Friday, June 21, 2013

Jon Agan and Steve Stewart Headline Budweiser Night at the Lee County Speedway

The Karl Performance Hawkeye Dirt Tour shared the stage with the Deery Brothers Summer Series at its last two events and on Thursday night the regional touring series for the IMCA Modifieds paired up with the Brockway Mechanical and Roofing Sprint Invaders at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. Thirty-two Modifieds and twenty-nine 360 c.i. winged Sprints filled the pits, plus the turnout in three support divisions was high enough to run three heats in each giving the large crowd in the grandstand, as well as the large contingent in the hospitality tent for Golden Eagle Distributing’s Customer Appreciation Night a full evening of action.

In the Sprint Car portion of the program the night belonged to Jon Agan as the Knoxville, Iowa, driver pulled off the clean sweep in a convincing manner taking his heat, the Budweiser King of Beers Shakeup Dash and the 25-lap main event to register his first career Sprint Invaders feature win. Current point leader Russ Hall chased Agan throughout and even closed the gap on two occasions as the leader neared lapped traffic, but a couple of caution flags opened up the track for Agan once again and there was no catching him in clean air. While Agan was the big winner, the drive of the night was put on by Wayne Johnson. The Oklahoma native who now calls Knoxville home pushed off for his heat race, but then encountered mechanical problems before the race was even started. He then started at the back of the thirteen-car B-Main where he raced his way up to second behind Tasker Phillips to qualify himself for the A-Main. Starting eighteenth, Johnson had raced his way up to sixth when misfortune struck a pair of drivers that had been running in the top five. First it was the third-place car of Dustin Selvage who cooked a motor and spun on the front stretch and during that caution period the driver who would have then restarted in third, Josh Schneiderman, had a right rear tire go down on his Deuce Motorsports entry. This moved Johnson up to fourth for the restart and after knocking tires as he raced with Randy Martin for third there were not enough laps left to see if he could catch both Agan and Hall. Martin would finish the race in the fourth position while defending Sprint Invaders champion Ryan Jamison took fifth. The Invaders return to action on Wednesday night July 3rd at 34 Raceway west of Burlington.

The track was wide, smooth and slick when the HDT Modifieds closed out the evening with their 30-lap main event as north central Missouri driver Hunter Marriott took the early lead. Behind him the battle for second brought back memories of a generation before when Dan Dickey and Tony Stewart used to race each other on the tracks of the Midwest and I remember a time when Stewart was nearly unbeatable on the old half-mile configuration here at the Lee County fairgrounds. Tonight though it was their sons, each proudly carrying the car number that their fathers drove, as Steve Stewart’s #17 fought off the challenge from the #40 of Scott Dickey. From there Stewart went to work on Marriott making the pass for the lead on lap three and then extending his advantage over the rest of the field as they raced two and three wide farther back. I was again amazed at the fast early progress being made by Richie Gustin as, just like he did last week at Tipton, Gustin moved forward quickly coming from the seventh row up to fifth in the first four laps. On lap five Gustin took advantage of Tyler Cale’s brush with a track tire to get around both he and Dickey to move to third and on lap fifteen he slipped around Marriott for the second spot. Marriott regained the position a lap later and as these two raced hard for second Stewart continued to hug the bottom line and pull away. Gustin was finally able to clear Marriott on lap nineteen, but by then Stewart had more than a straightaway cushion and even while dealing with lapped traffic that lead did not shrink as Steve Stewart posted his first career win on the Hawkeye Dirt Tour. Gustin, Marriott and Dickey would follow while Ronn Lauritzen completed the top five. Track promoter and HDT regular Mike VanGenderen was running sixth before dropping out late and that left that position open for NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader who had started on the eighth row. Brandon Banks was seventh, Cayden Carter finished eighth, Kyle Brown was ninth and Tyler Cale took tenth at his hometown track. The Tour will now go to the opposite corner of the state for a Tuesday July 25th date at the Buena Vista Raceway in Alta.

A four car pileup in turn four on the opening lap changed the complexion of the 18-lap Stock Car main event as top contenders Damon Murty and Tom Bowling Jr. were eliminated and the always tough Terry Houston was hampered with damage to his #97. Jeremy Pundt would lead the first two laps before John Oliver Jr. took over and it wasn’t long before Jason Cook moved in to challenge. Oliver and Cook are two of the best in this division and they have raced each other often over the years so it was no surprise when they locked into a great battle for the next several laps with one up high and one down low. Cook finally nosed ahead on lap ten with Oliver staying within a car-length or two waiting for a mistake, but mistakes are seldom for Cook here at Donnellson as he went on to score another victory on the 3/8-mile D-shaped track. Oliver would secure the runner-up finish ahead of Nathan Wood in third, Jason’s brother Ryan Cook drove Corey Strothman’s #C4 in for fourth with Abe Huls finishing in fifth.

I didn’t get to see most of the Sport Mod feature, but I did see the closing laps that had three of the top six ranked drivers in the current All Iowa Points standings for this division, Carter VanDenBerg (1st), Tony Dunker (3rd) and Bobby Anders (6th) racing hard for the lead. Three late cautions, two by one driver who on both occasions appeared to have been capable to continue on, played a huge role in this one as Dunker was able to beat Anders back to the white flag on the first of two green-white-checkered restarts. So it was then Dunker who restarted the next try at a “g-w-c” out front and he was able to hold on to take the exciting win. Anders finished second, Phillip Cossel got by VanDenBerg on the final lap to take third as Derek St. Clair completed the top five. It would be an interesting debate to have in regard to whether the running order should actually change between one green-white-checkered restart and then next since the white flag in that scenario is not technically “scored”, otherwise the next restart would just be a “white-checkered” one……

I found the Sport Compact main event to be interesting from a couple of standpoints. First I was once again amazed at how dominating Adam Gates can be as the driver of the #007 started fourth and had the lead on the opening lap before pulling away for an easy victory. Gates had a similar performance in early April at 34 Raceway where he was later disqualified in the tech area. Adam has obviously made whatever change was needed without slowing him down any as I have this night’s win as his eighth of the season so far. It was also fun to watch some drivers who dominate at tracks where car counts are a bit lacking, but where tonight they were mixing it up in a stout twenty-car lineup. They raced hard and they raced well and I think that most fans will agree that when this division has a full field of cars it can be a very fun class to watch. Chuck Fullenkamp drove the #29 that used to be wheeled by Dustin Ravelin in for the second spot, Michael Grossman had third wrapped up before he pulled to the infield on the final lap so it was his teammate Josh Barnes assuming that position while Bill Whalen Jr. and Austen Becerra completed the top five.


After eight race events in ten days it is time for me to now focus on getting ready for my son Kyle’s wedding that will take place on June 29th. So the next time that you will find me on the Back Stretch will be leading up to Independence Day with the UMP Summer Nationals at the Quincy Raceway on Tuesday July 2nd and the Sprint Invaders at 34 Raceway on Wednesday July 3rd. Get on out and support the track of your choice!

No comments: