A stout field of twenty-eight winged Sprint Cars along with strong car counts in the track's weekly divisions jammed the pit area outside of the wide and fast 3/8th-mile oval and a nice crowd nearly filled the stands on an absolute perfect night for racing in mid-August here in southeast Iowa.
On the first try at a start for the 25-lap main event Chris Martin got sideways in turn one near the back of the pack and when Jimmy Davies could not avoid him, Davies went for a quick tumble. Amazingly Davies was able to push off and he would be able to restart with a damaged top wing while Martin retired to the pit area with damage on the left front. With the field reset the front row of Mike Houseman Jr. and Jon Agan brought the field to green and those two did not lift as they raced wheel-to-wheel into turn one both trying to secure the early lead. When Agan caught the cushion in turn two that propelled him to the lead down the backstretch. The caution waved on the second lap when Tasker Phillips spun in turn four and the yellow waved again on lap five when Jarrod Schneiderman stopped in nearly the same spot in turn four.
In those two short green flag segments Russ Hall had moved himself into contention after starting on the fifth row and when the field came back to green the race was on. Agan was still the leader, but he now had Hall riding on his push bar and looking for more. Promoter Chris Eggers had his track in near perfect condition and when Josh Schneiderman went up to the top side on both ends he suddenly found the burst of speed that he was looking for on the cushion. On lap nine Hall poked a nose under Agan going into turn one and Schneiderman pounded the cushion to ride around both of them in a thrilling fashion coming off of turn two.
That three-car race quickly dropped to two though as Agan slowed and pulled to the infield down the back stretch as Schneiderman then went to work on building a lead. Hall kept him in his sights though and when lapped traffic came into play Russ looked for his opportunity. With eight to go "The Professor" had to pause for a split second behind Tim Moore and Hall charged to the bottom in turn one to take the lead momentarily. Schneiderman kept his foot on the floor and rode the cushion back around Hall coming off of turn two coming very, very close to making contact as Hall considered completing the slider. With that attempt thwarted Hall had regrouped and was ready to make another challenge when the red flag waved with just five laps remaining.
Tasker Phillips and Evan Martin had tangled in turn four with Martin going for a tumble and, given that Phillips was also involved with Randy Martin's flip during the Budweiser Shake Up Dash earlier in the night, a brief scuffle broke out before cooler heads prevailed.
With clear track now ahead of him there was no stopping Schneiderman as he pulled away over those final five laps to add his name to the list of winners in 2013 for the Sprint Invaders. Hall added to his point lead with an impressive second-place run, California native Justyn Cox started twelfth and finished third, Paul Nienheiser finished where he started in fourth and Dustin Selvage brought the Bragg Ag Drainage #73 in for fifth. Houseman would take the sixth position, Miranda Arnold thrilled the fans by winning the Dash earlier and then was solid in her seventh-place finish as Bobby Mincer, Ryan Jamison and Daniel Bergquist completed the top ten.
You can look for another strong field of Sprint Cars tonight as the Invaders head east to 34 Raceway near Burlington tonight (Saturday) for "The Night of the Twins" where they will run two features with the second one being inverted from the finish of the first. UMP Late Models, Mod Lites and Four Cylinders will also be in action.
Here at Bloomfield, as mentioned earlier, the car counts were very solid in the Stock Cars, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks and Four Cylinders and with a couple of flips to take care of in the Sprints and some extra cautions in the other divisions it did unfortunately turn into a late night. The Hobby Stock main event was the first of the five features to be run and it was a thriller up front throughout. Dustin Griffiths had won the last four in a row here and with him drawing the front row you might have expected a runaway, but that notion was squelched when Mike Kincaid drove by him for the lead on the second lap. Griffiths fought back though to pull even with Kincaid on lap five, then on the following circuit Dustin was able to regain the lead. There were plenty of challengers close behind though and Nick Ulin emerged from that group to put the heat on the leader. On the final lap Ulin drove hard to the inside in turns three and four and when he exited turn four he had the lead, but Griffiths momentum off the top side was enough to drive him past Ulin to win by a nose at the stripe in a finish that had the big crowd on its feet. Jason See, Dane Blozovich and Kincaid completed the tightly grouped top five.
Michael Grossman moved from his third starting spot to the lead down the back stretch of the opening lap and then cruised to the win in the Sport Compact feature. He was followed by the father and son duo of Kevin and Kassidy Kirkpatrick while Grossman's teammate Jayson Barnes finished fourth. Tim Bevins would get back around Trent Orwig on the final lap to take the fifth spot.
The Sport Mod feature followed the Sprint Cars and while the racing up front was excellent with Carter Vandenberg and Ryan Fullenkamp racing hard for the lead and trading it back and forth, drivers near the back had a hard time keeping it straight as five cautions littered the first nine laps. I really wanted to stay and not only see how this one would turn out, but to also watch what promised to be a fantastic Stock Car feature. But with the midnight hour now upon us I decided to load up and make the 65-mile drive home while I could still stay awake to do so.
Checking results this morning I see that it was Vandenberg who prevailed over Fullenkamp with Jason McDaniel, Brandon Dale and Logan Anderson completing the top five. And in the Stock Car finale it was Abe Huls taking the win over Brandon Savage, Louis Lynch, Tom Bowling Jr. and Jerry Pilcher.
Don't let one late night cloud what Chris Eggers has accomplished at the Bloomfield Speedway. The former Modified driver took over as a rookie promoter in 2012 and one of his first goals was to secure an IMCA sanction in order to boost his car counts. Rightfully so, IMCA is selective about the tracks that they will take on and with a new promoter at a track that had struggled through the previous years, they declined the request. That did not deter the new promoter though as he has proceeded to steadily build his car count with perhaps one of his best business moves being to drop the Modified division from the weekly lineup for 2013. Now with counts regularly in the fifteen to twenty range in his four divisions and still growing I asked Chris if he would be going back to IMCA again to ask for a sanction and his response was, "Do I need to?"
At least three nights of racing remain on the schedule here at Bloomfield for 2013 and I am going to try to make their season finale on September 28th.
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| Morgan, Allie Liechty and yours truly at Knoxville |
Looking forward to another great night of Sprint Car action tonight at 34 Raceway, hope to see you there!
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