Friday, June 7, 2013

Big Race Night In Southeast Iowa


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!
Illinois
Late Model
Pos. Driver Hometown Points
1 . Kevin Weaver Gibson City 30
2 . Michael Kloos Trenton 28
3 . Chad Zobrist Highland 25
4 . Brandon Sheppard New Berlin 22
5 . Shannon Babb Mowequa 19
6 . Ray Guss Jr.  Milan 18
7 . Craig Smith Godfrey 17
8 . Scott Schmitt Tonica 16
9 . Steve Sheppard Jr. New Berlin 16
10 . Bobby Dauderman Alhambra 13
11 . Dewayne Kiefer St. Genevieve MO 13
12 . Mike Schulte Summerfield 13
13 . Jay Morris Watsega 12
14 . Kyle Logue Cisco 12
15 . Bobby Pierce Danville 11
16 . Billy Faust 10
17 . Dennis Erb Jr. Carpentersville 10
18 . Mike Hammerle St. Charles MO 10
19 . Mike Zemo Jr. Geneseo 10
20 . Tyler Reddick Corona CA 10
21 . Billy Drake Bloomington 9
22 . Brady Smith Solon Springs WI 9
23 . Brian Birkhofer Muscatine IA 9
24 . Jason Jaggers Wyanet 9
25 . Jim Moon Mount Auburn 9
26 . Mark Burgtorf Quincy 9
27 . Nate Beuseling Coal Valley 9
28 . Todd Malmstrom Moline 9
29 . Randy Korte Highland 8
30 . Ryan Unzicker El Paso 8
31 . Steve Lance Jr. Cuba 8
32 . Tim Manville Highland 8
33 . Brian Harris Davenport IA 7
34 . Denny Woodworth Mendon 7
35 . Jimmy Mars Menomonie WI 7
36 . Reno Markham 7
37 . Rich Bell Sheffield 7
38 . Rob Toland Hillsdale 7
39 . Scott Weber Festus MO 7
40 . Billy Laycock Marine 6
41 . Brian Shirley Chatham 6
42 . Charley Hess Bartonville 6
43 . Chris Simpson Marion IA 6
44 . Jason Feger Bloomington 6
45 . Jason Perry Payson 6
46 . Jay Brendle 6
47 . Justin Reed Quincy 6
48 . Ricky Frankel Quincy 6
49 . Rusty Schlenk Jackson MI 6
50 . Steve Thorsten 6
51 . Austin Hubbard Seaford DE 5
52 . Billy Moyer Batesville AR 5
53 . Brent Kreke Highland 5
54 . Brian Dively Springfield 5
55 . Chad Simpson Marion IA 5
56 . Charlie Olson Kingston 5
57 . Dustin Griffin Quincy 5
58 . Frank Heckenast Jr. Orland Park 5
59 . Jeff Kerley 5
60 . Jerry Lierly Camp Point 5
61 . Mark Voigt Marine 5
62 . Michael Jacober 5
63 . Michael Long Quincy 5
64 . Scott Bull Fairbury 5
65 . Matt Furman Columbus OH 4
66 . McKay Wenger Fairbury 4
67 . Mike Garland Sterling IL 4
68 . Mike Murphy Jr. Colona 4
69 . Mike Provenzano Marseilles 4
70 . Rodney Standerfer 4
71 . Todd Bennett Peoria 4
72 . Chad Sellars 3
73 . Clint Kirkham Camden 3
74 . Daren Friedman Forrest 3
75 . Glenn Thompson 3
76 . Jason McBride Carbondale 3
77 . Jeff Lesage 3
78 . John Beck Springfield 3
79 . John Blankenship Williamson WV 3
80 . Shane Clanton Locust Grove GA 3
81 . Tanner English Benton KY 3
82 . Torin Mettille Cullom 3
83 . Travis Denning Sterling 3
84 . Bob Gardner Germantown Hills 2
85 . Dan Jacober 2
86 . Danny Shelliam Hazel Green WI 2
87 . Dave Thornton 2
88 . Donny Walden Towanda 2
89 . Greg Kimmons 2
90 . Jared Schlipman Mendon 2
91 . Jason Kruse 2
92 . Jeremiah Hurst Dubuque IA 2
93 . Jim Gibson 2
94 . Kevin Cole Christopher 2
95 . Matt Taylor Springfield 2
96 . Mike Cothron Moline 2
97 . Randy Manos 2
98 . Ryan Little Springfield 2
99 . Scott James Lawrenceburg IN 2
100 . Steve Dimmick Joliet 2
101 . Tim Ratajczyk 2
102 . Tom Smith 2
103 . Brant Kehrer 1
104 . Chris Thielsen 1
105 . Colby Springsteen Morning Sun IA 1
106 . Don O'Neal Martinsville IN 1
107 . Ed Dixon Washington MO 1
108 . Jason Zobrist 1
109 . Paul Bailey Pocahontas 1
110 . Pete Hatch 1
111 . Robby Warner Quincy 1
112 . Rodney Melvin Benton 1
113 . Ryan Claeys Davenport IA 1
114 . Vince Grondzki 1

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