Wednesday nights are convenient for me to go racing so for the eleventh time in 2012 I made the trip up to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa last night for the final Wednesday night of racing for the season. It was Season Championship night on the big half-mile oval and there were two points titles still up for grabs on a warm and sunny evening, plus the Mod Lites were to make their first ever appearance at the track. The car count was a bit light in a couple of divisions, but a solid crowd was on hand for one last mid-week Osky racing fix before we head into the “specials” season.
The Sport Mods were up first with Jesse Sobbing holding a ten-point advantage over Curtis VanDerWal coming into the evening and with one-point increments per position and thirteen cars starting the main event, Sobbing would just have to stay out of trouble to win the title. And that he did as the driver who has now won more than fifty feature races over the past two years in this division did not make the charge that we are used to seeing from him. Instead it was VanDerWal who was on the move as he worked his way up to second mid-race and then gradually picked away at young Brayton Carter’s lead until he caught him with three laps remaining. VanDerWal pulled even with Carter in turn four, and the youngster fought off that challenge, but on the following lap VanDerWal again pulled even and Carter drifted a bit giving up the lead as the white flag waved. There was no way to catch the new leader in that final lap as VanDerWal posted the win at his hometown speedway ahead of another Oskaloosa resident Brayton Carter. Sobbing would finish in the third spot ahead of Carter VanDenBerg and Eric Flander while Tony Johnson saw his chances at a fourth-place finish go away when his right rear tire blew with two laps to go.
The division’s sponsors once again dominated the Sport Compact main event, but it was a new face in victory lane as John Whalen chased down Bill Whalen Jr. to make a late pass for the win. Track champion Merv Chandler took over second late while Whalen Jr. finished third. Anthony Cassat, Cory Howk and Kimberly Abbott completed the field.
The field of eight IMCA Modifieds shrunk to six following hot laps when both Jason Riegel and Jeff Waterman suffered motor issues and problems on the initial start of the 12-lap feature eliminated track champion Cayden Carter. Young Dakota Hayden has been fast here all year, but has blown up motors or cracked the guardrail leaving him with results that did not reflect his speed. On this night though the kid from Wilton, Iowa, held it all together and ran away from everybody in both the heat race and the feature to get his first win ever here at Oskaloosa in dominating fashion. Brandon Banks was a distant second followed by Jacob Murray, Andrew Schroeder and Mark Widmar.
Fifteen Mod Lites put on some decent racing with Josh May and Mike Morrill racing wheel-to-wheel for the lead midway through their main event. May would prevail with Morrill not far behind at the checkers. Andy Hennigar, Randy Bryant and Dusty Masolini completed the top five.
When you think of Osky, you think of the Stock Car division and it was seventeen strong here tonight with Nathan Wood needing to make up seven points on Matt Greiner if he wanted to take the season title. Todd Phillips would set the pace at the drop of the green before a caution on lap four bunched the field up once again. On the restart the second and third place cars of Kyle Harwood and Todd Reitzler would get hooked together in turn two and as they struggled to get away from each other the field scattered and Phillips pulled away as the race stayed green. Wood would jump the cushion and slap the guardrail in turn one mid-race putting him near the tail of the field, but another caution with five laps remaining put him back into contention. On this restart Damon Murty would stay right with Phillips and with two laps to go Murty put the slider on Phillips in turn two to take the lead and the eventual victory. Phillips would hold on for the runner-up money with Corey Stout finishing in third. Wood made a late charge to finish fourth ahead of Reitzler, but with his sixth-place finish the track title would go to Matt Greiner.
The Hobby Stocks would close out the evening with track champion Shannon Anderson needing a win tonight to stay in the hunt for the IMCA National Points title. Anderson was on the move early working his way forward from a fourth row start, but he spun in turn one on the fourth lap. Justin Hook had been the early leader, but on the restart it was Mike Hughes who took over the top spot on lap six in a thrilling three-wide fashion with Hook and Dustin Griffiths. Griffiths would stay glued to the back bumper of the new leader applying the pressure in the corners and with just two laps remaining Hughes bobbled just a bit in turn four. Griffiths was ready to pounce and he took the lead only to have Hughes fight back making one last run in the final set of turns, but Dustin was able to hold him off for the victory. Hook followed Hughes in for third, Bobby Greene finished fourth and Kevin Fee was fifth.
Just before the final feature it was announced that promoter Mike VanGenderen would return in 2013 for another season of IMCA sanctioned racing in Oskaloosa and as the crowd cheered it was nice to see the smile on Mike’s face as he prepared to work the raceceiver from the stands. Mike has some interesting plans for the annual Fall Challenge here on October 5th and 6th. I don’t think that I will be able to make it due to family commitments, but hopefully you can come and see what is in store for the race fans here in Osky during that annual event!
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