Second on the all-time career wins list to only Kaley Gharst, Jerrod Hull has not raced with the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders for the past couple of seasons as he concentrated on his 410 program. On Saturday night Hull returned to action with the regional 360 winged sprint car series and on the home track of his valued crew chief Scott Bonar the driver from Sikeston, Missouri, scored his sixteenth feature win in the 2015 series opener at 34 Raceway near Burlington.
A solid field of thirty sprints filled the pit area and it was young Jamie Ball who secured the pole position for the 25-lap main event by winning both his heat and the Randall's Performance Shake Up Dash where afterwards he drew the lucky number one. A caution following lap one put the field in single file alignment and shortly after the restart Paul Nienheiser swept around the outside of Ball to take the lead. As Nienheiser opened up a straightaway aedvantage, fans could pick out one of three different drivers who were racing their way toward the front in Donnie Steward, Jon Agan and Wayne Johnson who started eighth, tenth and fourteenth respectively.
All three of those drivers had made their way into the top six by lap eighteen and Johnson was making a bid for the third position when his left rear clipped the right front of Harold Pohren's lapped car on the front stretch and while both cars stayed on all fours, both were too damaged to continue. Jerrod Hull would lineup behind Nienheiser for the restart and when the leader went low in turns one and two, Hull went to the cushion and flew by him. From there it was a race for position as Hull cruised to the $1,500 victory ahead of Nienheiser and Steward. Veteran driver John Schulz brought the Jimmy Davies owned #99 in for fourth while defending Sprint Invaders champion Jon Agan was fifth.
IMCA Modifieds were racing for $1,000-to-win tonight as 34 Raceway kicked off its 50th season of racing and a strong field of twenty-three took the green for the main event. A scramble in turns three and four on the opening lap sent Ryan Cook and Phillip Beard for a spin and on the original restart it was Brandon Rothzen who quickly opened a comfortable advantage. This one would go green to checkers from there and with lapped traffic helping out along with a fresh start on his setup Scott Hogan would make his way up from sixth to take the lead from Rothzen on lap fourteen. Hogan had not been happy with how his car had performed at his first three events of this season so he went back to basics and it paid off with the four-figure victory here at 34. Rothzen would settle for second, Jeff Waterman was third, Mitch Morris finished where he started in fourth and Carter Vandenberg held down fifth.
Mike Morrill took the lead from Devon Rouse on the second lap and never looked back as he dominated the Mod Lite main event. Randy Bryan was the runner-up ahead of Jimmy Halcomb, Terry Brown and Charlie Brown.
After a break in the action for Billy Stanford who rolled onto his top off of turn two on the second lap, Austen Becerra returned to the Four Cylinder division for a night and led every lap of the 15-lap finale for the evening. Brandon Setser held off both Jerrod Nichols and Kimberly Abbott to finish in the second spot while West Liberty Raceway regular Steven Struck completed the top five.
The next event for the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders will be Wednesday, May 6th at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa and don't forget that coming up next Saturday, April 11th, the National Sprint League will hold it inaugural event at 34 Raceway and it should be huge!
Prior to the night's racing I was saddened to learn of the passing of Al Samberg who was one of the four men who brought 34 Raceway to life back in 1966. Not only did he help build the place, but he did just about everything else here at one point or another from racing, to officiating to being the track announcer for several years. I had the thrill of working in the tower with him as he announced and I handled administrative duties back in the early 1980's and then when he decided to put down the microphone I used many of the things that I had learned from him over the years to try to fill his shoes as I began my years of being a race announcer. I can still hear a couple of my favorites to this day, "Morning Sun the town that is coming up" and "he waves that little piece of bleached cloth signifying one lap to go" to this day. Al Samberg, thank you for all that you did for racing here in Burlington. Rest In Peace my friend.
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