While other tracks in the region that had early openers scheduled for the first weekend in April had to postpone a week, the Lee County Speedway used an extra day to get their third event of the year in on a crisp and cool Saturday night. With the Brockway Mechanical and Roofing Sprint Invaders joining the track's regular five classes for their weekly points opener, the event was moved from the normal Friday race night in Donnellson to Saturday night when the Sprint Invaders show that was originally scheduled for Maquoketa was cancelled earlier in the week.
Nineteen Sprint Invaders pulled in for the second race of the 2014 series and that count shrunk a bit when two of the pre-race favorites, Kaley Gharst in the Dale Oaks owned #41 and Dustin Selvage in the Bragg Ag Drainage #73, were unable to make the call for heat race action and eventually scratched for the night. Defending Sprint Invaders champion Russ Hall struggled in last Sunday's opener at 34 Raceway in Burlington, but he was on his game tonight as he pressured Bret Tripplett to the checkers in his heat race and then ran away with the Budweiser King of Beers Shake Up Dash. Drawing the pole position for the feature it was obvious that Hall would be the man to beat in the 25-lap finale.
The opening lap of the feature was an adventurous one for Carson McCarl who started alongside Hall on the front row. Third starting Tony Shilling beat McCarl into turn one and then slid sideways in front of him. Contact from Carson actually allowed Shilling to regain control as Mike Houseman Jr. raced to second down the back straightaway. As McCarl dove to the inside of Houseman into turn three "The Hitman" went for the same line and contact between the two bunched up the field considerably as Hall raced away. As that tight pack raced into turn one McCarl spun and then flipped over one time making contact with Jon Agan as he tried to sneak by.
As the field was put back in line for the restart it was notable that Josh Schneiderman was mid-pack. Having been caught up in a heat race accident that sent him to the pits, Schneiderman started the race last, in seventeenth and had already passed six cars in that first scored lap. His run would not stop there.
Hall immediately pulled away from Shilling and the rest of the field as the green flag waved once again and the man to watch was Schneiderman as he continued to pick off a position or two a lap and when Paul Nienheiser spun in turn two on lap eight, Schneiderman was now up to sixth one spot behind his younger brother Jarrod. Some of the best racing of the night would follow the restart as Wisconsin visitor Scotty Thiel put the challenge on Shilling. The two drivers ran a couple of laps wheel-to-wheel and they soon had Josh Schneiderman right behind them and looking for racing room. Shilling and Thiel swapped lines the following lap and as Thiel established himself in second, Schneiderman was able to get by Shilling for third. There were now ten laps remaining and Hall had well over a straightaway lead as he began to work traffic as Thiel and Schneiderman tried to make up ground.
With the laps winding down the chasers had cut the lead in half, but when Hall made one more nice move in traffic he had clear track ahead of him and there would be no catching the defending champ on this night. Schneiderman made one last run at Thiel in the final set of turns, but he could not complete the pass as the Wisconsin driver would take second just ahead of the event's Hard Charger. Bobby Mincer was impressive coming from ninth to finish fourth while Shilling took fifth despite running most of the race with some top wing damage.
While the mid-race battle for second in the Sprint Car feature was very entertaining, the finish of both the Stock Car and Modified main events had the fans rising to their feet to see who would be the first to the checkers.
Defending All Iowa Points champion Damon Murty raced to the early lead from his outside pole starting spot in the 18-lap IMCA Stock Car feature with John Oliver Jr. applying the early pressure. Abe Huls was racing in the top five early when he got a bit sideways in turn, a tap from Jason Cook turned him even more and contact from Jim Redmann sent him spinning to the infield. A lot drivers would have left the car sit and wait for the yellow, but Huls is a true sportsman so he kept the car fired and drove back onto the track now well behind the rest of the seventeen-car field. The first of three cautions for roaming track tires (more on that in the Notes section) allowed Huls to catch the field for the restart and the battle for second heated up with Oliver, Cook and Nathan Wood all racing to see who could make a challenge on the leader Murty. Cook would take over the second spot on lap eight and working the low line to the leader's preferred topside, Cook gradually closed the gap before edging ahead with just four laps to go. Another caution on lap fifteen now found Huls in the top five and he quickly moved to third on the restart.
As the field entered turns one and two on the next to last lap both Cook and Murty raced low and when Murty nudged the leader just a bit that was the break that Huls needed as he rocketed off the high side of turn two. Cook and Huls took Kevin Eggleston's white flag in a virtual dead heat and with Cook once again having to deal with pressure from Murty on the low line of turns one and two Huls pulled ahead down the back stretch to post the amazing come from behind win. Cook would have to settle for the runner-up honors while Murty completed the podium of three of the best Stock Car drivers that you will find anywhere. Make that four as Nathan Wood was in the thick of things as well right up to the end while Louis Lynch passed Oliver on the final lap for fifth.
A solid and diverse field of nineteen IMCA Modifieds filled the pits this evening with Marshalltown Speedway regular Kyle Brown taking the early lead in the 20-lap event that would close out the night. Andrew Schroeder started sixth and by lap six had moved in to challenge Brown for the lead and two laps later he would drive by the leader on the low groove in turn two. Jeff Waterman was working the high line around the 3/8-mile and soon moved past Brown for the second spot. That top groove was working well for the poplar driver out of Quincy and Waterman eased into the lead with just five laps remaining. Schroeder was not about to give in though and was still within striking distance going into turn one on the final lap when the caution flag for, once again, a track tire that had been punted out onto the racing surface in turn four. With a green-white-checkered restart now in order Waterman went right back to the top while Schroeder searched for every bit of traction that he could find on the bottom and the pair took the white flag side-by-side. It was still too close to call off of turn two and down the back stretch where Schroeder drove his #02 deep into turn two. The young driver set the car perfect just below the only ripple that the track surface had developed all night and he won the drag race to the checkers off of turn four by half a car length and Waterman was the first to congratulate the winner in victory lane. Scott Hogan came from the eighth starting spot to finish third, Jimmy Gustin started next to Hogan in row four and finished fourth while Cayden Carter completed the top five.
Calvin Meyer has been a constant at the Lee County Speedway over the years as a fan and as the main wrench on Jim Gillenwater's #10G IMCA Sport Mod. On March 19th Calvin was diagnosed with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and has since been at Barnes Jewish Hospital in Saint Louis receiving concentrated treatment. Throughout he has maintain a positive attitude and has continued to promote the racing the racing that he would now have to miss with his forum posts. Calvin's wife Annie and her friends had a booth set up tonight to raise funds for the medical and travel expenses and the fans responded by buying up most, if not all of the t-shirts and by donating cash as drivers, headed up by Gillenwater, went through the stands passing the helmet. I know that Calvin and Annie are very appreciative of the support from the racing family!
Now there would be one more thing that could happen to make a special night even better. Rodger Dresden would lead a full field of twenty-four cars through the opening laps of the Sport Mod feature before Ryan Fullenkamp scooted by on lap three. Gillenwater had started sixth, but he looked like a man on a mission tonight as he blew past Fullenkamp for the lead on lap six and never looked back on his way to the convincing victory. It was a shame that the cordless mic was not functioning tonight as I sure that the veteran driver who is in his farewell season would have had nothing but high praise for the young man who has helped him achieve so much success the past several years. Bobby Anders tried to track down Gillenwater in the closing laps, but had to settle for second. Fullenkamp would ring up the third place finish ahead of a tenth starting Tony Dunker and Des Moines driver Matt Webb.
The Hobby Stocks pretty much ran in formation around the top line of the race track until the final laps when, you guessed, a track tire being kicked out onto the track caused a late restart that did shuffle a spot or two in the top six. Front row starters Dustin Griffiths and Nick Ulin finished first and second, fourth starting Jason See was third and David Rieks made the long trip down from Eldora to finish fourth. Mike Kincaid, who swept the division with two wins last weekend, started tenth and finished fifth.
A nice field of seventeen Sport Compacts provided plenty of action but it was all behind front row starter Austen Becerra who went flag-to-flag for the victory. William Michel made a nifty move to go from fourth to second on the final restart and Kimberly Abbott made a thrilling three-wide pass down the back stretch on the final lap to move from fifth to third. Rookie racer Barry Taft posted his second top-five finish of the young season running in the fourth spot while Josh Barnes took fifth.
LCS Notes.....The next action for the Sprint Invaders comes on Wednesday April 16th when they make their inaugural visit to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. Then on Friday night April 18th the Invaders return to the Independence Motor Speedway for the track's season opener. The Sprint Invaders return to Donnellson on Thursday night June 19th where they will pair up with the Hawkeye Dirt Tour for IMCA Modifieds......With Algona being the only other track in the region racing tonight the field was diverse with several drivers making long hauls to get that first night of IMCA points. Matt Rechek of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, was the long distance traveler in the Modifieds that also included Hogan, Gustin, Brown, Jake Strayer, and Zach Rawlins. A late arrival Rawlins was given two lap under green just before the playing of the anthem, but he only made it one after shucking the drive shaft.......In case you couldn't tell I was getting pretty frustrated with the number of cautions involving the the tires that mark the infield in both sets of corners. I do not believe that I am exaggerating when I estimate that at least ten cautions waved for either a tire on the track or for a car that had spun and backed up over one making it impossible for the driver to pull away without assistance. This is not the first time that this has been an issue at Donnellson, or for other tracks for that matter, and it will not be the last until something is done differently. One night that this was an ongoing issue I was sharing the announcing duties here I joked that if they filled them with concrete so that they wouldn't move we wouldn't have the problem. Of course the response was that I must not ever work on a car or I would know how ridiculous that would be. To that my response would be that if the drivers knew that they would do damage to the car they wouldn't run so close to them and hit them, now would they? No, I do not want these to be filled with material so that they would do damage to a car if they were hit, but at the very least could we please penalize the driver who hits the tire and knocks it out onto the track? That driver did after all "cause the caution" by striking the track tire so why not treat him or her the same way as when they cause a caution by stopping on the track themselves. Implement that rule next week and I would guess that you would only see ten or fewer cautions for track tires on the racing surface for the remainder of the season.
As always Mike VanGenderen's crew did a spectacular job of presenting efficient program with the first heat race taking the track right at the advertised starting time of 6 p.m. and the six division program with 110 cars was complete at 9:40, giving me plenty of time to drive home and catch the final ten minutes of the Kentucky and Wisconsin game. Thanks Mike!
The next action for me will be a pair of Frostbusters as I plan on being at the Southern Iowa Speedway this Thursday night April 10th and then on Sunday night I look forward to making the trip north to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton. Look for on the Back Stretch!
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