Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Voila! Wolla Wins HDT Opener in Vinton

That play on words in the title will be totally lost on you if you don't know the pronunciation and meaning of "Voila!" Suffice it to say that it rhymes with the last name of the winner in Tuesday night's opener for the Hawkeye Dirt Tour for IMCA Modifieds as North Dakota's Jason Wolla passed former Tour champion Mark Elliott and then cruised to victory at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton.

Thirty-three Modifieds checked in on a chilly, overcast, but dry evening and track conditions on the black dirt quarter-mile could not have been better as by feature time drivers could run high, low and pretty much anywhere in between. Twenty-four Mods would take the green for the night's forty-lap finale with veteran drivers David Brown and Mark Elliott leading the field into action. Elliott would grab the lead with Brown challenging in second as Brian Irvine made it a three car battle for the lead early on.

On lap eleven contact between Brown and Irvine allowed Elliott to pull away and while Irvine was able to continue he lost several positions as well as his right side sheet metal along the way. Likely debris off of Irvine's #26 caused a caution a lap later and for the restart Elliott now had Jason Wolla and defending HDT champion Mike VanGenderen paired up right behind him. After finishing fourth here during the Frostbuster in April, Wolla again made the trip down from Ray, North Dakota, and it was obvious that he was intent on leaving with a victory tonight after starting in the sixth row.

Elliott was able to ward off the challenge, but only for a lap and a half before Wolla drove under him to take the lead. Cautions on lap seventeen and lap twenty-one kept the field tight and while Wolla was able to put distance on his nearest challenger there was plenty of two and three-wide action throughout the field to keep the bundled up crowd entertained. Wolla would close out the win in a convincing fashion with VanGenderen getting off to a good start in his title defense by finishing in second. J.D. Auringer started next to Wolla on row six and he moved forward to take the third spot. Hunter Marriott who started alongside VanGenderen in the fifth row finished fourth and after coming all the way up from seventeenth to third at one point, Joe Docekal cooled off a bit to finish in the fifth position.

Qualifying action in the Modifieds had some of the following interesting notes as the top three transferred from each of the four heats and five each moved on out of the two B-Mains...... Nick Roberts was black flagged early in the first heat for dumping fuel in the corners, but he continued to race and eventually passed Joel Rust in the final laps to cross the line in third. Having been disqualified Roberts then started the first B-Main from the back where he was only able to make up a couple of spots, however due to his finish in the 2014 Tour points Roberts earned one of the two provisional starting spots for the feature. The other provisional went to local favorite Scott Hogan. Roberts made some big progress early in the feature getting at least up to eleventh for one of the restarts before finishing in the 15th position......Todd Shute came from the eighth and final starting position to win the second heat. In the feature contact with the second heat race winner Troy Cordes while battling for position created the lap 21 caution and neither driver was still on the track when the checkers waved.....David Brown had to make a final lap pass of Cole Ferguson to take the final transfer out of heat number three......The battle for the final transfer out of the first B-Main was a good one as Andrew Schroeder and Zach Less traded slide jobs on each other over the final two laps. Less had the advantage heading into the final set of turns and he moved low on the race track entering turn three to block off one last try from Schroeder......Billy Vogel also made the trip down from North Dakota, however his chance to qualify for the A-Main was damaged when he drove off the top of turn two on the opening lap of the first B-Main......Mitch Morris was behind the wheel of Todd Reed's PSSI sponsored #19R rather than his own #70 tonight and Morris finished 13th.
......The Hawkeye Dirt Tour returns to action on Memorial Day Monday night at the I-35 Speedway in Mason City.

There was plenty of action in the four support divisions where drivers were racing for track points using a draw-redraw format. Thirteen-year-old Brody Willett sounded like a Sprint Cup veteran in victory lane following his win in the BCS Micro Mods. Willett passed Jeff Davis mid-race while Brandon Maitland took third in the nine-car field.

A full field of twenty-four took the green for the 16-lap IMCA Northern Sport Mod main event and the race for the lead early on was ever changing. Joey Schaefer would pace the first lap only to yield to Danny Dvorak on lap two. Schaefer would come right back to lead the third lap before young Brayton Carter settled into the lead on lap four. A pair of caution on laps five and seven slowed the pace and once back to action it was Colby Heishman who had found the bottom line to his liking. Heishman completed his pass of Carter on lap ten and then pulled away a bit to score his first career feature win. In a rare appearance here in Vinton, Carter had to be satisfied with second, two of the hottest drivers in the division right now, Sam Wieben and Tony Olson were third and fourth respectively while defending All Iowa Points champion Clint Luellen finished fifth.

Matt Pohlman looked good leading the 15-lap Hobby Stock feature early on before Justin Wacha was sent for a spin entering turn one on lap four. On the restart Jeremiah Wilson moved to the lead as Pohlman drove off the track with mechanical issues and Nathan Ballard settled in to challenge Wilson for the lead. The battle for the lead was a good one and when two back markers spun in turn three just ahead of the leaders as they raced toward the white flag, everybody had to scramble to avoid making contact. With a green-white-checker restart Wilson knew that he was going to get a challenge from Ballard on the bottom so the leader went down low to block and that was exactly what the high riding Benji Irvine was hoping to see. Irvine swept around both drivers coming to the white flag and then held off Ballard on the final lap to take the exciting victory. Wacha battled his way back up to third edging out Wilson at the stripe while Justin Lichty rounded out the top five.

The IMCA Stock Car 18-lapper was definitely a thriller from start to finish as Nathan Wood, Norman Chesmore and Roger Ciesielski crossed the stripe three wide for the lead on the opening lap. Ciesielski seized control on lap two only to now have the winningest driver in Benton County Speedway history Damon Murty tapping on his back bumper in second after starting eighth. Murty applied the pressure until lap nine when he powered by on the inside, but a lap later the new leader went to the top entering turn one while Ciesielski drove to the middle groove. As Murty came down the track in turn two he made contact with the challenger and while Murty spun, Ciesielski suffered a flat right front tire sending him to the pits under caution to make a change. Those two would restart at the back of the eleven car field as Chesmore assumed the lead now with Scott Pippert challenging.

As the laps wound down Murty used the high side to get back up to third and, just like in the Hobby Stock feature, when the leaders clamored for the bottom on the final lap, Murty gracefully rode the cushion around both of them in turns three and four to take the win in spectacular fashion. Chesmore and Pippert were second and third, Nathan Wood was fourth while Ciesielski took fifth.

It was another great night of racing at the birthplace of the IMCA Modified and as always a tip of the hat to promoter Mick Trier and his entire crew for their efforts. A special thanks to the Ronn Lauritzen fans along with my colleagues Dick and Joyce Eisele for holding a prime seat for this reporter once again as well.

My Memorial Day weekend racing plans will start out on the blue oval at Drake Stadium during the day on Saturday as the Mount Pleasant Panther girls and boys track teams both have a good shot at taking a podium finish in the Class 3A team title race at the Iowa High School State Track and Field meet. From there the tradition will be to load up on some barbecue at Smokey D's before heading down to the Knoxville Raceway for a night of sprint car action. Then on Sunday night we will be at 34 Raceway in Burlington for the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders.

Enjoy the racing while always being mindful of the sacrifices that our men and women of the military have made so that we may enjoy our freedom.

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