2010 All Iowa Points Champions Announced

With the cancellation of "Shiverfest" due to wet grounds at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, the 2010 racing season in and nearby the state of Iowa is complete and so too is the chase for the 2010 All Iowa Points titles.

The Late Model division was dominated by Ray Guss Jr. who rolled up twenty-six feature wins as part of sixty top five finishes in a season where he won the IMCA Late Model National Championship, the Deery Brothers Summer Series and three track championships. It is the second straight All Iowa Late Model title for Guss and his fifth overall state championship with titles in 1989, 1990 and 1991 proving that this veteran driver has staying power. Terry Neal had a solid season himself and usually his seventeen wins and thirty-six top-fives would have him right in the hunt for the state title, but this year he finished 98 points behind Guss in second, the second year in a row that these drivers have finished one-two. On the strength of twelve feature wins Jeff Aikey wound up in the third spot ahead of Andy Eckrich who tallied eight wins, and Craig Preble dominated out at I-80 Speedway with thirteen wins to end up in fifth. Rob Toland, Denny Woodworth, Darrel DeFrance, Todd Cooney and Merk Burgtorf completed the top ten.

The Modified race was tight throughout the season with the top seven drivers ending the year within twenty-two points of each other. Ryan Dolan emerged from the pack at the end of the year to earn his first-ever All Iowa Points title on the strength of fourteen feature wins and thirty-five top five finishes. Michael Long stayed in the hunt right down to the end ringing up twenty-one feature wins on AIP tracks, but with eight fewer top fives than Dolan he came up ten points short. Sioux City driver Jimmy Cole garnered twelve checkered flags on his way to a third-place finish, Doug Crampton picked up eleven wins around the Quad Cities area to rank fourth while 2009 champion Jeremy Mills and mid-season leader Richie Gustin tied for fifth. Scott Hogan was one point behind them in seventh, Jimmy Gustin was eighth, Minnesota driver Jason Cummins was ninth and two-time Modified champion Mark Schulte (2006 & 2007) completed the top ten.

With twenty-two feature wins and fifty-two top five finishes there was no stopping Dustin Smith from claiming his third straight All Iowa Points Stock Car Championship. Nathan Wood drove two different cars in two different sanctioning bodies to win eleven times and finish second while Chad Palmer also won eleven times to settle into third in the final standings. With twenty feature wins on the season Matt Greiner was one-point behind Palmer in fourth while Jason Ward collected seventeen victories to finish in fifth. Damon Murty was sixth, seventh went to early contender Kevin Opheim, former Hobby Stock state champion Donavon Smith (2006) was eighth, Jake Masters was ninth and Matt Werner completed the top ten.

In 2009 Jesse Sobbing won the IMCA Northern Sport Mod National title and finished third in the All Iowa Points. This year Sobbing emerged from a three-driver battle to earn his first AIP championship racking up sixteen feature wins and posting forty-one top five finishes along the way. Last year’s runner-up Austin Kaplan will share that honor once again this season with young Cayden Carter as these two drivers finished seven points shy of Sobbing. Kaplan had seventeen wins on All Iowa Points tracks while Carter had nineteen. Tad Reutzel was in victory lane nineteen times on his way to a fourth-place ranking while Scott Davis finished in the top five for the second year in a row, this year in fifth. Brett Meyer was sixth, Jeremy Embrey was seventh, while Brandon Hare, Beau Kaplan and Jason McDaniel rounded out the top ten.

The Hobby Stock championship was decided on what turned out to be the final weekend of racing in the state as a fourth and a second at Buena Vista Raceway was just what Devin Smith needed to edge out Dustin Larson by just one point for the title. Devin is the third of the Lake City Smith brothers to be an All Iowa Points champion and he did it on the strength of twenty-four feature wins and fifty-two top five finishes. Larson won five more times (29), but had eight fewer top-five finishes to end up just one point short of his first championship. Two-time defending Hobby Stock champion Shannon Anderson was third with twenty wins on AIP paying tracks, Chad Gentz was in the top ten for the third straight year, this time in fourth, while northwest Iowa driver Shane Klaassen filled out the top five. Michael Murphy, John Watson, Stac Schroeder, Chris Hovden and John Cain were sixth through tenth.

It took him a couple of months to get there, but once Nate Coopman made his way back to the top of the Four Cylinder standings there was no keeping him from taking his second straight All Iowa Points championship in the division. Coopman rang up twenty-two feature wins along the way to finish thirty points ahead of runner-up Nathan Chandler. Chandler, who improved from a fifth-place finish in 2009, collected nine checkered flags on his schedule that included racing on both dirt and asphalt. David Miller of Sioux City was third ahead of Bill Whalen Jr. who likely visited more tracks in 2010 than any other driver. Cody Thompson was fifth while Jaconb Ellithorpe, Brad Chandler, Mick Rykhus, Tyler Kelly and Jeremy Campbell completed the top ten.

In the Sprint Car divisions Mark Dobmeier had four wins and nineteen top-fives to take his fourth All Iowa Points title in the past five years in the 410 class. Early season leader Lynton Jeffrey was second followed by Brian Brown, Gregg Bakker and Sammy Swindell. The 360 division finished in a dead heat as Eric Lutz and Jack Dover both tallied 53 points. Clint Garner was third and Cody Hansen was fourth while Brian Brown also had a top five in this division. And in the 305’s a third-place finish by Casey Friedrichsen in the final race of the year at Jackson broke the tie between he and runner-up Ryan Voss. Kevin Hetrick’s schedule was limited due to several rainouts at 34 Raceway, but he still managed a third-place run, Bruce Anderson was fourth and there was a tie for fifth between Tasker Phillips and Tommy Barber.

A full run down of the 2010 All Iowa Points along with an explanation of how the points are compiled can be found on the Points page at Positively Racing. And, check back here throughout the offseason as I am working on filling in the gap from 2000 to 2005 when I did not compile the points. I should have the 2000 season completed soon and through July of that year your leaders were Gary Webb, Ron Barker, Tom Hanson, Jeff Anderson, Randy Embrey, Larry Cook, Terry McCarl and Tim St. Arnold. If Webb held on it would be his eighth AIP Late Model championship and would tie him with Ed Sanger who also has eight titles.