Rogerson, Simpson, Hanford and Slaughter Fly Checkers at West Liberty

Burlington’s Matt Rogerson has been racing open-wheeled cars for twenty-seven years and is known as a short track wizard. If there is a bottom groove to be found on a 3/8th’s or quarter-mile oval Rogerson will be there and he has won his fair share of races over those years at tracks such as Jacksonville and his hometown facility 34 Raceway. On Saturday night though Rogerson accomplished something that he had never done before, he won on a half-mile track holding off Bobby Mincer to take the Ideal Ready Mix Sprint Invader victory at the West Liberty Raceway.

Three drivers came into Saturday’s show within fifteen points of each other as the Sprint Invader season hits the homestretch and those drivers, Ryan Jamison, Rogerson and Mincer started one-two-three on the grid for the twenty-lap main event. Jamison would jump out to the lead at the drop of the green only to have Rogerson drive past him on the third circuit. Mincer worked his way past Jamison for second mid-race and began to track down Rogerson as he encountered lapped traffic. Mincer showed the leader his nose with three laps to go but Rogerson shut the door and as Mincer continued to apply the pressure it appeared as though the top two slowed just a bit. Jamison and fourth-place running Joey Moughan were closing quickly as the white flag waved and Mincer took one last stab on the inside of Rogerson off turn two. Matt fought off the challenge one last time to take the win on a track that his brother Rusty, who handled the announcing duties for the Invaders tonight, stated that he usually dreads. Mincer, Jamison, Moughan and Donnie Steward completed the top five so there will not be much movement near the top of the Sprint Invader standings as they head to CJ Raceway this Saturday night.

The NASCAR Late Models had extra money on the line tonight and it looked like Jeremiah Hurst would have no trouble putting it in his bank account. Hurst started outside row one in the 35-lap finale and after running side-by-side with Andy Eckrich for the first tour around the oval he established himself as the leader and began to pull away from the pack. Even after a couple of early restarts Hurst appeared dominant, but after a caution on lap sixteen the story was different. This time Chad Simpson found the middle line in turns three and four to his liking and he drove past Hurst for the lead. From watching the first half of the race you would have thought that Hurst would come right back in turns one and two, but there was no catching Simpson as he was the new dominator over the second half of the race taking the $1,500 victory. Hurst was a distant second, Eckrich was third, Jason Utter took fourth and Denny Eckrich rounded out the top five.

It took four heats and two B-Mains to whittle the thirty-two car Modified field down to twenty-four for their twenty-lap feature that saw Adam Bell pace the first lap. Scott Dickey moved quickly from row three to take the point on lap two and it looked like he might be tough to catch over the next several laps. Cautions on lap six and lap seven bunched the field up once again and that was the break that both Ryan Dolan and Bruce Hanford needed as they were coming to the front after starting twelfth and fourteenth respectively. Dolan took the lead from Dickey on lap nine only to have Hanford drive past him on the next go around. Dolan tried to keep pace, but there would be no catching the track point leader tonight as Hanford drove away to the win while Dolan settled for runner-up laurels. Noah Coppes passed Dickey coming off of turn four to the checkers to take third while Mark Schulte completed the top five.

Autocrafters of Cedar Rapids was the night’s sponsor for the four cylinder "Farley Flyers" division and they brought a bunch of cars with them as the field swelled to twenty-three. The main event got off to a scary start as third row starter Chris Havel got turned sideways coming to the green on the front stretch sending everybody scrambling. Bill Whalen Jr. was the unfortunate one who tagged Havel and his night was over with a popped radiator. Another nasty accident happened on lap six when Dallas Chandler went head on into the turn four wall at high speed severely shortening up his racer. Chandler was shaken and was checked out by the ambulance crew, but thankfully was okay. When the race was green it was all Shaun Slaughter as he went flag-to-flag from the pole position to take the win. Brad Chandler chased Slaughter in for second with Nathan Chandler coming from the eighth row to finish third. Dan Berhite moved from twelfth to fourth at the finish while Jarod McMichael took fifth.

Liberty Notes……Along with the twenty-three Flyers and the thirty-two Modifieds there were twenty-two Late Models and fourteen Sprint Invaders in attendance……John Schulz drove Randy Plath’s #14P sprint car tonight while regular driver Kaley Gharst ran in the 410 division at Knoxville…...It looked like Bobby Mincer’s night had ended before it started when his motor puffed out a bunch of smoke during hot laps. While we did see hints of smoke off the left bank later in the evening, the motor was enough to have him challenging for the win…..Doug Haack’s yellow flag got a workout tonight as only three of the eighteen events (Sprint heat race number one, Late Model heat race number three and the Sprint Car main event) went without a caution. …..Dolan and Hanford got together during the third Modified heat with Hanford suffering a flat tire. He made it back out as the field restarted and got up to fifth forcing him to win a B-Main from the second row…..Matt Furman was back in action tonight driving a white #55N Late Model that we have previously seen Ed Nelson of Winterset in. Furman smacked the wall in turn one during his heat race reportedly when the steering wheel came off, but returned to start the feature……Denny Eckrich started near the back of his heat and surprisingly went nowhere landing him on the eighth row for the feature event. He consistently worked his way toward the front over the 35-lap distance to round out the top five…..The final checkered flag fell just past 11 p.m….This coming weekend will be the Season Championships at all three SPI tracks, Farley West Liberty and Dubuque. The Sprint Invaders will run a full program on the Friday night portion of the Yankee Dirt Classic in Farley on September 18th. The West Liberty Raceway will close out the 2009 season with the annual Liberty 100 on September 25th and 26th.