No Rain, Plenty of Action at Donnellson

Friday was one of those days that makes a promoter's stomach churn and turn. The radar showed a big blob of rain marching across the state of Iowa so ominous that one eastern Iowa track actually cancelled their races before one drop of rain fell and, as it turned out, it was absolutely the correct decision. For Terry and Jenni Hoenig though the radar showed that their track, the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, just might be missed by the rain and so they pushed ahead with their weekly Friday night show which on this night featured six divisions with the addition of the Pilot Grove Savings Bank/Ideal Ready Mix "Drive for Five" IMCA Late Models. And an hour before race time, you could see the concern on Terry's face as the pit area was full of cars while the grandstand had maybe fifty people in it. Fortunately for Terry and Jenni the grandstand filled in pretty nicely over that next hour and those race fans who did thumb their nose at Mother Nature were rewarded with a very entertaining night of racing on a tacky multi-grooved surface.

For you race fans that may live a couple of hours away from Donnellson, when the Late Models are on the card the Hoenigs have committed to do everything possible to have their feature on the track before 9:30 and on this night the twenty-three car field took the green just a few minutes before nine o'clock. Thad Trump and Adam Helmick went wheel-to-wheel for the lead on the first two circuits before Trump established himself as the leader. Justin Reed used the high line to get by Helmick for second, Jeff Aikey followed suit on the low groove and we soon had a three car battle for the lead. On the seventh lap Reed looked like he had a run on the high side of Trump, but instead it was Aikey who rocketed off the low side of turn two to move from third to first down the backstraightaway. As Aikey started to pull away from Reed our attention was pulled back to Mark Burgtorf who had started in the sixth row and was now quickly moving forward running way up on the cushion of the fast 3/8th-mile and just ahead of him you had Boone McLaughlin making a charge using the low groove. With five laps remaining, and with Aikey having to deal with some lapped traffic, it looked like both McLaughlin and Burgtorf would have an opportunity to run him down. On the next lap though Burgtorf pushed the cushion just a little too hard and slapped the guardrail in turn three and Aikey made one more great move to clear some traffic and the finish was no longer in doubt as the Cedar Falls speedster tallied the $1,000 victory. McLaughlin finished in the second spot while Denny Woodworth used Burgtorf's late miscue to take away third in the final laps and Reed completed the top five.

One of the many fan-friendly promotions at the Lee County Speedway is the Richard Realty and Auction "Pick Five" where one race fan has the opportunity to either draw one Late Model driver out of a hat and win $500 if that driver wins the feature race, or draw out five drivers and if any of them win then the fan collects $100. Aikey was one of the five names drawn tonight by the lucky fan and she was very happy to accept the crisp one hundred dollar bill from Richard Realty standing next to Aikey in victory lane.

Another one of those promotions was up next as the crew at Backslash Technologies had customized a brand new computer to give it the look of a racing tool box and one lucky fan was going to take it home tonight based upon the winner of the IMCA Stock Car main event. Nineteen race fans were selected by drawing their general admission ticket numbers and then those fans each drew out the name of one Stock Car driver who they would then count on to win them that computer. An eight-car pileup in turn one on the first lap took a few drivers, and their new number one fans, out of contention and on the restart it was Corey Strothman who picked up the lead. The action was furious near the front and on lap three Chris Wibbell used the bottom line to take over the advantage with Abe Huls and Jeff Mueller close behind. Wibbell was running strong though and looked like he would be tough to beat until the eighth circuit when he moved to the high line. Mueller took advantage of that change and charged to the front with Huls taking over the chase of the new leader in second. There was no catching Mueller though as he cruised the final seven laps to the checkers to pick up the win. The fan that had drawn Mueller's name was literally shaking with excitement and gave Mueller a big bear hug in victory lane for winning him the new computer. With the help of Kevin Harter and his crew at Backslash Technologies, you know that he will have it hooked up and hopefully visiting us here at www.PositivelyRacing.com soon. Abe Huls was the runner-up, Jason Cook who started next to Mueller on row number five finished third, Wibbell was fourth and Doug Huls logged a fifth place run.

The IMCA Modified division continues to draw a solid field every Friday at Donnellson with twenty-six on hand tonight. Lonne Heap and Rob Kirchner swapped the lead during the early laps with Brandon Rothzen right behind them looking for racing room. Wyatt Lantz and Michael Long soon joined the hunt making it an exciting five-car battle for the lead until lap eleven when cars started to drop like flies. Rothzen started smoking and Kirchner stopped on the track to bring out the caution and during that break Michael Long retired to the pits. Rich Smith had raced his way up to third and when the green flag returned he pulled to the infield as well. Wyatt Lantz swept past Heap for the lead on that restart and then held off a late charge from Tyler Cale to take the win. Josh Foster finished third, Heap held on for fourth and Adam Birck rounded out the top five.

The Hobby Stock feature had a tough time getting started as the first attempt saw an eight-car melee in turn three and the second try had four cars scrambling down the backstretch. Once things finally got going, it was a pretty good race with Dan Wenig chasing Matt Tucker for the lead. With five laps remaining, Tucker checked up a bit coming out of turn four and Wenig made a bit of contact sending Tucker sliding to the infield. Current point leader Derek St. Clair made a run on the new leader on the final lap and it was Wenig by half a car length at the checkers. In victory lane the first thing that Wenig said was that he wanted to apologize to Matt for the contact, but he just couldn't slow up quick enough. Jim Lynch, Jeremy Pundt and Jim Oliver Jr. filled out the top five.

The IMCA SportMod feature saw Rod Staats hold off the persistent challenges from one of his sponsors Paul Lawson to take the flag-to-flag victory, his first in this division. The "Tall Thin One" (a nickname approved last night by his crew chief Doug) Rodger Dresden was close behind in third with Jason Cook and Phillip Cossel next in line. And in the final event of the night Chris Loring Jr. fought off James Oliver III to conquer the "Wild Things".

What started out as a promoter's nightmare with threatening weather turned out to be quite a success with a nice late-arriving crowd on hand to witness some great racing peppered with some fantastic giveaways. For another point of view from a fan who does not have the luxury of living only twenty-miles from this track, click on TapFan's Tours at www.PositivelyRacing.com

After the races I was speaking with some of the officials who work at another racetrack as well and I asked them about a blog that was recently written by my buddy Kyle Ealy, the former editor at Hawkeye Racing News. Kyle will be the first to admit that his journalistic efforts would not always fall within the theme of PositivelyRacing and frankly I do admire him quite a bit for standing up and saying "I didn't like this and this is why" in his writings. This particular blog was a scathing report on a night of racing that Kyle was quick to point out is not the norm for this particular racetrack and I was interested to see how these officials felt about it. Their response was "he was right". Working with the officials from a touring series that night just did not go well and they knew that their presentation that night was not of the quality that they expect. I encourage you to check out two of Kyle's journalistic efforts at http://kyleealypitpass.blogspot.com where you also get the benefit of seeing shots from one of the best photogs in the business, Dennis Krieger, and for those of you who love to go back in time check out http://midwestracingarchives.blogspot.com

My beautiful daughter Ashley has returned from a full year of teaching English in South Korea so no more racing for me this weekend! See you at the track next week.