Saturday, October 3, 2015

Hughes Doubles Up At Musco Fall Challenge Opener

The 29th Annual Musco Fall Challenge got underway at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa Friday night and hometown driver Mike Hughes won 40% of the feature races on the night. Yep, that's right, Hughes scored two feature wins as nearly 130 cars signed in for the event's five primary divisions.

The Sport Mod division drew the largest car count at 33 and their feature would be the first to hit the speedway with Tim Plummer and Logan Anderson starting from the front row. Anderson, who picked up the $1,000 win in Memphis Missouri last weekend, sprinted out to the lead with Plummer chasing as the rest of the field lost ground on the lead duo while jockeying for position. Anderson encountered traffic before the mid-race mark of the 18-lap distance and he quickly put five cars between himself and Plummer. On lap ten as Plummer tried to pass a pack of five lappers he would go too low in turn two and clip the track tire sending him for a spin and ending his evening with front end damage on his #66.

The caution would not only wipe out a huge lead for Anderson, but it would also place track champion Curtis Van Der Wal on the first double row for the restart as he had worked his way up from tenth to third behind Jason McDaniel. Anderson would fight off the initial challenge from Van Der Wal, but the champ would keep him close and as traffic came into play again, the final two laps saw an amazing duel between the two hometown drivers. Swapping slide jobs it would be Van Der Wal holding the lead at the white flag and when he found Greg Strohman running his lower line through one and two that would give Anderson the opportunity to get a run down the Back Stretch.

Van Der Wal would pass Strohman on the outside before entering turn three and Anderson would dive to the bottom to blow by the lapped car and slide up in front of Van Der Wal. There was contact, but both drivers held their ground and when Van Der Wal turned back under Anderson off of turn four it was a drag race to the finish with Van Der Wal taking the win by a car length over Anderson. McDaniel would spend the whole race in third, Brayton Carter came from eleventh to fourth and Glenn Gladson Jr. started next to the winner in row five and finished fifth.

With that thriller in the books the division that normally provides the most action here, the Stock Cars were up next and with two top contenders drawing the front row this one would start out similar to the race before it. Mike Hughes would lead Zack VanderBeek while track champion Cayden Carter would work his way up from the ninth starting spot. VanderBeek would be able to draw even with Hughes on both lap six and lap twelve of the 22-lap event, but Hughes would use the high line momentum to ward him off both times. Carter would make it a three-car battle over the final six laps as he would test the bottom trying to pass his teammate VanderBeek for second and that would allow Hughes to ease on in to the checkers for his first $1,000 victory of the night. VanderBeek and Carter would place and show in this one while northwest Iowa's Elijah Zevenbergen came from twelfth to fourth. John Oliver Jr. prevailed in a spirited battle with Blaine Dopler as the two southeast Iowa racers raced for fifth.

Fifteen Sport Compacts were up next and to say that they had a hard time getting started would be an understatement. On the first attempt the fourth starting car of William Michel went sideways coming off of turn four and nearly went upside down after climbing atop the hood of Josh Barnes' car. On the second attempt Shaun Slaughter, who enjoyed a three-win week last week, smacked the turn one guardrail hard ending his night early on the hook. Then the third attempt definitely was not a charm as John Girdley, Kenneth Stogdell and Ryan Walker piled up into the turn three guardrail. Stogdell got out of his car after being checked over and was later transferred to the local hospital for observation.

With the field now whittled down the race was shortened to ten laps with Brandon Lambert leading the first two before Ryan Havel swept by on lap three. With Havel pulling away the battle for second was a good one with drivers going three wide down the Back Stretch with two laps remaining. Havel would drive away with the win as Barnes and his damaged racer took the battle for second over Bill Whalen Jr. and Lambert. Darin Smith recovered from the early incidents to make it back up to fifth at the checkers.

After drawing only seven cars for the Season Championship nine days ago it was great to see a solid field of twenty-seven Modifieds on hand tonight and the 22-lap main event was a good one. Carter VanDenBerg would lead the opening lap before a caution waved on lap two for a Nick Nevins spin. On the restart VanDenBerg was under attack from both high and low as both Richie Gustin and Andrew Schroeder would drive by with Gustin now assuming the lead. Eighth starting Kyle Brown and ninth starting Cayden Carter would join the battle and the top five would then run in a tight pack giving the chilled Friday night crowd as thrill. While Gustin would maintain the lead each of the four challengers would at one point or another find themselves in second over the next twelve laps. With five laps remaining Carter would find the bite that he needed on the bottom to drive by Gustin for the lead and, even though Cayden was the 2015 Modified track champion this would be his first Modified feature win of the season here with a $1,000 check waiting for him at the pay window. Brown would take the second spot as Gustin slipped to third while VanDenBerg and Schroeder would complete the top five.

The 16-lap Hobby Stock main event would close out the evening and Mike Hughes had to be feeling good about his chances as he once again drew the front row for the main event. Hughes would pull out to a comfortable lead as Nathan Ballard tried to fight off the challenges from several drivers for the second spot. A spin by Clint Nelson with four laps remaining would bring the field back to Hughes for the restart, but nobody could make a run at Hughes who walked off with his second $1,000 check of the night. Ballard who does most of his racing on quarter-mile tracks was impressive running second on the monster half-mile with Dustin Griffiths finishing third. Nick Ulin held down the fourth position while All Iowa Points champion Shannon Anderson was fifth.

Osky's Fall Challenge will close out with another full show tonight (Saturday) and while I wish that I could be there, business travel will take me another direction.

It will be another nice Fall evening for racing here in the upper Midwest so get on out and attend a special event of your choice.

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