Chris Madden is slowly returning to action after a health-related break

RURAL RETREAT, Va. – For a driver who just won the 53-lap Schaeffer’s Southern Nationals feature race at Wythe Raceway on Saturday, Chris Madden looked like a regular guy shortly after returning to his trailer parked in turns three and four of the half-mile oval’s pit area.

Already dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, Madden sat almost hidden on a stepladder next to his No. 44 Longhorn chassis, alone with his thoughts while his crew members Ricky Arnold and Stephen Eldridge took turns packing up the trailer and chatting with people who stopped by to congratulate them.

And the 49-year-old star from Gray Court, SC, had a lot to think about. The $10,053 win, after all, was his first since returning to competitive racing following a brief health-related hiatus that forced him to abandon his pursuit of the 2024 World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series championship — and also his first checkered flag since announcing in early June that he would retire from full-time competitive racing at the end of the season.

“It feels good to win again,” Madden said, feeling a distinct sense of calm and satisfaction.

For the multi-award-winning racer, this night could be considered a return to normality. The trajectory of his campaign was turned upside down by the pain in his stomach that began to overwhelm him just over a month ago. He developed diverticulitis, an inflammation of irregular, bulging protrusions in the wall of the digestive tract that causes, among other things, severe abdominal pain.

“I actually had this problem (the flare-up) when I was at Eldora (Speedway),” Madden said, recalling June’s Dream weekend at the famed Rossburg, Ohio, track, where he finished fourth in the heat and fifth in Saturday’s 100-lap final despite not feeling 100 percent throughout his visit. “I had to deal with it, and then I got to a point where I couldn’t go any further. I was overwhelmed.”

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Madden’s pain was so severe that he required medical attention, and he was eventually forced to cancel his participation in the WoO tour, which he had publicly announced on June 20, the day of a WoO event at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Summertown, Tennessee, that was to kick off a nearly three-week journey for Madden and his team.

Having to abandon his hopes of his elusive first WoO title was obviously a huge disappointment for Madden, who had finished second three times and third once in his four seasons as a series regular. He was fourth in the standings at the time, 60 points behind leader Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Illinois, but he was confident he could still make up the losses.

“We’ve made some progress and made some improvements and I think we could challenge and win the title,” Madden said. “We were just getting close to (Sheppard) after winning two in a row there (on May 16 and 18 at Raceway 7 in Conneaut, Ohio, and on May 18 at Marion Center Raceway in Pennsylvania), then we blew an engine (on May 19 at Path Valley Speedway Park in Spring Valley, Pennsylvania) and that set us back again. We made up all those points in two nights and then lost it all in one night, but I think we still had a good chance.”

Instead of beginning his comeback during the busy early summer of touring, Madden has been at home recovering and adjusting to his new routine. He didn’t have to undergo surgery, but diverticulitis is a problem that must be managed through lifestyle changes, such as eating a high-fiber diet and avoiding certain potential triggers (nuts, seeds, beans, fruits and vegetables with skins, whole grains) that the body can’t easily digest.

“We’re dealing with it the best we can and just making sure I’m doing the right thing and regulating myself the way I’m supposed to so everything’s good,” Madden said. “They say if I take care of myself and do what I’m supposed to, everything’s going to be fine, but this is something I’m going to have for the rest of my life.”

Madden made his first start since retiring from the WoO circuit on June 28-29 in the unsanctioned Volunteer 50 weekend at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tennessee, where he finished fourth in a semifeature and sixth in the $50,000 final. A planned holiday weekend appearance in the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series on July 6 at Senoia (Georgia) Raceway was canceled due to rain before he competed in the opening race of the Southern Nationals on Friday at Beckley (West Virginia) Motor Speedway, finishing 21st due to a flat right rear tire that forced him to retire from fifth place on lap 13.

Vintage Smoky Madden was back at Wythe, a huge, well-banked racetrack where he always feels at home. His win on Saturday was the fourth of his career Southern Nationals at this track (he previously won events in 2007, 2008 and 2013).”

“It’s a pretty cool place,” Madden said. “I like it. I always have. I’ve had a lot of success here.”

“I like (longtime Wythe owner) Mr. Fred (Brown) here, too. He’s one of the older guys (he’s 83) that still maintains the race tracks. It’s just incredible the work he does here. There’s a lot of track to work on and he does a phenomenal job with it. It’s a pretty good track for its size.”

Madden, however, didn’t know if he could add another Wythe triumph to his resume when Saturday’s modest peloton (only 14 of the evening’s 16 competitors were on the track) took the green flag. He started on the outside pole alongside Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Georgia — a three-time Southern Nationals winner at Wythe, including 2022 and 2023 — but immediately dropped to third in turns one and two as the 58-year-old McDowell took the lead and Brandon Overton, 33, of Evans, Georgia, slipped into second.

“We were too close at the beginning,” Madden said. “I couldn’t get going. Dale killed me on the start and then I couldn’t turn into the first and second laps. Then I finally got going and had a pretty good race car. It only took me about three laps to get going.”

First, however, Madden had to avoid being involved in the accident of 33-year-old Overton on lap nine, in which his car hit the wall between the first and second corners and flipped onto its roof.

“I was right there,” Madden said of the accident. “I was just trying to miss him. I knew he was going to hit the wall, but I didn’t know how far he was going to jump out. I tried to turn away, and I was sideways, and I just thought, ‘Oh my God, I hope I don’t hit him,’ you know? Of course I was scared.

“I witnessed the whole ordeal. It’s a scary moment. It’s not what you want to see. Things move quickly here.”

Madden stopped his car near the crash scene during the red flag to check on Overton’s condition. After an Overton crew member confirmed that Overton was OK, Madden was reassured and went back to work. He took the lead on lap 18 after McDowell slowed for a left-rear tire failure, then controlled the rest of the race. After that long race, he beat Donald McIntosh of Dawsonville, Georgia, by 5.247 seconds – more than the length of Wythe’s long straightaway – at the finish line.

“When I saw lap 24 (on the scoreboard), I thought, ‘Good God, we’ve got almost 30 more laps to go,'” Madden said. “But you just stay focused and keep going.”

Could Madden have handled McDowell and Overton if the two stars hadn’t had problems? He wasn’t sure.

“These guys’ cars were very evenly matched early in the race,” Madden said. “I don’t know how it would have been later, but I was just way too close early on, then I was really good in the middle of the race. Who knows what would have happened?”

Madden was the one who came out of the main event unscathed and will hopefully take the first of many more victories in his remaining months as a full-time Dirt Late Model driver.

“Exactly,” said Madden, whose upcoming pick-and-choose schedule includes multiple starts at the Southern Nationals (Bulls Gap on Sunday and perhaps the three events after that) and a trip to Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway for the Castrol FloRacing Night in America show on July 24 and the WoO-sanctioned Prairie Dirt Classic on July 26-27.