The Lee County Speedway in Donnellson was back in action on a cool, but pleasant Saturday night featuring the annual Steve Kirchner Memorial honoring a popular B-Mod racer from Keokuk who tragically lost his life away from the track a few years back. With the support of Steve's Muffler and Arrowhead Bowl in Keokuk the IMCA Sport Mods were racing for a $1,000 top prize tonight drawing in a nice field of twenty-eight cars. This event closed out the evening, but let's first start with the support classes.
The Hobby Stock division was first on the list of five feature races and it was Jake Wenig who quickly moved from his row two start to the front of the fifteen-car starting field. Wenig, driving the #45 tonight normally wheeled by Matt Gavin, was unstoppable as he cruised to a flag-to-flag triumph over Ray Raker. Former track champion Doug Fenton stepped back into the car that he used to drive to finish in third, Vic Hastings moved up from a fifth row start to take fourth and Dan Wenig, who started next to Hastings was fifth. A tip of the hat to Jacob Keiser who brought his IMCA-legal car down from Marengo to do battle with the "outlaw" cars as he started fifteenth and raced his way up to seventh.
The four cylinder Wild Things were up next and Darin Smith avoided disaster as he was spun sideways in front of the eighteen-car field exiting turn two on the opening lap. Amazingly only one car made contact with him and both drivers were able to restart the race at the rear. Nick Wilkerson jetted from the inside of row three to the front on the second try at a start and he would never be challenged despite having to deal with a bunch of lapped traffic over the final two circuits in going on to victory. Chuck Fullenkamp prevailed over Michael Grossman in a good battle for second. Smith made a great run back up to fourth and pole-starter Craig Bangert came home fifth.
Damon Murty made the trip down from Chelsea and opened up a sizable lead during the early laps of the Stock Car main event. A series of cautions on lap nine though bunched the field and Murty then had his hands full with former track champion Jason Cook. Cook, who surprisingly had been shut out of victory lane here thus far in 2011, hugged the bottom line around the 3/8-mile layout and pulled ahead of Murty with four laps to go to take a satisfying victory. Murty showed why he is one of the best in this division anywhere by taking second despite the fact that he has only raced here a few times in the past, Corey Strothman was not far behind in third and John Oliver Jr. was solid in fourth. Todd Reitzler, in what I believe was his first appearance here in a Stock Car, came from a sixth row starting spot to complete the top five.
The 305 Sprint Cars had a solid field of fifteen on hand for action with Nate VanHaaften securing the lead at the drop of the green for their twenty-lap finale. Chad Huston was on the fly though and drove past VanHaaften for the lead on lap three. Huston appeared to have the event well in hand, but as he was working lapped traffic on lap twelve he drove into turn three too hard, pitched the car sideways trying to scrub off some speed in turn four and spun to a halt bringing out the caution. This handed the lead back over to VanHaaften who then was error free over the final eight laps to take the win. Dustin Clark would chase him in for second while Huston had moved all the way back up to third before a brush with the turn three guardrail allowed Mark Widmar to get back by him for the position. Josh Schneiderman returned from an unusual incident in his heat race to finish fifth from a seventh row start. In the heat Schneiderman clipped the track tire exiting turn four breaking something on the left front of his car. The momentum and the damage turned him left into the infield where the beautiful show car of Brandon Symmonds was sitting as it was being used tonight as the pace car. Thankfully pace car driver Rick Huff was okay and Josh was able to walk off a limp as he headed back to the pits to help make repairs to his #44 for the feature. The pace car will need some work!
After twenty laps of Sprint Car racing the track had changed dramatically from what the Sport Mod drivers had seen during their qualifying heats and the first seven laps were run one at a time. Once a few of the cars were eliminated due to the two spin rule things settled down and the crowd was treated to a great battle up up front culminating in a thrilling finish. Derek Coleman paced the field through the first six laps before Tony Dunker slipped by him in three-wide fashion with Cayden Carter also challenging on the high side. Carter's groove won out over Dunker's two laps later as he took over the lead and I thought that he would then pull away to an easy victory. Not so as the veteran Dunker started searching around for a different line and he found one to his liking starting high in turn one, then driving off turn two low and using the middle through three and four. This allowed the challenger to pull even with the leader entering turn three each of the final five laps of the race and on that final lap Dunker drove it into turn three just a little bit harder and edged ahead by half a car length. It would have been tempting for Dunker to put a classic slidejob on the kid, but in a classy fashion he left the top line open and Carter kicked off the cushion in turn four just right to come back and take the checkers by half a car-length. It was a fantastic finish for a race that I nearly gave up on after the sixth caution on lap seven. Thank goodness that I stayed!! Carter VanDenBerg crossed the line in third, but was apparently penalized two positions for failing to stay in a nose-to-tail fashion on the final restart as he was credited with fifth in the final rundown behind Coleman and Jim Gillenwater.
It was another great night of racing at the Lee County Speedway presented by the promotional duo of Terry and Jenni Hoenig and their entire crew. It is hard to believe that they are down to the final race of their tenure after announcing that the 2011 season will be their last a few weeks back. Make sure that you mark Saturday October 15th on your calendar for "Shiverfest" to not only catch a great afternoon and evening of racing, but also to send these two off in fine fashion.
Next up for me will be the MOWA 410 Sprint season championship event at 34 Raceway in Burlington this coming Saturday night September 24th. If you missed the MOWA opener at 34 back in April, you missed one of the best nights of racing that I have seen this year and I have been looking forward to their return to the classy high-banked 3/8-mile oval ever since. Should be a strong field of cars and I hope to see you there!
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