The one division that did get its feature completed was the Sport Mods where Colt Cheever totally outclassed the thirty-three car field. Cheever won his heat by two-thirds of a lap over J.C. Morton and in the main event he charged from the inside of row two to grab the lead down the backstretch on lap one. As Cheever sped away the race for second was intense with five drivers dicing back and forth throughout the event. That group bunched up though when Darrell Jackson got sideways and stripped the right side body work off of Steven Muilenburg's car leaving the rest of the field scrambling and crashing down the back stretch. As the wreckers cleared the speedway and the remaining cars prepared for a green-white-checkers restart the rain started to fall once again. This cost Morton as he spun out while running third on the final lap and Cheever skated to the dominating victory. Muilenburg wound up second with Jackson taking third.
As the Midgets took to the track for their feature race the rain fell harder and the decision was then made to delay until Sunday.
Sprint Car Notes
Brian Brown started at the back of the first heat and earned the maximum amount of passing points possible by winning the qualifier.....16 year-old Taylor Walton went for a tumble off of the top of turn three.....Oklahoma driver Sean McClelland ran away with the second heat while local favorite Toby Brown was second.....The third heat was stacked and Tyler Blank was impressive as he went flag-to-flag for the win. Johnathon Cornell was second and Derek Hager passed Robby Wolfgang late for third.....There were 26 cars in attendance, the exact number that Bill W. predicted as we talked to him on Friday night. Bill, do you have any stock tips?
"Blackjack" Brian Brown returned on Sunday afternoon to win the Sprint Car feature
Modified Notes
The fifty-three car field was split into five qualifying heats. Two of the top contenders were eliminated early in the day. Johnny Fennewald had some handling issues during hot laps and he collected Jeremy Payne. Payne's damaged car was soon seen leaving the pits on a small trailer so that his crew could get a head start on the repairs at the shop. Jesse Stovall was leading his heat race when he dropped out on lap four.....The first rain of the day came during the running of the first heat and when Scottie Bough got upside down on the frontstretch, the track became too slick to race and the delay was an hour and forty minutes.....The best two races of the day followed the rain delay as Mitch Keeter held off the challenges of Terry Phillips for the win. Then when leader Rex Merritt lost his power steering he could not fight off the run of James McMillin who made the pass of Merritt on the final turn for the win.....Jason Pursley, David Hendrix and Jody Tillman were the other heat race winners.....Tillman was the 2008 Factory Stock champion at the track and was very impressive driving away from Dusty Campbell and the track's 2008 Modified runner-up Erik Maggard......Austin Wulf made the long trip down from Algona Iowa but failed to qualify.
Midget Notes
The twenty-three car field is headlined by Brad Loyet and Dustin Morgan, but it will be the Heavelow brothers Phil and Beau starting from row number one when the show resumes at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
This was my first ever trip to Springfield Raceway and I will make sure that it will not be my last as this little quarter-mile proved to be very racy from top to bottom. Hoffman and Bland took a lot of unwarranted heat with how they handled the initial rainout of this event and I hope that the internet jockeys stay under the rocks on this one. Outside of one small delay to get the scoring team caught up just before the Sport Mod feature, they kept everything moving at a steady pace and did all that they could to get this show in on Saturday. Sometimes though, the weather wins.
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