My first order of business Friday night was to watch my nephew Cormac play in the freshman football game as his Williamsburg Red Raiders smoked my Mt. Pleasant Panthers 41 to 14. Sitting there in the sun with little or no wind felt pretty good and when my wife Christine said "you can go to the races if you want to", I didn’t have to think twice. So at ten minutes before seven I started the 72-mile trip north to Tipton for night number one of the Governor’s Cup event promoted by Stuart Motorsports.
Back in the 1980’s I spent just about every Sunday night in Tipton with the standard routine of calling ahead to Happy Joe’s to pick up a great pizza from the Montgomery’s before heading out to the speedway to watch my buddy John Vantiger race his street stock against Bruce Current, Johnny Spaw, Ron Fare and many more. I have always loved this quick little quarter-mile, but for whatever reason it has been since 2001 when the old NKF Tour was still in operation that I last visited.
I arrived at 8:15 just as the second IMCA Late Model heat race was taking the checkered flag and my timing was pretty good as with the two Modified divisions running heat races only, I was in time to see them so I got a chance to see all 170+ racecars in action for my $15 ticket. I love season-opening and season-ending events like this one due to the variety of cars that you will see thrown together and the IMCA Modified class really showed that variety tonight, especially in the first heat race. Rod Scheuermann made the trip over from Scranton and held off Darin Duffy of Hazelton and Michael Long of Quincy, Illinois, to take the win. Rich Smith, Scott Hogan and Richie Gustin earned the other three heat race victories with Gustin being most impressive driving the blue #99M from the rear to the front. The Open Mods had some variety too as Delhi’s Mark Schulte and Cresco’s Jason Schlangen won the first two heats before local favorite Ryan Dolan took the third qualifier.
Eleven cars took the green for the Hobby Stock feature and despite the small field the action up front warmed the crowd. Justin Yarolem and Chad Paup raced side-by-side for the first half of the race before they were joined by Sheldon Hunter, and those three then jockeyed back and forth before a late caution slowed the field. On the restart those three went right back at it, but now they also had Emily Gade looking for racing room in fourth. As the white flag waved Yarolem, Paup and Hunter were running three distinct lines and each of them had a shot to win, but it was Hunter who had the momentum off the top side of turn four to take the win by a nose over Yarolem. Paup would be third with Gade fourth as the Hobby Stocks set the bar pretty high for the classes running features here tonight.
The Mini-Sprints were up next and one of the twelve cars went for a tumble even before the green flag waved. I’m not sure what was going on with the p.a. system, but nothing was heard on the grandstand side throughout the mini-sprint main and it’s victory lane presentation, and the first half of the Four Cylinder main event, so I do not have the name of the Mini-Sprint feature winner. Brannon Bechen and Jeremy Capron ran away from the rest of the field in the Four Cylinder finale as they waged their own battle up front and even when the caution waved mid-race, those two took off and hid once again. While Bechen and Capron would decide the winner on their own there was quite a battle for third on back between some of the top drivers in the state in this division. Jeremy Campbell, Brad Chandler and Nathan Chandler were all in the top five at some point, but two drivers, Tyler Kelly and William Michel, who had to transfer out of the B-Mains were on the move as well. Bechen, the 2008 All Iowa Points Four Cylinder champion, would hold off Capron to take the win while Kelly would come from row seven to finish third. Justin Kay slipped into the fourth spot late while Michel looked strong coming to fifth after starting in the eighth row.
The IMCA Late Model field was very stout tonight, so strong that both Rob Toland driving the 4D car and Brian Harris in a second Joe Zrostlik car were unable to transfer out of the first consolation event. Passing points from the four heats were used to set the feature lineup and that landed Ray Guss Jr. on the pole position for the twenty-five-lap event. It was no surprise that Guss opened a quite an advantage from the drop of the green as Bret Diercks tried to keep pace. The race to watch was for third with Matt Ryan, Terry Neal, Doug Nigh and Tipton’s Jake Meier, who was driving the Merfeld #87, all involved. When the white flag waved Guss had a half-lap advantage over Diercks and the battle for third now also involved consolation race winners Mike Murphy Jr. and Mark Burgtorf, but after Meier took that white flag he slowed suddenly and parked on the top side of turn one. The race was called complete with a yellow-checker combination and with my toes numb and my face freezing from the 34 degree temperature I wasn’t about to stick around to hear the "official" finish! By my count I know that Ray Guss Jr. was your winner and that Bret Diercks was the runner-up, but beyond that it is all an educated guess. I had Matt Ryan in third, Terry Neal fourth Mike Murphy Jr. fifth and Mark Burgtorf sixth. I believe that those six, plus Meier were the only cars remaining on the lead lap so it will be interesting to see if Meier ends up being credited with seventh despite causing the final caution. Murphy started from the inside of row seven after winning the first consolation event while Burgtorf started outside row six after winning the second consy. Burgtorf’s starting spot improved when scheduled second row starter Jason Rauen failed to make the call.
Other than having only one wrecker the show was moved right along and the racing was definitely good enough to take your mind off the cold while the green flag was out. As I finish up this effort of the "Back Stretch" I see that night number two of the Governor’s Cup has been postponed to Saturday October 24th which of course is the same night as our "Shiverfest" event at the Lee County Speedway. Oh well, I guess Mother Nature strikes again. I also see that the second night of the Annual Fall Challenge at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa has been postponed until Saturday October 31st so we can now all stay warm tonight near our television, or by bundling up at Kinnick to cheer on the Hawkeyes!
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