After letting one slip away the night before, South Dakota driver Jon Tesch was flawless on Wednesday night leading all forty laps to win the United States Modified Touring Series (USMTS) main event at the Marshalltown Speedway. It was the first ever appearance for the group at the high-banked quarter-mile after being rained out in their scheduled debut here in 2008.
A field of forty-two Modifieds filled the pits at Marshalltown and it was the same two drivers up front at the end of the night that were deciding the outcome the night before in Oskaloosa. The main event got off to a rough start as second row starters, and potential contenders, Tommy Myer and Ryan Dolan made contact coming out of turn four to complete the first lap. The field went scrambling behind them with several other cars sustaining damage. Both Myer and Dolan were towed away to the pits while the third row of Rodney Sanders and Scott Drake were also eliminated. Pole-starter Kelly Shryock had the jump on that first start, but on the restart it was fellow front row man Jon Tesch who picked up the lead. Shryock, the many time USMTS National Champion, picked up the chase in second until the fourth circuit when he went too high in turn two and slipped over the banking. Shryock recovered, but lost seven positions due to the miscue.
This put Oklahoma driver Jason Hughes back in the role that he played the night before in chasing Tesch. While the field raced three and sometimes four wide behind them, Tesch and Hughes would pull away making it obvious that the race would be decided between the two of them. With the laps winding down Tesch developed a bit of a push in turn four giving Hughes the opportunity to get a wheel under him, but on this night there were no mistakes by Tesch as he held on for victory. Zack VanderBeek came from the outside of row eight to finish in the third position with young Ryan Gustin thrilling his hometown fans by taking fourth after starting in row seven. Shryock had worked his way back into the top five only to be passed on the final lap by Corey Dripps who had started next to VanderBeek as the third, fourth and fifth place finishers showed just how racy this track was by feature time.
In support class action David Atcher made his first appearance at the Speedway in 2009 and went flag-to-flag to win the Stock Car main event. It was the first victory for Atcher here since 2005. Tom Schmitt made quite a run at Atcher over the final two laps, but came up just short in second with Curt Hook, Mike VanGenderen and Clayton Deppe next in line. Thirty-four Sport Mods/B-Modifieds from all over the state were on hand tonight and when the checkers flew it was a very familiar face in victory lane. Kevin Sather has won every feature race in 2009 at Marshalltown in this division thus far, so when he drew a front row starting spot for the main event it was a pretty good bet that the win would be his. Kyle Brown stayed close though and was even able to pull alongside in the corners on a few occasions before settling for second. Luke Wanninger edged out Scott Davis for the third spot while A.J. Johnson made the most of his first Marshalltown appearance by coming from row ten to take fifth. And in the Hobby Stock portion of the card Todd Reitzler shook off an early challenge from Nathan Wood and then cruised to victory. The race saw three attempts at a green-white-checkers restart and on the final one Kenny Hansen was able slip by Wood out of turn four to steal the runner-up position. Chad Koch finished fourth with Dustin Elliott fifth.
M-Town Notes.....Kenny Wallace and Kenny Schrader were on hand again tonight and both of them raced their way into the feature with Wallace finishing ninth and Schrader twelfth. Unlike the night before at Osky, both NASCAR veterans were brought out to the frontstretch during the evening to be interviewed by announcer Denny Grabenbauer and both were very entertaining. I have had the pleasure on several occasions to interview these two characters and I have learned to ask them a basic question and then just let them roll and that is exactly what Denny did. In a pre-race interview Wallace had the capacity crowd whooping and hollering and then did a pretty good Ric Flair championship belt strut, something that he probably saw a few times this past week when the professional wrestling icon was part of the marketing campaign for the Sprint Cup All-Star event at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Schrader's interview was at intermission after he had finished second to Mike O'Lear in the third heat race. When asked if he would know his way to the Aaron's Victory Lane at the Marshalltown Speedway Schrader's response was "yea, and when I get there I won't be doing no backflips or anything like that. I'll just sit on the tire and drink a Bud Light". We'll look forward to seeing Schrader compete with the World of Outlaw Late Models at 34 Raceway this Saturday night May 23rd.....Geoff Olson had a top five run go by the wayside in the SportMod feature when he popped a driveshaft with just a few laps to go.....The warm and windy conditions dried out the track quickly tonight and in the second SportMod heat six of the eight starters spun out at least once during the race. But, with the spin-your-in rule in effect, they all kept racing making for an interesting eight laps. By feature time though the track had taken rubber and drivers could run well from top to bottom. In fact as the Stock Car field came out of turn four to complete the first lap they were five-wide!....For the second straight night USMTS rookie contender Tim Shields of Kansas City drew the pole of the first heat race. Last night at Osky he didn't make it to staging in time and had to then start at the rear. He was on time tonight.....There are some things that I just never thought I would hear such as "the Tampa Bay Rays, American League champions" or "Brett Favre stays retired" (guess I still haven't heard that one for sure yet), but I really never thought that I would hear "and now here's your lineup for the IMCA USRA Hobby Stock main event". Maybe now Favre will stay retired.....I always know that when I go to see a Toby Kruse promoted show, or a USMTS-run event by Todd Staley and his family, I am going to see a well-presented program. The combination of the two was a sure thing and it lived up to expectations.
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