TONY BETTENHAUSEN MEMORIAL 100

SCHERERVILLE | It would be "icing on the cake" if Jeff Cannon could win the big race at Illiana Motor Speedway on Saturday night as the half-mile paved oval hosts the 46th annual Tony Bettenhausen Memorial 100.

A Midwestern stock car tradition, the event is held in honor of the legendary Tony Bettenhausen. A resident of Tinley Park, Bettenhausen was a two-time "national" Indy Car champion and a front runner at the Indianapolis 500 for many years. Area racing's favorite son for decades, Bettenhausen was killed in a practice crash at Indianapolis in 1961. A year later, Illiana was the scene of the first Bettenhausen Memorial contest and it has become an annual affair ever since.

This season saw Cannon, a 28-year-old resident of Kouts, capture his first late model stock car driving crown at Illiana, where he began racing stock cars in 2003 after graduating from go-kart racing and other entry-level, oval track competition.

Cannon, driving for Griffith car owner Wayne Govert this year, is only in his second full season of racing the "high-powered" late model cars. A school bus mechanic when not racing or working on a two, almost identical, Monte Carlos at Govert's shop, Cannon won five feature races during Illiana's regular weekly stock car action. Cannon is slated to participate in only his third Bettenhausen event with a seventh place finish in 2005 being his best effort to date.

"Of course it would be the biggest win of my career," Cannon said. "It would be a great way to end the season. The only problem is that there is going to be 30 or more guys there that want to do the same thing."

Other notable entries for Saturday's race are four-time race winner Dave Weltmeyer of Dyer, Eddie Hoffman of Wheaton and Larry Schuler of Minooka, Ill., both former three-time winners, along with four-time Illiana track champion Mike White of Monee and Boris Jurkovic of Joliet.

"It's the race that everyone wants to win," Weltmeyer said. "It's our Daytona 500."