto Body & Collision Street Stocks compete in Division II. The Cabinet Guys Limited Late Models make up Division III. The KRKT 99.9 FM Hornets race in Division IV. The Modifieds represent Division V.
The WPCK Cage Klones are also part of the Willamette program. They are adult competitors, but their role matters for another reason as well. Their connection to the NASCAR-sanctioned environment gives younger racers at Lil’ W***y Kart Track something tangible to look toward. It shows them a visible path from where they are now to where racing at Willamette Speedway can eventually take them.
That kind of connection matters because this story is not just about one season. It is about what can grow from it.
At the top of the current story, however, sits Joey Tanner.
The Portland driver of the No. 46 Albany Toyota Late Model entered the season already established as one of the region’s premier Dirt Late Model racers. Once Willamette Speedway joined NASCAR, Tanner turned a strong local campaign into something much larger.
He started winning.
Then he kept winning.
Earlier this summer, NASCAR itself took notice after Tanner won eight of the first nine NASCAR-sanctioned races held at Willamette Speedway. At that point, despite the remarkable start, he was still only 13th in the Division I national standings. There was an entire country of weekly racers between Tanner and the top.
He apparently viewed that as a temporary inconvenience.
Tanner kept collecting points, kept climbing and kept turning what began as a strong Willamette Speedway season into a national story. Now he appears to be closing in on the biggest prize NASCAR weekly racing offers: the Division I National Championship.
If the standings hold and Tanner is ultimately certified as the 2026 national champion, the accomplishment could carry significance far beyond Oregon. Research into NASCAR’s national weekly championship program, whose lineage dates to 1982, has so far uncovered no previous example of a driver winning the Division I National Championship during the inaugural NASCAR-sanctioned season of his primary home track.
If that is confirmed by NASCAR and Tanner finishes the job, he will have accomplished something that appears never to have been done before in more than four decades of NASCAR weekly racing.
And that may not be the only first.
Research into the modern NASCAR regional championship era has also uncovered no known example of a first-year NASCAR-sanctioned track producing three West Region champions in the same season. With Tanner leading Division I, Pagel leading Division II and Shanklin leading Division IV, Willamette Speedway is positioned to do exactly that.
One first-year NASCAR track. Three West Region champions. And potentially the Division I National Champion.
That is the point at which an impressive season starts looking like history.
Tanner may command the biggest headline, but Tyler Pagel has made sure this will never be remembered as a one-driver story. Racing in the J&K Auto Body & Collision Street Stocks, Pagel has carried Willamette Speedway to the top of West Region Division II and demonstrated that the track’s success stretches far beyond one premier Late Model program.
Anyone familiar with Street Stock racing at Willamette knows there is very little gentle about the process. These cars race hard, race close and often come back to the pits looking as though several opinions were exchanged at speed. Pagel has thrived in that environment. His season has taken a division long respected by local fans and placed it squarely on a regional NASCAR stage.
Then comes the hometown chapter.
Jesse Shanklin II is from Lebanon. Willamette Speedway is his home track. In 2026, he has taken that local connection and turned it into a run at the top of West Region Division IV in the KRKT 99.9 FM Hornets.
Hornet racing has always had a wonderfully creative relationship with available space. A patch of racetrack that looks suitable for two cars can suddenly hold three, four and one driver who appears entirely convinced a new lane has appeared. Shanklin has taken that chaos and turned it into consistency, and that consistency has turned into a regional points lead.
There is something especially fitting about a Lebanon racer, competing at a Lebanon speedway, carrying that hometown track to the top of a NASCAR regional division during the facility’s inaugural NASCAR season.
The Cabinet Guys Limited Late Models and Modifieds round out the five divisions that make up Willamette Speedway’s NASCAR weekly core, and their presence matters in this story too. What is happening at Willamette in 2026 is larger than three names on a points sheet. It is an entire weekly racing program finding out just how far Saturday-night racing in Lebanon can reach when given a national framework.
Then the story shifts south.
Jordan Stevens and Coos Bay Speedway deserve their place in it because their success turns a remarkable Willamette season into something even larger: an Oregon story. With Stevens joining Tanner, Pagel and Shanklin in the West Region championship picture, Oregon racers are positioned to control four of the five regional divisions.
That should matter in Lebanon.
It should matter in Coos Bay.
It should matter anywhere in Oregon where somebody has ever spent a Friday night loading up a race car, driven for hours to compete, and wondered whether racers from this state really stack up against the best weekly drivers elsewhere in the West.
The standings are answering that question.
There will always be rivalry between racetracks, and there should be. Willamette racers should want to beat Coos Bay racers when they meet. Coos Bay racers should want to send them home disappointed. Fans should argue about which place has the better competition until somebody finally changes the subject or the food stand closes.
That is part of what makes short-track racing fun.
But there are also moments when the state matters more than the sign above the gate.
This is one of those moments.
A strong Willamette Speedway is good for Oregon racing. A strong Coos Bay Speedway is good for Oregon racing. And Oregon drivers sitting atop four of NASCAR’s five West Region divisions sends a message neither track could send quite as loudly on its own.
There is another important part of Willamette Speedway’s first NASCAR season that does not show up directly in the standings.
According to the Penfolds, NASCAR’s support throughout the year has been a major reason the transition has been so successful. Rather than sanction the track and disappear, NASCAR representatives have remained in regular contact, checking in, answering questions and helping Cory and Sandy navigate the inevitable learning curve that comes with joining a national organization for the first time.
For owners and promoters balancing weekly operations while learning a new system, that relationship has mattered.
“The support from NASCAR has been amazing,” Sandy Penfold said. “They check in with Cory and me on a regular basis, they ask how things are going and they want to know if there is anything they can do to help. That means a lot to us. We’ve dealt with other sanctioning bodies before, and the level of communication and support from NASCAR has really stood out.”
That kind of support can be easy to overlook when championships dominate the conversation, but it matters. First seasons are supposed to be full of questions, adjustments and a few bumps along the way. There are new rules to learn, new procedures to understand and a different administrative structure for drivers, officials and owners to work through.
Willamette Speedway did not have to go through that process alone.
For Cory Penfold, that has reinforced the value of the decision he and Sandy made before the season began.
“I knew the talent was here,” Cory Penfold said. “These drivers didn’t suddenly become good because we put NASCAR on the sign. What NASCAR gave us was the chance to prove how good they already were. If Sandy and I don’t make this decision, Joey, Tyler and Jesse can still have great seasons, but the rest of the country never sees those results on a NASCAR standings sheet. Now Oregon is sitting on top of four of five divisions, and Joey is fighting for a national championship. That tells me we made the right call.”
That balance is important.
Cory and Sandy created the opportunity. NASCAR provided the platform and the support. The racers earned the points. And Oregon took full advantage.
That is why what is happening now at Willamette Speedway feels larger than a normal late-season points battle. Sports history has an irritating habit of becoming obvious only after it is over. Years later, people talk about the races they wish they had seen, the drivers they wish they had watched before everyone knew their names, and the championship runs they wish they had appreciated while they were still unfolding.
This one is still unfolding.
When Tanner rolls the No. 46 Albany Toyota Late Model onto the Lebanon clay, fans may be watching another chapter of a NASCAR national championship season being written in real time. When Pagel takes the green with the J&K Auto Body & Collision Street Stocks, they are watching one of the strongest Division II campaigns in the West. When Shanklin lines up with the KRKT 99.9 FM Hornets, they are watching a hometown driver carry Lebanon onto a regional NASCAR stage.
Those are the kinds of nights people usually talk about later.
Right now, people still have the chance to say they were there.
For decades, Oregon racers have known how difficult it is to win here. What NASCAR changed was not their ability. What NASCAR changed was the scale against which that ability could be measured.
A stopwatch does not care whether someone races in Oregon, Virginia, Wisconsin, California or North Carolina. A points sheet does not care how much publicity a driver had before the season began.
It cares about results.
And Oregon’s results in 2026 are becoming impossible to ignore.
Willamette Speedway entered the year as a 60-year-old racetrack experiencing NASCAR sanctioning for the first time. It may leave it with three West Region champions. Oregon may leave it with four of five. And Joey Tanner may leave it with the biggest prize available to a NASCAR weekly racer.
The talent was already here.
Cory and Sandy Penfold gave it access to the stage.
NASCAR handed Willamette Speedway a measuring stick.
And Oregon’s drivers started beating people with it.
If anyone elsewhere in the country is still inclined to underestimate what comes out of Oregon short-track racing, the message from Lebanon is clear.
Consider this your warning shot.
BANG.
