Shiftright-Axler Rivalry

The **Shiftright-Axler Rivalry** is a rivalry that happened between the Shiftright Family and Axler Family.

## Members (Only includes members who have been fully involved)

* Shiftrights:
	+ Kurt
	+ Kraig
	+ Klint
	+ Kyle
	+ Kevin
	+ Gaige
	+ Kurt III
* Axlers:
	+ Morris
	+ Andrew
	+ Johnny
	+ Aiken
	+ Harold
	+ Ward

## History

The start of the Shiftright-Axler Rivalry can trace back to the mid 60's where in 1963, during the Calladega 500 Kurt Shiftright accidentally pushed Morris Axler into the wall at high speed injuring him. Kurt claimed this to be an accident but Morris thought he did this on purpose. Then in 1967 saw Danny Wilson who became known as "Shiftright Enemy" after he caused the fatal crash of Kurt Shiftright in the Easy Idle 400 winning it but was disqualified after he was found out to have killed Kurt on purpose. This is that really started the war as it turned out that Danny was friends with Morris which caused Kraig to get mad at him. The 70's saw Kraigs son Klint and Morris' son Andrew race together, around that time, Kraig was still competing but retired after 1993. Kraig, Klimt and Andrew had many battles and moments with each other such as the inaugural Nightdona Clash in 1979 which saw the 3 racers in a collision on the final lap. During the 70's, Andrew won the 1976 season with Kraig winning the 1977 and 1978 seasons.

The 80's continued with many battles but in those seasons no Shiftright or Axler Family won the title, eventually in the Open Wheel Series there were more clashes with Kyle Shiftright and Johnny Axler as in 1985 Johnny was the car that Kyle's dad Jared hit and caused him to die causing Kyle to hate Johnny a lot and in 1989 Kyle caused Johnny's career ending crash and was suspended for the rest of the season. In the 90's saw the first 2 titles won by Klint and his 3rd title was in 1993. Sometime after Klint and Andrew retired, their sons Kevin and Aiken replaced them. While they didn’t hate each other they weren’t friends. In 2002, the Shiftright-Axler family would expand into the IAAR Auto Club Series as Gaige Shiftright accidentally wrecked and injured Charles Axler during the 17th race of the Michigan All-Star 5555 which caused Charles' brother Harold to hate Gaige. Charles missed the final 4 races of the Michigan All-Star 5555. During the final race of the season which was the Liyama 350, Harold wrecked Gaige on purpose causing a crash which gave Harold him a 2 race suspension for the 2003 season. Harold claimed that Charles told him to wreck Gaige, but Charles said that he didn’t tell Harold to wreck anybody as he was still friends with Gaige after he was wrecked by him, however after the crash Gaige and Harold made peace. Sometime in 2013 Gaige retired, while in 2015 Charles and Harold retired while Kevin and Aiken retired much earlier than them. Even though some Shiftright's and Axler's still raced they didn’t have that much rivalry's with each other and Klint Shiftright Jr. and Asher Axler are even friends with each other.

At the Florida 200 in 2023 the rivalry would return after Ward Axler and Kurt III were involved in a crash that took out many drivers including Cubette Williams who made her final Elementary Series start as No Stall would withdraw for the rest of the 2023 season for group a after Williams was approched by Leak Less for a drive in the IAAR Dash Racing Series that same season.