The UMP Summer Nationals “Hell Tour” made its way back to the Spoon River Speedway south of Canton, Illinois, Monday night after being rained out last Wednesday and a solid crowd was treated to some fantastic racing on a perfectly prepared surface. Sunny and hot conditions during the early afternoon yielded to overcast skies with a cool breeze from the north as a thunderstorm complex to the north blew itself out even providing a few sprinkles. The result was plenty of high-speed action with any dust being taken away from the grandstand and at the end of forty-laps there was a first-time winner standing in victory lane.
Jeep VanWormer and Jason Feger would start the main event from the front row and my thoughts were that these two would fight it out for the win. After all, VanWormer had looked pretty dominant the night before at Quincy and Feger, the current point leader on the Tour, loves running the cushion and that was where he was starting. When the green flag waved VanWormer faded quickly dropping all the way back to eighth on lap two while Tim Lance applied the early pressure on Feger. Jack Sullivan had started fifth and was on the move as he drove by Lance for second on lap twelve and then went to work on the leader before the event’s only caution waved on lap eighteen for a slowing Billy Moyer Jr.
On the restart the race was on for the lead as Sullivan, working a middle line, made several attempts on Feger who was sweeping off the cushion on both ends. On lap twenty-three Sullivan was able to take the lead down the front stretch only to see Feger come storming right back to the front off of turn two. This same process played out again on lap twenty-four and this time Feger tried a lower groove in turns three and four to see if he could keep Sullivan from regaining the lead off of turn four. As Feger and Sullivan thrilled the crowd with this exchange all of a sudden we had a new player in Ryan Unzicker who was now finding the very bottom groove to be extremely fast for his #24 car. Unzicker relegated Feger to third on lap twenty-six and two laps later he took the lead away from Sullivan coming off turn four. Jack tried to fight back in turns one and two, but drove his GRT house car off the top side of turn two and by the time he recovered he was now back in sixth.
There was no doubt who the fastest car on the track was now as Unzicker, from El Paso Illinois, drove away from the field to win his first career Summer Nationals main event in convincing fashion. Tim Lance completed an impressive run to take runner-up honors, Feger continued to build his point lead over his closest contenders by finishing third, VanWormer recovered from his poor start to come home fourth while Shannon Babb completed the top five. Sullivan wound up sixth, Ohio’s Doug Drown was seventh, Steve Lance Jr. took eighth, ninth went to Brian Shirley and Dennis Erb Jr. was tenth.
Spoon Notes…..Thirty-eight UMP Super Late Models were in competition…..Unzicker started seventh after finishing second to Drown in the third heat race…..The other heat race winners were VanWormer, Feger and Tim Lance…..Erb, the two-time defending champion of the Tour was forced to qualify by winning the B-Main after finishing fifth in the last heat race. His tenth-place run in the feature started from seventeenth…..Young talent was again on display tonight as 13-year-old Bobby Pierce unofficially finished 11th in the main event, plus he won his heat race in the Pro (Crate) Late Models. This was also my first chance to see 18-year-old Kentucky driver Dillan White in action. He was impressive running third in the first heat behind Jeep and Sullivan…..Iowa driver Boone McLaughlin made his first-ever trip to Spoon River and was the final transfer out of the B-Main…..Support classes included 27 UMP Modifieds, 13 UMP Pro Late Models and 13 E-Mods. All three divisions put forth some good racing in their qualifying races, but with Morgan facing a 5:30 a.m. workday on Tuesday we chose to start the two-hour drive home after the checkers waved on the UMP Late Model feature at 10:07…..We were very impressed with flagman Dave Walden who made sure that the two-by-two starts were nice and even off of turn four in all classes. And, on the minimal number of restarts that we saw, he was quick to get the realignment set and did not waste laps before turning the field loose once again……For many years I listed Spoon River Speedway as one of my top-five favorite tracks, but after a couple of bad experiences there in the past five years it had been moved down the list. This return trip, my first since 2008, has me considering what facility I might have to bump out of my current top five to put “The Spoon” back in.
Specials tonight at Farley and Peoria, weekly racing at Osky and “The Beaver” plus the Corn Belt Clash at Indee on Wednesday, Sprint Invaders at Tipton on Thursday and then a full weekend of racing action starting again on Friday. We live in the best area possible to be a race fan, so get out and enjoy the action!
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