Thursday, May 16, 2013

Modifieds and Sport Mods Serve Up Thrillers At Osky


Finally! It was an absolutely beautiful night for racing in Oskaloosa Wednesday night as the Southern Iowa Speedway hosted its fourth night of action in a season that has been plagued by cold and wet weather thus far. A large crowd was on hand with some wearing just shorts and t-shirts, a far cry from two weeks ago when you wanted to wear everything you could find and then huddle up in a sleeping bag if at all possible, and there were solid car counts in each the four primary racing divisions.

Eighteen IMCA Sport Mods would take to the track for their 15-lap main event with the veteran Bill Livezy Jr. lining up next to the youngster Ryan Fullenkamp on the front row and youth was served as Fullenkamp darted to the lead at the drop of the green. A caution for a two-car spin involving Tyler Heckart and Rob Wilsey on lap five brought the field back to Fullenkamp, but on the restart he again opened up a sizeable advantage. Carter VanDenBerg and Curtis VanDerWal soon broke away from the pack and began to reel in the leader and another driver on the move was Brett Lowry.

Lowry just plain looked slow in his heat race finishing outside of the top five and missing the invert, but he and his crew had obviously made some changes before feature time because he was quickly advancing toward the front after starting in the sixth row. With five laps to go Lowry slipped by VanDerWal for third and while VanDenBerg closed in on Fullenkamp, Lowry was gaining on both to set up a three car race for the lead over the final three laps. Lowry challenged low going into turn one only to have Fullenkamp close the door and with VanDenBerg working the higher groove he pulled nearly even with the leader exiting turn four racing to the white flag. Again Fullenkamp sensed where the challenge was coming from as he pinched off VanDenBerg’s chosen line and as the young man from Eldon completed the final lap to score his first win at Osky Lowry was able to drive under VanDenBerg to finish in second in this crowd-pleaser. VanDerWal was not far back in fourth, Jason McDaniel finished fifth and after seeing a win snatched from his grasp last Wednesday night Tyler Gross took sixth. Livezy who has returned to racing after taking a few years off seems to be finding his rhythm again taking seventh and Glenn Gladson Jr. was eighth in his first appearance of the season here.

The 15-lap Hobby Stock headliner got off to a wild start when outside front row starter Travis Bunnell got loose coming out of turn two on the opening lap and then spun within the field going down the back stretch. Somehow everybody missed him and Bunnell kept his car in motion so the race stayed green with rookie driver Jason See out front. An early restart saw Dale Porter drive past See for the lead on lap three and the race was slowed again following lap six when Bunnell’s engine went up in flames. Mike Hughes got one heck of a restart here as he would hold the lead as the field raced under Ryan Bergeson’s waving green flag and, while Porter was able to keep pace with Hughes over the remaining laps, he could not mount a serious challenge. It would be the third straight win in three appearances at Osky for Hughes who also won the Shootout at Knoxville in late April. Porter would edge out his teammate Dustin Griffiths for the runner-up dollars while Bill Bonnett and Jamie Songer would complete the top five.

It was just like old times at Osky during the Stock Car feature as Brad Pinkerton and Zack Vanderbeek pulled away from the rest of the field during the early laps. Jeff Joldersma was on the fly though moving up from eighth to third before clipping a track tire and going for a spin exiting turn four on lap five. On the restart Vanderbeek drove into the lead and Pinkerton’s race would come to an end when he slowed out of second on lap ten. Bob Lynch was looking good in his first Osky showing of the season and was running fifth when his car suddenly slowed with four laps remaining. With some of his top contenders now sidelined there was no stopping “The Z-Man” from cruising to his second win of the season here in three starts. Nathan Wood remained consistent here finishing in second although I am sure that he would like to get a feature win trophy soon. Jason Cook made a late charge to finish in third after starting thirteenth, local favorite Kris Walker would hold down fourth while Shane Richardson made the trip up from Morning Sun payoff with a fifth place finish.

The IMCA Modifieds had a solid field of sixteen cars in attendance although one of them, Richie Gustin was unable to compete as his crate motor sounded a bit rough during hot laps and he had to be pushed back to the pits from the staging area prior to his heat race. Oskaloosa was approximately the halfway point of Jeff Waterman’s road trip from Quincy, Illinois, to Spencer for Thursday’s Hawkeye Dirt Tour event so he decided to do some racing here as well leading the first ten laps of this 18-lap feature. Todd Shute and Jacob Murray were racing for second behind him and when Murray went too high in turn two and that allowed Shute to put his focus on catching Waterman. On lap eleven Waterman and Shute raced under the flagstand side-by-side too close to call and on the following lap Shute eased ahead of Waterman by a car-length. Murray was not about to give in though and after getting past Waterman for second with three laps remaining he went back up to the high side in an effort to chase down Shute. The strategy worked as Murray drove past Shute up top coming off of turn four to take the white flag and he was able to fight off the comeback attempt on the final lap to take the victory. Shute would have to settle for another bridesmaid role at Osky while Waterman has some spending money for Thursday after finishing third. Cayden Carter would take the fourth position, Adam Larson was fifth in his 2013 debut at Oskaloosa and Murray’s teammate Kyle Wahlert finished in sixth.

The Iowa Sportsman Series drew only five cars and while the Sport Compact count was up to eight, three of them were eliminated in a first lap crash during the heat race. It is truly the Chandler/Whalen division here with Merv Chandler taking the win again tonight followed by John Whalen and Bill Whalen Jr. Trent Orwig and Shawn Cooney were the other two cars in the main event.

Scott Watson auctioned off several items donated by the racers and the drivers went through the stands to collect money for injured Modified driver Mark Widmar with the total raised for the night being $2,497.65. That was good news, but the best news of the night was that Mark is expected to be released from the hospital this Friday! The fundraising will continue next Wednesday night when the IMCA Late Model division joins the program again at the Southern Iowa Speedway. Hope to see you there!

No comments: