Monday Notebook

After filling in for Sprint Invaders series announcer Bill Wright at Tipton Thursday night I did not do any more racing this past weekend. You will note that I did not write a recap of Thursday’s action as I have found that when I am announcing I don’t do a good job of taking notes and, in my advancing age, my memory does not kick in as well even the next morning. I don’t know how Ryan Clark does it so well as most of his reports are from events where he is on the microphone all night long, but even on Thursday when I shared the duties with track announcer Alysha Brown I am not able to come away with enough information to write a good blog entry the following day.


There was a nice field of twenty-four Invaders at Tipton on Thursday night and it looked as though Australian Jamie Veal would win going away until he slipped off the top of turn two on lap sixteen. Luck was with him at this point though as the caution was already waving for another car that had spun on the opposite end of the speedway. Matt Krieger had been on the move coming from twelfth to second and on the restart even he couldn’t match Veal’s pace, but a couple of laps later Veal again slipped off the top of turn two and Krieger appeared headed for the win. But it was not to be as his car faltered on a late restart allowing current series point leader Ryan Jamison to take the win.

A big thanks to Dave Beck for giving me a call as it was fun to have the opportunity to do some announcing again. And, at the risk of offending Rich Adams, I must say that it was the most attractive co-announcer that I have ever worked with. I look forward to getting back up to Tipton for a couple more nights as a spectator before the end of the season.

I had originally planned to go to Dubuque for the Deery Series event last night, but a non-racing opportunity presented itself that we could just not pass up. It sounds as though Luke Goedert was dominant in picking up the victory and for those of you outside of the Dubuque area saying to yourself “who?”, the young man out of Holy Cross is having a spectacular season. He has climbed up to sixth in the most recent update of the All Iowa Points that will be uploaded this week and he has obviously dialed in both Farley and Dubuque.

This week’s update of the All Iowa Modified Points will show that the top nine drivers are all within just 17 points of each other, so it is anybody’s race between Ryan Dolan, Richie Gustin, Mark Schulte, Jimmy Gustin, Dylan Smith, Brandon Davis, Cayden Carter, Chris Abelson and Ron Barker.

Luke Sathoff has been racking up the points lately and has climbed to third in the All Iowa Stock Car Points behind Damon Murty and Jerry Miles. With several mid-week fair races and special events coming up it is common to see drivers break away from the pack this time of year so we’ll see what will happen.

The first electronic entry of the Back Stretch was on December 5th of 2008 and over the past three and a half years I have found it interesting to watch the statistics that blogspot provides to see what draws readers and what does not. I have seen that a story on the World of Outlaws might only draw 50 page views, but a story on a weekly race in Vinton would draw over 400. Of course having the keyword of Gustin and some great photography from Scott Tjabring probably has a lot to do with that!

This past week my story on Tuesday’s Deery Brothers Summer Series event at the West Liberty Raceway drew my highest one day count ever at 1,101 and this, along with some other highly viewed entries in July have me headed to the busiest month ever here at the Back Stretch and I want to thank each and every one of you that checks in here either once, or on a regular basis to see what is going on. As of today, here are the top ten viewed Back Stretch entries of “all time”.

#10 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/07/look-back-and-harris-clash-is-coming-up.html

#9 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/02/wilson-to-bring-back-weekly-racing-at.html

#8 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-2010-final-late-model-point.html

#7 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/07/guss-and-timmerman-earn-feature-wins-on.html

#6 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/11/final-late-model-state-points-for-nc-ms.html

#5 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2012/07/guss-and-vanderbeek-collect-winners.html

#4 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/04/gustin-dulin-dvorak-pippert-wacha-score.html

#3 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2011/01/images-from-days-gone-by.html

#2 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-old-sprint-car-pics.html

#1 http://backstretch32.blogspot.com/2010/03/34-raceway-practice-day.html

Obviously pictures are very popular as the top four all have them, especially for those who are doing web searches. And why does a blog entry about a practice day at 34 Raceway get so many views over a two-year span? Could it be that the term “non-wing sprint car” is embedded within? Or could it be that Jeff Mueller is in there? After all, he is also pictured in the fourth place entry. Does everybody love Jeff Mueller??? 

Two nights for me at the Southern Iowa Fair in Oskaloosa this week and I would love to be in Knoxville for the annual Harris Clash on Thursday night, but another commitment will keep me from seeing three straight nights of what should be some great IMCA Modified action. Hopefully you can make it out to a track near you this week!