After a tight battle with perennial AIP contender Todd Cooney, Justin Kay of Wheatland prevailed for his first career All Iowa Points Late Model championship on the strength of thirty-nine top five finishes including nineteen feature wins. Kay becomes the twenty-first Late Model driver to earn a championship in forty-seven years of the All Iowa Points and joins the following list as one-time champions: Red Droste, Verlin Eaker, Dick Schiltz, Tom Hearst, Ken Walton, Dale Fischlein, Rollie Frink, Joe Kosiski, Steve Boley, Chris Smyser, Terry Neal and Brian Harris. Kay’s championship ends a run of four straight AIP Late Model titles by Ray Guss Jr. who finished sixteenth in this year’s standings. The Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member has logged seven state titles overall. Cooney is likely the most successful Late Model driver in Iowa who has yet to win an All Iowa Points title and his forty top five finishes and twelve feature wins left him just five points short of paydirt this season. Andy Eckrich logged three feature wins as he finished well back in third, Ryan Griffith was one point behind Eckrich in fourth and veteran driver Darrel DeFrance scored just one point less than Griffith in fifth. Tyler Bruening lead the pack early in the season and finished sixth, Jeff Aikey had another strong year in seventh while Deery Brothers Summer Series champion Brian Harris ended up in a three-way tie for eighth along with Jason Hahne and Nick Marolf.
Is there a brighter star on the horizon in our area right
now than Jesse Sobbing? The Glenwood driver ended his own streak of three
straight AIP Limited Modified titles by moving to the Modified division in 2013
where he became the first driver ever to be an All Iowa Points champion in two
different divisions in consecutive seasons. And Jesse may not be done there as
he recently chalked up a Late Model victory at Salina Speedway in central
Kansas, perhaps a sign of his plans for 2014. In his run to the 2013 AIP
Modified title Sobbing had fifty top-five finishes including twenty-four
feature wins on points paying tracks outdistancing another western Iowa driver
Chris Abelson by thirty-one points.
Abelson had a great year with fourteen feature wins and forty-eight top
five finishes. Hawkeye Dirt Tour Champion Ronn Lauritzen had his best season to
date with a third-place finish in the standings on the strength of forty-seven
top-fives and twelve wins including a big one in October at Lee County
Speedway’s Fall Extravaganza. Luke
Wanninger was fourth by just one point over Cayden Carter who was just one
point better than IMCA Super Nationals champ Dylan Smith. USRA hotshoe Brandon
Davis and IMCA star Richie Gustin tied for seventh while Steve Stewart had a
solid season in ninth. Jimmy Gustin’s thrilling win at Shiverfest this past
weekend put him in the top ten by one marker over Jon Snyder. Ryan Dolan had
won three straight All Iowa Points Modified titles, but Dolan reduced his
schedule this year and finished tied for 62nd out of the 450
Modified drivers who scored points this year.
With no former champions racing in the class this season the
Limited Modified division was assured of a new name at the top and the battle
was a close one with five drivers still in contention once the calendar turned
to September. In the end it was young Carter VanDenBerg from Oskaloosa who came
out on top in an effort supported by his girlfriend who often served as crew
chief and headed up by his grandfather Jimmy Carter who fielded three
competitive cars all year for the Limited Mod Champ and his cousins Cayden and
Brayton Carter. VanDenBerg’s huge win at the IMCA Super Nationals pulled him
back to even with Doug Smith at the time and then the son of versatile driver
John VanDenBerg closed out the championship with strong showings throughout the
Specials season. In the end VanDenBerg’s fifty-two top-fives and fourteen wins
gave him nine points more than Doug Smith of Lake City. Smith’s bid to become
the fourth different brother from the northwest Iowa racing family to win an
All Iowa Points title came up just short despite his eighteen feature wins.
Tony Dunker was in the top three for the second year in a row as his twenty
victories propelled him to third ahead of Joel Rust and Brett Lowry. Austin
Moyer, Eric Elliott, Nick Roberts (who is also posting a solid finish in
Missouri), Tyler Soppe and USRA National Champion Troy Hovey round out the top
ten.
Many times over the past ten years Damon Murty has come out
of the gate strong to lead the All Iowa Points Stock Car standings early only
to be overtaken by other drivers as the season wore on. Not in 2013 though as
“The Chelsea Charger” essentially went flag-to-flag to win his first All Iowa
Points championship by a big 66-point margin over runner-up John Emerson. Murty
was unbeatable at the start of the year and captured twenty-five checkered
flags in a stellar season that saw him in the top-five on All Iowa Points tracks
fifty-nine times! This was a breakout season for Emerson as well as the driver
who finished 56th in the 2012 Stock Car standings rocketed to second
on the strength of fourteen feature wins and all indications are that the
Waterloo driver will take his talents to the Late Model division in 2014.
Carthage, Illinois, driver Abe Huls finished fourth in the 2012 standings and
improved that by one spot in 2013 as the personable driver picked up thirteen
feature wins along the way. Defending champion Donavon Smith finished in the
fourth position while “Big Daddy” Jason Cook had another solid season in fifth.
David Smith, Norman Chesmore, Derek Green, Jay Schmidt and Nathan Wood filled
out the top ten.
It is only fitting that the two drivers who have won the last
five All Iowa Points Hobby Stock championships would end the 2013 season in a
dead heat and, since no tie-breaker system is used, they will both be declared
as “Champion” for 2013. Shannon Anderson of Atlantic won the title outright in
2008 and 2009 making this his third crown in the division as he had forty-five
top-five finishes with thirty-five of those finding him in victory lane. Devin
Smith of Lake City makes this his fourth straight AIP championship with
thirty-one feature wins and fifty top-fives. The co-champions had company
though as Chris Luloff enjoyed his best season yet finishing in third with
twenty feature wins and was still in contention until mid-September. Dustin
Griffiths closed out a fourth-place season with a win at Shiverfest while Eric
Stanton ranked fifth. Brian Happel was sixth followed by Cory Gansen, Corey
Madden, Jason Kohl and Benji Irvine. This is only the second time that drivers
have tied for an All Iowa Points championship with the other one coming in 2010
when Jack Dover and Eric Lutz shared the 360 Sprint Car honors.
The Four Cylinders saw Merv Chandler repeat his 2012 title
in dominating fashion making this his fourth overall All Iowa Points
championship also topping the Modified field in 1984 and 1985. The veteran driver
from Urbana had an amazing seventy-four top-five finishes this season including
thirty feature wins and he had a seventy-point bulge over Bill Whalen Jr. in
the final standings. Whalen’s season would normally be enough to win a
championship with fifteen feature wins and sixty-four top-fives, but he will
have to settle for the runner-up honors for the second year in a row. Aaron
Hitt was the driver to beat in the Quad Cities area this season and he ranks
third with seventeen feature wins, Austen Becerra found victory lane seventeen
times as well and finished in the fourth spot while Adam Gates tallied twenty-two
feature wins on his way to a fifth-place ranking. Megan Lappegard was sixth,
Michael Reicks and rookie driver Shawn Cooney tied for seventh, John Whalen was
ninth and Jacob Ellithorpe who has indicated that he will graduate to a Sport
Mod in 2014 was tenth. Beginning next season, due to the wide fluctuation of
car counts at weekly tracks, the Four Cylinder division point scale will be
determined by the car counts at each event. This will be the only All Iowa
Points division that will use the new system.
Mark Dobmeier and Terry McCarl have dominated the 410 Sprint
Car division in the All Iowa Points with one or the other taking the
championship in seventeen of the past twenty years. This season it is Dobmeier
who scored the most points for his sixth AIP crown as the Fargo, North Dakota,
resident had eight feature wins and eighteen top-five finishes. McCarl, who has more All Iowa Points
championships than any other driver with eleven, was just eleven points short
of making it an even dozen as he had three feature wins in 2013. Brian Brown
nearly broke up the dynamic duo as he was four points back from McCarl in third
with four feature wins. Ian Madsen had an impressive season with a brand new
race team finishing in the fourth position while Knoxville track champion Bronson
Maeschen and Knoxville Nationals champion Donny Schatz tied for fifth.
The 2013 Knoxville Raceway track champion Clint Garner
became the first track regular to win the All Iowa Points 360 Sprint Car title
since Jeff Mitrisin did it in 2006. Garner had five wins and fourteen top-five
finishes exclusively at Knoxville and held on to edge out fellow Sioux Falls
resident Gregg Bakker by just two points. Bakker had three wins and sixteen
top-fives on the season. Brian Brown could be considered the overall Mr. Sprint
Car for Iowa as he also finished third in the 360 standings with four feature
wins in the division. Sprint Invaders champion Russ Hall ranked in the fourth
spot while Matt Juhl and Skylar Prochaska tied for fifth. Three-time defending
champion Jack Dover finished seventh in 2013.
With Eagle Raceway making the switch to IMCA’s 305 Racesaver
rules it is no surprise that veteran driver Mike Boston was the man to beat as
he rung up seven wins and twelve top-fives for his first AIP championship in
the 305 Sprint Car division. It is the second All Iowa Points title for the
driver from Crete, Nebraska, as he also captured the 2009 championship in the
360 division. Two-time defending champion Bill Boles had eight wins plus a
second-place finish to rank him second in the final standings while Knoxville
track champion Larry Ball Jr. and 2008 All Iowa champion Donnie Steward tied
for third. The 2013 track champion at 34 Raceway and the 1995 All Iowa Points
Hobby Stock champion John Schulz finished in the fifth position.
One division where there were no streaks to be considered
this year was the Mod Lite class as this was the first year that All Iowa
Points were tabulated. Josh May of DeSoto ran away with the inaugural title
posting forty top-five finishes including twenty-one feature wins. Andy
Hennigar was the early points leader and wound up second with eleven wins, but had
thirteen fewer top-fives than May had. Third went to Evan Epperson as the
teenager grabbed nine checkered flags on the season, Mike Morrill had three
wins and ranked fourth while Shon Sanders was the best that the Quad Cities had
to offer taking fifth on the strength of ten victories.
For a full rundown of the standings for each of the
ten divisions and to see how your favorite driver ranked in 2013 visit the
Points page at PositivelyRacing.
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