For all but a couple of people the rains came too early Tuesday night as the United States Modified Touring Series (USMTS) packed them in to the Marshalltown Speedway. Both Darin Duffy and Mike Spaulding would have liked to have seen Mother Nature’s interference arrive just five minutes earlier and both of them would have been money ahead, but for Jon Tesch the timing was just right as the South Dakota driver won his second straight touring event on the Marshalltown high-banks.
Lightning flashed to the west as the twenty-four-car starting field was hurried onto the speedway for the scheduled forty-lap USMTS Modified main event with Darin Duffy and last year’s Marshalltown winner Jon Tesch starting from the front row. Duffy looked strong as he drove through the middle groove to take the early lead while Tesch picked up the chase running the high line in second. Duffy runs IMCA Modifieds weekly and it is not often that you see a non-USMTS regular out front at one of their shows, but Tesch was doing all he could just to keep up with the leader before the first caution waved on lap nine for a spin by Jeff Larson in turn four. On the restart Duffy again pulled away a bit while Tesch had to deal with Rodney Sanders and Jason Hughes who raced him three-wide off of turn two. At this point Duffy, in his Karsyn’s Krusaders “Kickin’ Cancers Butt One Lap At a Time” #19D looked as though he was going to kick the butts of his competitors as well until he slowed suddenly on lap seventeen with mechanical issues.
Tesch would inherit the lead as the field restarted with the wind picking up and the lightning getting closer. Again Sanders and Hughes made a run at Tesch with no success before disaster struck for veteran Minnesota driver Mike Spaulding. As he raced with Derek Ramirez into turn one Spaulding’s car set sideways and then barrel-rolled a couple of times down on the bottom groove. As Spaulding climbed out of his car uninjured the rain started to fall and having watched the storms approach on the radar I knew that it was time for a quick exit. Unofficially I had Tesch with the win, the current point leader Hughes in second, Sanders third, Tommy Myer fourth and Mark Elliott fifth.
USMTS M-town Notes…..The five division show that also included Sport Mods, Stock Cars, Dirt Trucks and Mod Lites started right on time at 7 p.m. and the Modified feature was on the track at 8:37. Unfortunately the rains came at 8:51 about an hour and ten minutes earlier than the weather service had predicted…..It was a nice recovery for the Texan Rodney Sanders as he had rolled his car on Saturday night in Moberly, Missouri…..Myer had moved up from the twelfth starting spot to fourth……Spaulding had one of the Dirt Knights cameras mounted on the roof of his car. Hopefully it will give us some good footage to see next January when the show runs on the Versus network as it is probably toast now……Spaulding had trouble earlier in the night as well as he spun in turn two on the final lap of his heat race while running second…..Corey Dripps is another one of the Dirt Knights stars and they should have some great footage of his heat race battle with Duffy as the two recovered from some pretty good contact on the front stretch to finish one-two with Dripps taking the win……With no provisionals on the USMTS tour the pressure to qualify out of the B-Mains is intense. Dan Chapman looked to have a transfer spot sewn up before he slipped off of turn two late in the second B-Main and points contender Tim Donlinger lost a transfer when he did the same thing on the final lap of that race…..Ryan Gustin passed Nate Caruth on the final lap to win the first B-Main and his hometown fans were on their feet and cheering as if it were the big money race. It is good to see such great fan interaction!….Cayden Carter started from the front row and dominated the twelve-lap Sport Mod feature. Danny Dvorak and Matt Lettow provided a great race for second though with Dvorak making the pass in the final two laps to secure the position. The winner’s cousin Carter VanDenBerg finished in the fourth spot while young Tyler Droste rounded out the top five. I believe that Droste is the son of 1996 All Iowa Points Modified Champion Steve Droste and the grandson of 1967 All Iowa Points Late Model Champion Red Droste. Could he someday be our first “third generation” All Iowa Points champ??…..Tim Hennigar won a quick Mod Lite main event while the Stock Car and Dirt Truck features were washed away…..Local Late Model star Darrell DeFrance was behind the wheel of one of the trucks tonight…..Great to hear Todd Narveson on the microphone tonight. Todd is a regular announcer at Deer Creek Speedway and also works several events for the USMTS around the area. Just another case of a younger and better announcer taking work from me!!!…..As I was driving home WHO radio reported trees and power lines down in Tama from sixty mile per hour winds at 9:40. As I was leaving the Dairy Queen in Tama the clock on my car showed 9:20 so thank goodness for the quick exit!
If weather permits, the cars and stars of the USMTS will be at the Southern Iowa Speedway tonight (Wednesday) and at the Highway 3 Raceway in Allison on Thursday before moving up to the state of Minnesota with a show at Chateau Speedway on Friday.
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