Thursday, July 18, 2013

Dylan Smith Grabs A Grand, Pinkerton Delights Southern Iowa Fair Crowd At Osky


It was another hot night in Oskaloosa Wednesday as the Southern Iowa Fair hosted its second straight night of auto racing around the “Mahaska Monster”, the Southern Iowa Speedway. All five weekly divisions were on hand with some extra money on the line and all five again used the draw/re-draw format rather than IMCA’s weekly show standard procedure of being inverted by average points.
The Sport Compacts took their traditional spot as the first feature to the race track and with defending champion and current All IowaPoints dominator Merv Chandler drawing the outside front row starting spot, this one was essentially over from the start. Chandler’s teammate Bill Whalen Jr. put up a challenge early before Chandler pulled away for yet another convincing victory here. You know it had to be hot in the cars tonight as Whalen, who usually pops out of his car and hustles over to victory lane to congratulate whomever the winner is, took several minutes to emerge from his runner-up ride in the tech area. Kevin Kirkpatrick started eighth and finished third, John Whalen was fourth and Matt Moore took fifth. Last week this division only had three cars on hand while tonight the count jumped back up to eight. When they do have more cars this class is fun to watch at Osky, so here is hoping that the count can stay at eight or more for the remainder of the year, otherwise after two years of giving it a chance to grow the speedway might want to consider making a change.

Gina Greubel won a Hobby Stock feature earlier this year in Des Moines and she had the pole position for tonight’s 16-lap main event, but it was the driver to her right, Dustin Griffiths, who powered to the lead at the drop of the green. Mike Hughes took up the chase and, while he was able to stay right with Griffiths, he was not able to find a grip on the bottom to make the pass. Griffiths went the distance to take the win, Hughes settled for second, Danny Thrasher chased the lead duo in for third, Tuesday’s winner Bill Bonnett was fourth and Griffiths’ “Blind Squirrel Racing” teammate Dale Porter finished fifth.
I mentioned in yesterday’s entry that Brett Lowry was “fast all night”, yet the best he could do was fourth. Lowry’s luck with the redraw was much better on Wednesday night and he was once again fast going flag-to-flag virtually unchallenged to take the win in the 18-lap Sport Mod feature. Curtis VanDerWal continued his fine season with a runner-up finish, Tuesday’s champ Eric Flander was third while Carter VanDenBerg and Jason McDaniel completed the top five. Ty Luellen made the long trip over from Minburn and finished in sixth.

The exact same eleven Stock Cars that were in competition on Tuesday night were back to have at it again on Wednesday although one, Jeff Joldersma, would not start the feature after going up in a thick cloud of smoke during his heat race. Todd Reitzler would lead the pack for most of the 20-lap distance and he was under constant pressure from first Corey Stout, and then later Brad Pinkerton. With the preferred groove up around the top Pinkerton started to try the bottom with about five laps remaining and as the leaders were coming out of turn four to take the white flag Pinkerton made it stick to secure the top spot. Still a crowd favorite here the move for the lead brought out the cheers and they continued throughout that final trip around the half-mile as Pinkerton repeated his victory of last Wednesday night. Reitzler would race home for second while things got shuffled around quite a bit behind him on the final lap. It is possible that Stout and Damon Murty made contact while racing for third as both ended up with flat tires on the final lap. Murty’s popped in turn two so he pulled off the track on the back stretch while Stout’s went flat exiting turn four and headed for the checkers. This allowed both Jason Cook and Nathan Wood to make up quite a bit of distance to finish third and fourth respectively and as Stout limped across the line in fifth he was hit from behind by Kris Walker. Fortunately Walker was standing on the brakes just prior to contact so hopefully both cars only sustained cosmetic damage.
The IMCA Modifieds were up next and, with a possible $1,000 waiting for the winner, a fine field of 25-cars took the green flag for 22-laps. Former National Champion Dylan Smith from Osceola, Nebraska, drew the pole position and he would have Luke Wanninger racing him hard for the lead early. After shaking off that challenge Smith would pull away and the focus was then put on a few drivers who were steadily making their way toward the front. After spinning and crashing early on Tuesday night, Jacob Murray had his own chassis dialed in nicely as he had started on the inside of row seven and was on the move. Cayden Carter had started next to Murray and was trying to emulate his march to the front while last night’s winner Todd Shute was a rocket after starting eighteenth. There would be no catching Dylan Smith on this night though as he found victory lane on only his second ever appearance here at the speedway. Murray and Wanniger crossed the finish-line side-by-side and while Wanniger was initially announced as the runner-up we later heard announcer Tony Paris revise that stating that Murray had finished in second. North Carolina star Kyle Strickler came back from Tuesday’s disqualification at the scales to finish in the fourth spot while Scott Dickey took fifth. Shute and Carter were next in line, sixth and seventh, wondering what might have been if they could have had a caution to re-bunch the field.

It was another enjoyable Wednesday night of racing spent with good friends in Oskaloosa and Mike VanGenderen and his crew did their usual superb job of running the show with the final checkers waving just a few minutes before ten o’clock.
In this day and age of trying to come up with ways to put fans back in the stands, I am still puzzled by the sequence of events that took place throughout the day and into the evening. XSAN TV announced early in the day on the primary racing forum for the area that they would be broadcasting Wednesday night’s races from the Southern Iowa Speedway live for FREE and that they would also be doing a lot of giveaways for those who tuned in/logged on. Then, on my way to the speedway as I always do, I tuned into the Southern Iowa Speedway pre-race show on 104.9 FM KBOE (your station for racin’) as Tony Paris always does a fantastic job of previewing the night’s events and encouraging people to come on out to the track and enjoy the show. If it is cold, he tells you to bring a sweatshirt. If the skies are threatening he takes a look at the radar and gives you an honest assessment of the chances of getting the show in. And best of all he conducts interviews with drivers and other interesting individuals to give the listeners a feel for the personalities who are involved with this sport that we love.

Tonight’s first guest was the personable young man from XSAN, who was also on the show the night before, and of course the discussion was about the opportunity for fans to be able to log on to xsan.tv and enjoy the broadcast of tonight’s races live from the air-conditioned comfort of their own home, with their own sandwich, chips and the beverage of their choice all for FREE on this hot evening. After several minutes of describing the great service that XSAN is (I have checked it out, it truly is) their representative added, “Of course for those of you who are in the area we encourage you to come on out and enjoy the racing in person.” Of course…..
Tonight I hope to educate Knoxville Raceway historian Bob Wilson on the finer points of Modified racing at the Harris Clash, then on Friday night I make a long overdue return trip to the Jacksonville Speedway for the Brockway Mechanical and Roofing Sprint Invaders. Hope to see you there!

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