Lee County Speedway Welcomes Crate Late Models to Iowa

Lynn Richard started racing in 1979 when he earned the Rookie-of-the-Year honors in the Sportsman division at the West Liberty Raceway and outside of a six-year period where his employer made him choose between selling tractors or racing cars the Mount Pleasant, Iowa, resident has either driven or owned a car, or two, and once even three, ever since. At the conclusion of the 2015 season though, after reviewing the expenses that were involved with his IMCA Late Model team, Richard made the tough decision to call it quits.

"My motor bill alone last year was forty-one thousand dollars and as a weekly racing team we are out there running for five hundred or six hundred dollars to win," said Richard as I visited his race shop on Wednesday. "Under the current rules a motor is twenty grand minimum and thirty thousand for a good one. It just didn't make sense to me anymore."

Grudgingly preparing himself to walk away from the sport that he and his family had enjoyed so much over the years Richard took a phone call from the Lee County fair asking him if he would be interested in being an advisor to the race board. "I agreed on one condition, if they would bring Crate Late Models to the Lee County Speedway in 2016 and they said, sure, if you write the rules!"

Lynn and his wife Karen then made the trip out to Nebraska to talk with drivers and promoters at a few of the tracks in the eastern part of the state where the Late Model division ran a mix of rules that included an option for crate engines. It would be Lynn's opprtunity to not only learn more about the Crate Late Models, but also how to integrate it into the rules package that was already in the region. "I knew that we couldn't just go straight to Crate rules, we needed to have a transition period where drivers could use what they already had and I wanted to try to make the combination as equal as possible."

What he came up with is a set of rules that will allow the IMCA rules cars to race as well during the transition period, rules that Richard said if there is a competitive advantage one way or another that adjustments will be made and Lee County Speedway Promoter Mike Van Genderen emphasized that point even further. "We will change the rules at anytime to keep the playing field level. We want to make this work and it is important that there is not a perception that the Crates have an advantage over the IMCA cars, or vice versa."

For the IMCA legal cars they can come and race against the Crates by running a .950 restrictor plate that can be purchased from Performance Bodies for $97 and by running a 7,800 chip. They can leave everything else as is.

The rules for the Crate cars are written to keep costs down with the obvious headliner being the engine that can be purchased for around $6,000, but another big savings comes in the shocks where Richard said that his IMCA car took about $4,500 to equip. "I had these twin tube oil shocks in my drawer over there and they probably wouldn't have brought ten bucks a piece at an auction. With these rules they are going on my car instead and I will have about $200 invested in my shock package."

Re-energized from the new option, Richard quickly jumped back into the sport by purchasing Jeff Aikey's championship car from 2015, buying a crate engine from Shottenkirk and by purchasing an open trailer to make the 25-mile haul down to Donnellson where Jeff Guengerich will drive the car that I assume will once again carry Lynn's familiar #15. "All combined, I'm going Late Model racing for just $15,000!"

That new lower budget has other drivers and car owners in the region fired up as well. "We have cars in the area being pulled out of sheds and barns that otherwise would have sat idle this season," continued Richard. "We believe that we will have twelve to fifteen local drivers by mid-season and hopefully that number will continue to grow." Driver names that we discussed included Tommy Elston, Sam Halstead, Louis Lynch, Todd Frank, Derek Liles and of course Guengerich, while Van Genderen noted that he has fielded several calls from interested drivers from outside of the immediate area and from other promoters as well.

The southeast corner of the Hawkeye state has been without weekly Late Model racing since nearby 34 Raceway in Burlington dropped the division following the 2012 season and, given its location, Donnellson seems to be the perfect track to introduce Crate Late Models to Iowa. The nearest IMCA Late Model track is 75 miles to the north in West Liberty and the closest UMP Late Model track is about 60 miles south in Quincy, Illinois, and both of those tracks set the outer edge of coverage for those two respective sanctioning bodies. You have to drive three hours to the west before you find weekly Late Model racing in Corning while it would be a two hour trip to the east where the Super Late Models run weekly in Peoria and the Pro Late Models, UMP's own Crate division race weekly at the Spoon River Speedway.

The division will make its debut next weekend, March 25th and 26th during the annual Spring Extravaganza at the Lee County Speedway with a full show both nights paying $1,000-to-win. Both the promoter Van Genderen and the advisor Richard noted that they have had drivers from Nebraska and Kansas who said that they plan to make the trip to Donnellson for the two-day show to show their support knowing what it has meant for their own Late Model programs. The Crate Late Models will then race weekly at Donnellson on Friday nights paying $500-to-win and $100-to-start, plus the division will run in support of the track's May 5th MLRA Late Model show with another $1,000 winner's check up for grabs. Then, on the first two days of August, the "Lee County Late Models" will take center stage for a $1,000-to-win special event. No wonder the division is drawing interest from around the region!

The class will also make appearances at 34 Raceway, the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri, and during the fair races at the Bloomfield Speedway. Van Genderen also wanted to emphasize that all events this year, including the weekly shows at Donnellson, will be run under a draw/redraw format to give drivers the opportunity to drop in and tryout the rules package without having to start at the rear......unless of course that is where they draw.

"I have been checking the weather and hoping that it will be good for next weekend," said Richard. "We could have four cars or there could be more than twenty, you just never know. I'm apprehensive, but I am so excited to have Late Models back at the Lee County Speedway."

Race fans in the area are excited as well.