I have continued my trend the past two Saturdays of going to races and not staying until the end for one reason or another. Two weekends ago I needed to be at the Kansas City airport early on Sunday to catch a flight so I booked a hotel near the airport and figured that I would take in a race in the area on Saturday night. I first looked at going to Thunder Hill Speedway in Mayetta, Kansas, as my two previous visits there were very entertaining. However, when I heard that the Friday night program featuring MLRA Late Models and several other classes ran until nearly 2:30 in the morning I decided that I needed something that would provide me with a little more sleep. My next choice was night number two of the Jayhawk Modified Classic at Lakeside Speedway, and while it was definitely a good event with a solid car count from night one on a track that I have enjoyed my earlier visits at, the lure of something new and different was calling my name.
I had never been to Valley Speedway before and the track in Grain Valley, Missouri, had an interesting show featuring non-wing Sprint Cars on tap. Add in the Modifieds, B-Mods, Street Stocks, four cylinder Dirt Demons and the 600cc Mini-Sprints with a six o’clock scheduled start time and I made my decision. I was going to add a new track to my roster by going to Valley. I had actually stopped here before just to check the place out on a previous trip to Kansas City so it did not surprise me that the Sand Drags were going on at the same time just behind the oval track’s grandstand area. The track is a big quarter-mile with nice banking in the corners, and while it seemed a bit narrow there were definitely two distinct lines being used by the competitors. The show started a bit later than advertised, partially due to a nasty flip by one of the sprints during hot laps, but once things got started the heat races were run off at a reasonable pace. The flagman seemed to be a little quick with the caution as in one case a sprint car got sideways and the caution waved despite the fact that the driver recovered and continued on. He didn’t do a 360, he just got sideways, so it was the first time that I saw a caution for a sprint car that didn’t require the assistance of a push truck. The guy was consistent though and if that is what the competitors here expect, then that is how it should continue to be done. For a fan like me though, who is used to tracks where drivers are encouraged to pop the clutch, keep it running and get back to racing or risk being sent to the pits for causing a caution, it really started to add up and when they went to intermission I looked at my watch and decided that it was a good time to head for the hotel to catch a full night of sleep before flying.
Based on this experience, would I go to Valley Speedway again? Absolutely! The racing was good, the track was nicely prepared as I don’t think I felt a speck of dust all night, the announcer did a nice job of letting you know who was driving what and where they were from and they draw a solid field of cars on a weekly basis. If a full day of flying and business wasn’t ahead of me, I would have never left.
This past Saturday commitments during the day had me in northern Missouri so I wound up at the Scotland County Speedway for night number two of the Pepsi Nationals in Memphis. Rick Girard has stepped out of his Stock Car and picked up the promotional duties here late in the season and he was blessed with incredible weather for this traditional end-of-season event. Again I had heard about a very late night of action on Friday night where the final checkers flew at 2:45 a.m. so before I purchased my pit pass I decided that I would set my own curfew on this night to make sure that I would be home at a reasonable hour given that I had a full Sunday of family activities on the horizon.
163 cars were on hand in seven divisions an the grandstand was as full as I have ever seen it, even back when I made my first trip down here for this same event in 1980 when they were running on the old half-mile. The last run by the water truck as the sun was about to set required some extra packing, but once we were up and racing there was definitely two or three grooves to be found around the big 3/8-mile oval. The heat races went off pretty good until the first Late Model qualifier that saw only three of the nine starters make it to the checkers after several incidents. The final two Late Model heats were much better and all heat race action was complete around 9:10. Hot laps for the cars who had qualified by finishing in the top six the night before followed and at 9:25 an intermission that featured a candy dash and several prize giveaways began.
The first of two B-Mains rolled out around ten o’clock and the first feature, the Four Cylinders, hit the track at 10:30. Devin Still, who is perhaps the top driver in this division from northern Missouri, held off Friday’s winner Bill Michel to take the first feature win of the night. Michel, the 2010 Track Champion at Donnellson, was behind the wheel of Chuck Fullenkamp’s #48 for the weekend. I believe that the B-Mods were up next for their feature event and it was Curtis VanDerWal who took the victory. VanDerWal you may remember was a regular competitor on the asphalt surface of Hawkeye Downs the past couple of years, but is now seeming to find his groove on the dirt again with this B-Modified. Young Cayden Carter came in second, Jason McDaniel who has picked up a few wins here in 2010 already finished third while Andrew Schroeder and Mike Shelton completed the top five.
The Hobby Stock feature was a wild one with some controversy, two hard rollovers and a fight in the infield. The fight stemmed from an incident about six laps in when early leader Dan Wenig spun to the infield. Now I will admit that I was looking at something going on back in the pack so I did not see whether or not there was contact from the second-place car of Mike Hughes who was driving the #18 of Kris Walker. Wenig spun down into the infield and continued moving, but the caution waved anyway so I figured that Hughes was going to be penalized. (By the way, anybody who would like to question why the caution came out given the fact that nobody had stopped on the track, please feel free to approach the extremely large, but friendly, flagman and state your concern) It took awhile to get both Wenig and Hughes to the back of the realignment and eventually crew chiefs from each car began to dook it out in the infield down near turn one.
On the double-file restart Dustin Griffiths climbed the wheel of another competitor and took a hard rollover ride just at the start of the grandstands on the frontstretch. After a long cleanup process the race resumed with Dean Kratzer taking the checkers just as Dane Fenton went for a wild ride down the backstretch. Clayton Crump finished second followed by Jake Wenig, Nathan Wood and Steve Allen.
The IMCA Modified feature went off without major incident with two-time All Iowa Points champion Mark Schulte taking the victory ahead of Friday night’s winner Rich Smith. Lonne Heap had a strong showing in third, Jeff Waterman was solid in fourth and Wyatt Lantz rounded out the top five.
The Open Modified feature had a lap or two in the books before a metal crunching four-car pileup right in front of the grandstand involving Craig Spegal, Bill Baker, Martin Bennett and Charles Baker. Fortunately all drivers crawled out of their cars under their own power, but when I checked my watch I saw that my self-imposed midnight curfew had arrived and I headed for home with three features yet to be completed. Michael Long would go on to win the Open Mod main event to complete the weekend sweep, Matt Greiner would make it two wins in a row in the Stock Cars and Jason Perry would fight off Missouri drivers Tom Cordray and Jason Bodenhammer to win the Late Models. I do want to make a special mention of the fifth-place finisher in that one as Steven DeLonjay drove the #79 of Robby Warner to a top five finish. Steven also finished second to Long in the Open Mods, so it was a pretty darn good night for the second-generation shoe out of Quincy.
I want to thank the voice of the Scotland County Speedway, Andy Middleton for all of the plugs that he gave “Shiverfest” during the evening. Andy did a great job as usual of informing and entertaining the crowd and he also announced that the track would be in action again on Sunday aftermoon October 24th. However, I see that they have now decided to not race this coming Sunday at Memphis.
This coming Saturday night I can virtually guarantee that I will stay for the end, and then some, at the annual “Shiverfest” at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. After all, I am somewhat involved, plus it will be my final race for 2010. Hope to see you there.
For more info visit the Shiverfest web page.
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