Tyler Speer Transitions from Water to Land for Southern Illinois 100 at DuQuoin

Drag boat champion Tyler Speer will return to racing on dry land this weekend as he makes his first appearance of the season in the ARCA Menards Series in Saturday night’s Southern Illinois 100 on the Magic Mile at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds.

Speer will drive the No. 11 Phillip Smith Contracting/Wallace Electric Toyota for 1995 ARCA champ Andy Hillenburg’s Fast Track High Performance Racing team.

It will be a busy weekend for Speer and his family as they have to be in two different race tracks in two different states in a matter of hours on Saturday and Sunday.

“We’re going to drop our rig and get set up for the drag boat races in Livermore, Kentucky on Friday,” Speer said. “Then we’ll head up to DuQuoin for the ARCA race on Saturday and as soon as that’s over head back to Livermore for boats on Sunday.”

Speer has lots of success on the water, including the elapsed time record for 1000 feet – 3.10 seconds – and is the defending Pro Outlaw champion. That success kept him away from stock cars last year, but the scheduling for this weekend allows him to make a rare appearance in the ARCA Menards Series.

“Last year we only planned on doing a couple boat races, but we got off to such a great start that we stayed with it the whole year,” he said. “We set fast time and won the first two races of the year so we decided to chase the championship after that. We always like coming and running these ARCA races and we’re happy the schedule lined up just right to let us do it this weekend. I wish we could do more of them.”

The Southern Illinois 100 on the Magic Mile at the DuQuoin State Fair is set for Saturday night August 31. Practice starts at 2:30 pm CT, General Tire Pole Qualifying is scheduled for 5:30 pm CT, and the race will go green shortly after 8 pm CT. The race will be televised live on MAVTV; ARCARacing.com will have live timing & scoring, live chat, and live track updates for registered users.