Today is
Friday June 7th and it is a date that many race fans here in the
tri-state area (Iowa, Illinois, Missouri) have had marked on their calendar for
some time now as the STP World of Outlaws Sprint Cars return to 34 Raceway
tonight. It will be the third visit ever to the high-banked 3/8-mile oval just
west of Burlington, Iowa, a track that many fans will tell you is the perfect
size and configuration for winged sprint car racing. The first visit by the
Outlaws came in 2008 and saw Tony Bruce Jr. claim his first-ever Outlaws
victory, but the bigger story that night was the third-place run by young local
driver Josh Schneiderman. And the last time that the Outlaws invaded 34 it was
Joey Saldana driving Kasey Kahne’s #9 into victory lane.
Kahne’s
#9 is now driven by Daryn Pittman who leads the series’ point standings coming
to Burlington while Saldana is behind the wheel of the Motter Motorsports #71m,
a team that has returned to action after taking several years off from the
sport. Outside of a slim chance of a passing shower the weather looks perfect
for tonight and you can bet that there will be at least a few interesting
storylines to follow so if you are a Sprint Car fan here’s hoping that I see
you tonight at 34 Raceway.
Tonight
is also a good night for the fans of the IMCA divisions that race in our area
each and every week as the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson has a very unique
promotion for their show this evening. The grandstand will open at 5:30 p.m. with an
admission price of $3.00 for those fans who want to get in early and claim
their favorite seats. But as soon as the six o’clock whistle blows in
Donnellson the ticket booth will stop taking money and will hand you a free
ticket for you to attend the races. That’s right I said “a free ticket” for the
races! Obviously this would not be possible without the financial support of
some great sponsors including Budweiser, Pepsi Memphis Bottling, Arrowhead
Bowl, 101.7 The Bull, WCM Metal Works, Midwest Performance & Power and
Roberts Tire Center. Promoter Mike Van Genderen will follow this up again on
Wednesday night with a similar promotion at the Southern Iowa Speedway in
Oskaloosa.
Fan
appreciation nights like this are a great thing and will hopefully bring in
some people who have not been to the races in some time, or ever for that
matter. The key is then to put on a solid fast paced-program that will then
leave them saying “yea, I want to go back there again next week even if I do
have to pay ten dollars to get in.” So drivers at these two tracks, if you like
racing in front of big crowds and want to see them come back on a regular basis
make sure you do the following:
-Be in
staging and ready to race when the white flag waves on the race before yours
- Should
you happen to spin out, don’t sit and wait for a caution flag. Suck it up, pop
the clutch, and get that car back in motion so that a yellow flag does not have
to wave.
- If the
yellow flag does wave get into a single-file formation as soon as possible and
when you are told that someone is supposed to be placed ahead of you don’t
waste more time under caution by driving alongside that driver in protest. It
is an argument that you are not going to win anyway.
With
Tony Paris as the announcer at these two tracks I know that the “newbie” fans
will be well informed and, if they want to, they will know every driver’s name
and hometown by the end of the night. I also know that the qualifying
procedures will be explained. Us regulars all know why we run heat races and a
B-Main before the features and some announcers take that for granted and do not
explain the qualifying procedures. Knowing the number of laps to be run and
just what is at stake makes these qualifying races that much more interesting
to all.
There is
one more thing that I hope “The Flying Dutchman” keeps in mind at these two
“Free Nights” and that is to keep the intermission very short. When a track
gets a big crowd for an event I have noticed that they often fall into the trap
where they think that they have to stretch the intermission out until the line
at the concession stand shrinks down. Bad move! Have your announcer, in this
case the very capable Mr. Paris, remind the fans on a regular basis that the
concession stand is open and that you will only be taking a five to ten minute
intermission later in the evening, so the best plan might be to stop down a
little earlier to beat the rush. Perhaps during a caution flag period or during
the heat races of the division that maybe you don’t follow as closely. And
while I won’t be at Lee County tonight I do hope to be among the large crowd
enjoying the festivities for free at Oskaloosa on Wednesday.
One
thing that I will predict that will come out of these two “Free Nights” is that
somebody, after seeing or hearing about just how many people showed up, will
get on a message board and try to make the case of how these, or reduced
admission nights, should be the norm rather than a once a year promotion. While
that would be a great change that would help all of the regular fans who shell
out $8, $10, $12 or more two, three or even four nights a week it is just not a
fiscally responsible way for a promoter to run a race track. It has been tried
before and it doesn’t work, but let’s just see who will be the first to try to
make the case again.
The Deery
Brothers Summer Series IMCA Late Models and the Hawkeye Dirt Tour IMCA
Modifieds ran a double header at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City
last night, an event that I had hoped to be able to attend on Tuesday night
before rain pushed it back two days. The combination of Late Model driver Brian
Harris and car owner Lynn Richard appears to be getting stronger each night out
as they captured the feature win last night and continue to build a lead in the
Deery Series point standings. There have been some very good drivers behind the
wheel of the Richard Realty and Auction #15 the past few years including Matt
Strassheim, Tommy Elston, Jeff Guengerich and Mark Burgtorf and while they have
all had some pretty good success, Harris seems poised to take the team to the
next level and perhaps deliver the Deery Brothers Summer Series title. North
central Iowa driver Ryan Ruter took the HDT Modified win besting Richie Gustin
with track regulars Scott Olson and Mark Elliott finishing next in line. These
two traveling series come together again here in the eastern part of the state
next Tuesday night June 11th at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton,
an event that I am looking forward to attending.
If I
would have been able to get out of work earlier last night I would have made
the trip down to the Jacksonville Speedway where the POWRi Midgets were kicking
off their first of four straight nights of racing in Illinois. A stellar field
of 49 cars was on hand, but they were all chasing the California phenom Kyle Larson
who went flag-to-flag to take the win in the 30-lap main event. Darren Hagen,
Brad Kuhn, Christopher Bell and Austin Brown filled out the top five while
Larson’s good friend Rico Abreu finished sixth. While the rest of the POWRi
contingent moves on to Lincoln Speedway on Friday night, Macon Speedway on
Saturday and the Vermilion County Speedway in Danville on Sunday, Larson will
take his talents to the Iowa Speedway for NASCAR Nationwide action this
weekend. Knowing Kyle, if it weren’t for the fact that the Nationwide race is
on Saturday night, he would have been in a winged sprint car at Knoxville as
well.
This is
The Dream weekend at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, and 84 top flight Late
Models checked in for the first night of qualifying on Thursday where, after
qualifying, the field was split in two with heat races, B-Mains and a feature
race for each set. Josh Richards took the win over the Odd-Number qualifiers
ahead of Steve Francis and Darrell Lanigan. Brian Birkhofer and Chris Simpson
who tested their Dream setups last Saturday night at 34 Raceway finished
seventh and eighth respectively. Matt Miller bested Jimmy Owens, Bub McCool and
Scott Bloomquist in the Even Numbers feature with Chad Simpson taking sixth.
Qualifying continues tonight for Saturday’s $100,000-to-win finale.
Todd
Staley’s USMTS Modifieds are busy these next several days with three events in
northern Iowa. Last night the traveling Modified troupe finished off a
rain-interrupted program from a couple of weeks ago at Chateau Raceway in
Lansing, Minnesota, with Brandon Davis taking the win ahead of Iowans Zack
VanderBeek and Kelly Shryock. The tour moves to the northwest corner of Iowa
tonight with an appearance at Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids before heading to
the east on Saturday night for a show at the picturesque Upper Iowa Speedway in
Decorah. Following a couple of nights of rest the track size gets much bigger
with a stop at the I-35 Speedway in Mason City on Tuesday night before the
schedule sends them into northern Wisconsin for the remainder of the week.
There is
no shortage of tough competition in the USMTS, but one driver that seems to be
breaking away a bit from his Modified roots is Ryan Gustin. The Gressel
Motorsports Team picked up a Late Model late last season that Gustin debuted at
Lakeside Speedway in October and the 22-year-old driver from Marshalltown
scored his first Late Model victory back on May 11th beating a field
of 26 cars to win $3,000 at MARS sanctioned event in Springfield, Missouri.
Gustin and Bobby Pierce put on the race of the night for the final transfer
position in the Thursday preliminary at the Show Me 100 and, while he came up
short there, Gustin closed out the weekend in style by winning the NCRA Late
Model show at 81 Speedway in Wichita, Kansas, on Sunday night. It will be
interesting to see how the team decides to split the schedule between the
Modified and the Late Model for the remainder of 2013.
Make
sure that you bookmark our friend “FastTrackFan” Craig’s new blog as you can
bet that it will always be an interesting read.
I
started out this season trying to keep track of the All Illinois Modified
points, but soon found that it is virtually impossible to get the results from
some tracks so that effort has been ditched. I will however continue to score
the Late Models in several states and following are the Illinois points through
June 2nd. Have a great racing weekend and I hope to see you on the
Back Stretch soon!
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