With over five inches of rain falling on the Southern Iowa Speedway over the past week, drivers found themselves racing both the other competitors and the increasingly rough track on a beautiful September night in Oskaloosa. Temperatures near ninety and the fact that the 2010 racing season is nearing a close brought out a nice field of cars and a surprisingly large crowd for a Monday night of action on the big half-mile.
The United States Modified Touring Series headlined the show as they kicked off a week that will see over a quarter of a million dollars in prize money distributed as they move to Allison tonight (Tuesday) and then on to the Fall Jamboree at the Deer Creek Speedway near Racine, Minnesota, this weekend. The Modified field tonight was a little smaller than I expected with twenty-seven cars on hand as apparently drivers who are no longer in the point race decided to save their equipment for the Jamboree. Still, as always, it was a solid group of drivers who displayed the high-speed action that you can expect at a USMTS event.
Colt Mather thundered out of the gate to lead the first lap of what would be reduced to a twenty-lap Modified feature, but when the second-place car of Mike Spaulding slowed in the groove of turn four on lap two both Brad Pinkerton and Tim Donlinger piled into him. The scramble to avoid the mess continued and the final starter Ryan Schaffer ended up on his roof up near the guardrail. Everybody escaped injury, but at least four cars were quickly eliminated.
On the restart Ryan Gustin slipped past Mather to officially lead lap two only to have Colt come galloping back to regain the advantage on the following lap. The two young hot shoes then waged an interesting battle over the next several laps even swapping the lead once in corners three and four. On lap twelve Gustin made a pass that stuck and he then drove away over the final laps to have a very comfortable margin of victory at the checkers. Point leader Jason Hughes moved past Mather to take second making sure that Gustin did not make too much progress on carving into that point lead of his. Mather ran a solid third at his home track, Texan Rodney Sanders moved from thirteenth to fourth and Tommy Myer passed Mark Elliott on the final lap to finish fifth after taking the initial green flag in fifteenth.
One note of interest that did not likely play a part in the early issue for Mike Spaulding, as the field was making their traditional four-wide parade lap the steering wheel came off in the hands of Mark Elliott and his car veered left into Spaulding’s. Series officials checked both cars for damage and had to pull out some sheet metal from Spaulding’s right rear before the field could go to green.
There was an interesting mix of Stock Cars on hand for the Dart Ironman Challenge event with Rich Gregoire making the longest tow in from Russell, Minnesota. Todd Inman, driving the Billy Allen #17A, started from the pole and lead lap one before Jason Minnehan charged past him for the top spot on lap two. Inman came right back though and took the lead on lap four only to lose it again a lap later, this time to Brad Pinkerton who was driving the car that Nathan Wood uses at the IMCA-rules tracks. On lap six the race was red-flagged for a scary crash in turn one. Shane Weller who running near the front of the pack slowed suddenly and drove up to the guardrail and came to a halt at an angle with the back of his car just above the cushion. With the cushion being the preferred line in turn one several cars just missed him, but Missouri driver Chad Walter did not and the impact tore the rear end out from under his #23 and put him into a quick snap roll. It was good to see Walter crawl from his damaged ride without injury as did Weller.
Once back to green the race up front was heated as six cars ran in a tight formation. Some contact in turn four between Mike VanGenderen, Nathan Wood and Minnehan left Wood and Minnehan against the guardrail bringing out the caution. Minnehan was done for the night while VanGenderen and Wood, the top two drivers in the Dart Challenge point standings, would restart from the rear. With Pinkerton building up a lead the race for second heated up between Inman and Kyle Harwood and on lap twelve the two made contact sending Harwood off the track over turn two while Inman came to a stop at the pit entrance more than halfway down the back straightaway. The crowd buzzed as Harwood climbed from his car and started sprinting down the track, helmet on, apparently to confront Inman. But as he reached him instead of getting physical the two appeared to have more of a conversation with some pointing and gesturing instead. Don’t get me wrong, I never want to see drivers get into a fight, but some of the comments of the friends and fans around me were quite humorous. “Maybe he was too tired after running all that way” or “I bet Inman kept looking bigger as he got closer to him” and “you can tell he’s done this before, he kept his helmet on!” Kudos to both drivers for maintaining their composure and discussing the incident rather than trading punches.
Once back to green the race belonged to Pinkerton, but the show was watching Wood and VanGenderen charge back through the pack to finish second and third. Mark Elliott would finish in the fourth spot just ahead of his brother Greg Elliott in fifth.
B-Mods and Hobby Stocks were also in action on the night and in the B-Mods it was Cayden Carter taking another victory. Carter started from the pole position in the main event, but it was fellow front row starter Bill Gibson who paced the field for the first four laps. Carter came charging back on lap five though and then pulled away for the victory. Gibson was the runner-up with Jason McDaniel, Tony Johnson and A.J. Johnson filling out the top five. Scott VanBuskirk ran sixth and John VanDenBerg charged from 25th to seventh driving a new looking #3K car. It was all Nathan Wood in the Hobby Stocks as he started on the front row and lead all fifteen laps to win driving a #55 with “Wilson” across the bottom of the car. Dan Hovden gave Wood a good challenge over the final two tri[s around the half-mile, but ended up taking the second-place money back to Decorah with him. Kris Walker finished third, Bobby Greene was fourth and Todd Reitzler recovered from an early flat tire to finish fifth.
The Southern Iowa Speedway will close out its 2010 schedule on October 8th and 9th with the annual Fall Challenge. It was announced last night that all four divisions Modifieds, Stock Cars, B-Mods and Hobby Stocks would race for $1,000-to-win on Friday night and $2,000-to-win on Saturday night. If that doesn’t bring out a huge field of cars I don’t know what will!
A big thanks to track announcer Tony Paris for the Positively Racing mention!! Hopefully the weather will cooperate as the week continues for the stars and cars of the USMTS.
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