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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