SAYBROOK, IL - The 2002 season ended for Blake Feese following his runs at the state-of-the-art Lowe's Motor Speedway Dirt Track. Feese and the Beaver Tool & Die team struggled to find the chemistry that they had when they joined forces following the Knoxville Nationals. The weekend ended a good, but frustrating season for the 20 year-old racer.

The season started with a return trip to the Florida Speedweeks with the All-Stars at the East Bay Nationals. In 2001, Blake had a breakout performance driving Kenny Mulligan's sprinter at East Bay, but this February he and his father began working on getting their #1f Big Maxim going.

The results came at the end of March and beginning of April. In late March, Feese scored his career best WoO finish of 8th at the high-banks of I-55 Raceway in Pevely, MO. One week later, Feese stomped the All-Stars with a rim-riding triumph as he lapped up to the fourth place car while earning his first Eldora Speedway win and All-Star victory.

Most of April saw Feese adapting to the USAC Stoops Freightliner Sprint Cars series piloting Lynn Reid's #2 sprinter on the asphalt tracks of Anderson, IRP and Nazareth. More pavement experience followed as he made his debut in Kevin Lang's asphalt Late Model on May 18 at Elko Speedway near Minneapolis.

Feese was back in the family's #1f and he concluded May with an incredible run from 11th to first at legendary Knoxville Raceway on May 25.

His second win of the series helped carry the momentum as they race with the Outlaws, NCRA and at Knoxville during the month of June. He qualified third at his hometown Farmer City with the Outlaws. Blake raced a pavement late model for the first time earned the pole position for the WoO July race at Pevely on July 13. An accident in the feature knocked Blake out of action for two weeks, but he returned strong with a runner-up finish in his qualifying program at the 1200lb Nationals.

His return to Eldora Speedway for the Historical Big One got started on the right foot as Feese charged past the hottest sprint car driver in the country at the time, Joey Saldana. He took the lead, but lapped traffic took him out. The following night he qualified second overall, but couldn't transfer through his heat race, but he did bounce back to finish 10th.

The team was optimistic heading into the Knoxville Nationals. A late qualifying number put them behind early, but a respectable 20th place effort would still have been okay had he not been crashed out of the preliminary feature while running ninth.

Following the Nationals, Blake returned to the #12x Beaver Tool & Die car for a SCRA non-wing show at Lakeside Speedway. He finished fifth the first night in only his second non-wing race and set up a good couple of weeks to come. He finished second the following weekend at Knoxville Raceway in the weekly program and the next Saturday he dominated the show and claimed his second feature win of the season at Knoxville Raceway.

Feese continued to pilot the #12x Maxim with the Outlaws in Nebraska before finishing the season in Charlotte. There were plenty of highlights as Blake continued his learning curve. Blake and his family will be spending the off-season searching for the best opportunity for Blake to further his career in 2003. They would like to thank all of those people that helped make 2002 a good season.