Mike Hughes Wins As Hobby Stocks Are The Headliner At Oskaloosa

A few drops of rain about an hour before race time made the big half-mile Southern Iowa Speedway lightning fast Wednesday night as the track hosted its third straight weekly program of the season. On the marquee tonight was the Hobby Stock division as they would run a draw/re-draw show paying $400-to-win the 20-lap main event.

First up on the list of five features though were the Stock Cars and despite the threatening weather a solid field of twenty-one lined up to take the green for eighteen laps. Todd Reitzler would lead the first two trips around the speedway before giving way to Jason Minnehan who had pulled down from Churdan for the second time this season. While the leader pulled away the racing was intense for second with as many as six cars, lead by Randy Killen, running in a tight pack. The only caution of the race waved with three laps to go when local driver Donnie Pearson suffered mechanical issues and while under caution the hottest driver in the division this year, Damon Murty had to give up his fifth-place position and pull to the infield due to the excessive heat in his motor.

Once back to green Minnehan was again left alone while the battle for positions two through six continued and in victory lane Jason noted that this was only his second night out for the season due to the crazy weather in the northwest quarter of the state. Killen did a great job holding back his challengers to finish in the second spot, Nathan Wood advanced two more positions during those final three laps to take third, Jeff Joldersma made his first visit to Osky this year and came from twelfth to fourth while Reitzler completed the top five.

The IMCA Modified car count was down to twelve tonight and after Scott Dickey shucked a driveshaft while running away with the first heat race, the starting field for the 18-lap main event would be eleven. The track was smooth and fast, just the way that “Hollywood Style” Brandon Banks likes it and the second generation driver from Washington established a blistering pace. By lap eight the attrition began as the driver who had chased Banks in second for most of the distance Tyler Vandekamp slowed with a smoking motor in turn four. Three laps later it was Todd Shute who was running second before he too suffered mechanical issues and pulled off the race track and while under that caution Cayden Carter also pulled his Modified to the pits.

On the restart last week’s winner Jesse Sobbing was now in a position to challenge and he drove past Banks to take the lead on lap twelve. Jacob Murray also got by Banks to move to second and he appeared to be gaining just a bit on the leader before he spun in turn two with two laps remaining. Nobody could touch Sobbing on the green-white-checkers restart and the driver from Glenwood put his crate motor package in victory here for the second week in a row. During the interview announcer Tony Paris asked about how he got there and after noting that some pretty good cars had dropped out Sobbing quipped, “If that’s how truck motors run, I’ll keep on running my truck motor.” An obvious rebuttal to Richie Gustin’s rant on XSAN Tuesday night where he referred to the crates as “truck motors”. Brandon Banks would hold down the second spot followed by Bill Gibson, Jacob Murray and Tyler Groenendyk.

The Sport Mod count was up near twenty again tonight although only sixteen were on the track for the A-Main. Corey VanZandt showed tremendous improvement tonight winning his heat race and then pacing the feature field for the first two laps before Tyler Gross drove by for the lead. As Gross pulled away the man to watch was Curtis VanDerWal who was steadily picking his way toward the front after starting tenth, but by the time that he got to second Gross had a full straightaway advantage. VanDerWal did his best to cut into that lead and as the white flag waved he still had more than ten car-lengths to makeup. As Gross raced into turn three for one final time A.J. Johnson blew a motor at the flagstand and was coasting around the bottom of turns one and two as Gross exited turn four looking for the checkered flag. What he found instead was the yellow despite the fact that Johnson was now in turn two and coasting around the bottom.

Track rules dictate a green-white-checkered restart in this scenario so Gross now had to try to hold back VanDerWal and the others for two more laps. Curtis got a nice restart and drove around Gross on the high side entering turn one. Tyler stayed on the gas hard, but could not make it stick and VanDerWal would then drive away over the final lap and a half to take the win. The hometown driver was gracious in victory lane knowing that he was the second-place car on this night if not for the late caution. Gross would have to settle for being the runner-up, Tony Johnson came from deep in the field to finish third and Brett Lowry took fourth ahead of Ben Kates.

It was the Chandler and Whalen show in the Sport Compacts again as Merv Chandler won ahead of John Whalen and Bill Whalen Jr. in the six car field. Alex Sampson, Matt Moore and Shawn Cooney followed.

The Hobby Stocks closed out the night in fine fashion including a four-wide parade lap to salute the fans who had risked the rainy forecast and the ominous looking radar to come out and enjoy another fun night of mid-week racing here in Oskaloosa. Craig Brown would move to the lead from his front row start as the field primarily settled into single-file formation as the higher groove was fast on both ends of the speedway. One driver on the move though was Mike Hughes who had started on the inside of the fourth row. Cautions on lap six and lap fourteen with the ensuing double-wide restarts helped Hughes make his way to the front and he made the pass for the lead with five laps remaining. There was no catching him from there as Hughes put his “old car with a new body” into victory lane for the third time in three race nights for the #11 in 2013. Brown would fight off Kevin Fee to finish in second, Dustin Griffiths would race up to fourth from thirteenth and Jamie Songer nailed down the fifth position.

As always a tip of the hat to Mike VanGenderen and his entire staff for putting on an efficient and entertaining show that concluded at 10:15 and I hope to be back in the stands here again next Wednesday night.

No racing for me this weekend due to other commitments, but I do hope that you can get out and support the speedway of your choice. For several tracks this will be their long awaited season opener so get on out and enjoy!