Dawson Sutton takes all Tennessee team to All American win

There were five drivers that had a shot to win the All-American 400 on Sunday afternoon at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway but it required either a perfect car or perfect execution to do it.

At the end of 300 laps, the ASA STARS length of the historic race, Dawson Sutton earned the biggest win of his still young career a second ahead of Carson Brown. However, it took several other story lines to play out to send the Rackley WAR No. 26 to Victory Lane.

• Cole Butcher had the fastest car in the first half; had a tire issue
• Spencer Davis pitted 10 laps later than the leaders; had an electrical issue
• Casey Roderick pitted 10 laps later than the leaders; broke a deck lid
• Derek Thorn pitted 10 laps later than the leaders; ran out of time
• Carson Brown didn’t have enough

Thus, Sutton won a race that he was denied last year after having the best car of the first half, and scored a little bit of redemption driving a car wrapped in the colors of the University of Tennessee.

“It’s awesome,” Sutton said. “This is the one I’ve always wanted to win, the All American 400, so it’s super cool to get a crown jewel and have all this momentum going into the Snowball Derby in a couple of weeks.

“And really, just having the car in one piece means everything because it’s so good, three wins in the last four races, and we want to keep it going.”

Those wins include the ASA Glass City 200 at Toledo and the Southern Super Series at Five Flags in September and now the All-American so they no doubt want to take this car back to the Florida Gulf Coast next month.

Butcher and the Donnie Wilson Motorsports No. 28 led the first 199 laps from the second starting spot and only lost the lead when they took their tires with several drivers choosing to stay out and their theirs later — Derek Thorn, Spencer Davis and Casey Roderick.

This would play a factor into this finish.

Butcher regained the lead 10 laps later when the second stage break brought the other three down pit road. On the ensuing restart, Butcher just couldn’t get his car to turn. He lost the lead to Sutton and then faded outside of the top-10.

Bond Suss called Butcher down pit road to address a chunked right front, and they put on some scuffs, and they finished the race in 14th.

“Yeah, we had a really bad chunk taken to the right front,” Butcher said. “Not really sure how but we’ll take it. We had a really, really, really good car today, probably the best car I’ve ever had here ever and I can’t think everybody at Wilson Motorsports enough … we’ll move on to tomorrow and forget about this one.”

Suss said he would debrief upon getting the car back to the shop on Sunday night.

Some ensuing cautions allowed Davis, Roderick and Thorn to make their way through the field.

Davis had worked his way to third by 26 laps to go, on his 10 laps fresher tires, when his car lost power. In real-time, Davis blamed the spec MSD ignition box and was furious that he was sent to the rear for having to change it out.

It’s a frustration that numerous teams have expressed this year but both ASA and MSD have stated that there have been zero failures with their parts this year.

And for his part, Davis indicated after the race that he was just angry in real-time.  

“I don’t know if it was something electrical,” Davis said. “I know the box fixed it but I mean, we’re sitting here and everything is cooling off and we want to get back to the shop and diagnose it.

“I think everyone’s quick to blame the boxes and I mean in the heat of the moment, we were the fastest car on track and obviously I’m going to blame it too, and it did indeed fix it, and now we’re back there running with the scrubs and getting beat around.

“We have just one GMS Race Car and this thing is pretty good and we have to go to New Smyrna next week so we just pulled it in. We’ll diagnose it tomorrow when we unload the thing to get it ready for the Governor’s Cup.”

On the next restart, Roderick took his 10 lap fresher tires towards the front and also then fell off the pace, as his deck lid collapsed.

What did Roderick feel?

“I caught (Brown) there and it’s like I got midway up off the corner and then all of a sudden, man, I had to put a ton of wheel in it to keep it from hitting the wall,” Roderick said. “Then, I went down in Turn 1 and same thing — it went way up the track.

“Then I got in the gas and it’s just like … the back end driving through the front end and just couldn’t keep it down from that that point on. Felt like I got a lot of front end lift down the straightaway. I didn’t know if maybe it was a sway bar or what, but aero matters, I’ll tell you what.”

Roderick said he was catching them to the tune of two tenths a lap and is convinced he would have won.

“Thought we were going to get another guitar.”

Thorn also made a run up to third on the 10 lap fresher tires but just stalled out two seconds back.

“I’d have liked to have had a restart just to know,” he said.

All that was left was Brown’s attempts to try to chase Sutton down.

“We were kind of a ping pong ball earlier in the race when he got deeper into the racer, it was kind of a highlight reel of a race,” Brown said. “After about 20 or 25 laps, Dawson would start pulling away on us but I feel like our restart speed was really good.

“We just sustained some damage back there at the end of the race, and our hood was popping up, and could have gone without some of that carnage. But really proud to have brought it back to second there.”

And just like, Sutton is coming into his own as a Stock Car racer, at 19-years-old and just four years into a racing career. He just completed his inaugural full-time Truck Series season and has won four Super Late Model races in 2025.

“You know, I started four years ago, and it feels like time has flown by,” Sutton said. “It feels like I was racing Legend Cars yesterday. It’s cool to see the improvement in every race. I feel like I am getting better.

“Especially in the Super Late Models, you see it, because there’s been highs and lows but we’re really in a good place right now and I just want to thank Kevin Harvick and Keelan for being out here and helping me. It’s just amazing to win this race and do it in this paint scheme too.”

All American ‘400’ XL
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway
November 9 2025