Stovall In A Class Of His Own At Oskaloosa

Jesse Stovall won the MLRA Late Model feature during his heat race Thursday night at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. While other drivers all clamored for essentially the same groove around the fast half-mile, Stovall pointed his nose a line and a half higher, kept his foot on the throttle and literally flew around the competition during the second heat making early leader Tommy Weder Jr. look like he was tied to a post and easily giving Stovall the most passing points during the qualifying races landing him on the pole position for the 30-lap main event.

It was all over from there.

Stovall would pull fellow front row starter Jordan Yaggy by five car-lengths at the wave of the initial green flag and he would repeat that on each of the two restarts, the first coming after Jay Johnson broke on the back stretch on lap eight and the second when Dave Eckrich slowed on lap seventeen. Those were tough breaks for the two Iowa drivers as Johnson was running solidly in the top ten and Eckrich was riding in fifth at the time of his misfortune.

Apparently the MLRA does not use a double-file restart after the mid-race mark as Stovall brought the field back to green in single-file formation and that was essentially the way that they would run over the final thirteen laps. Stovall's lead did wilt away over the closing laps as he settled in behind the slower car of Brent Larson, but neither Yaggy or Rodney Sanders felt the urge to try a different line as they settled for second and third respectively. Chad Simpson finished in fourth and Jimmy Mars, aided by the departures of Johnson and Eckrich, advanced from twelfth to fifth. Tony Jakson Jr. was sixth, seventh was Tommy Weder Jr., Tad Pospisil finished eight, Chris Simpson came from row nine to finish ninth and Brantlee Gotschall completed the top ten.

I can virtually gurantee you that you will see more passing tonight when the MLRA Late Models return to the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson.

Jesse Stovall dominated the MLRA action at the Southern Iowa Speedway - Barry Johnson photo

The track's five weekly IMCA divisions were also in action, all running under a draw/redraw format, and the car counts were up a bit in all but the Stock Car division that continues to struggle not only here, but at several Iowa tracks.

The Sport Compact class continues to grow here though as fourteen of the four cylinders took the green for ten laps and gave us one of the best races of the night as Bill Whalen Jr. paced the field before the event's only caution waved. Contact with Brad Havel sent Cody Van Dusen into the turn two guardrail on lap three and on the restart Havel went to work on Whalen taking the lead on lap five. It looked as though he might pull away from there, but the veteran driver who is second on the all-time All Iowa Points list for the division fought back and drove around the outside of Havel in turn three to be the first to see the white flag and, soon after, the checkers. announcer Tony Paris gave him the nickname "Happy Feet" a couple of years ago and in victory lane the sixty-something Whalen climbed up on the roof of his car and did a little jig much to the delight of the large crowd. Shane Evans passed Havel on the final lap to finish second, John Gill was fourth and Lincoln Schrock was fifth.

Brett Lowry raced out to the early lead in the 16-lap Sport Mod headliner and, as his closest competitors had issues, that lead would grow in big chunks. Trent Brink got up into the guardrail while running third and, soon after, the second place car of Logan Anderson went up in smoke, but it was when the caution waved for a Colton Livezy spin on lap eight that Lowry saw his big lead get wiped out. Curtis Van Der Wal would immediately go to work on the leader following the restart and he used the inside line to drive past Lowry on lap nine. From there it was all over but the shouting as Van Der Wal drove on to yet another win at his home track ahead of Lowry, Carter VanDenBerg and Jason McDaniel. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Matt Van Gelder continued to show improvement and tonight he scored his first top-five finish while Eric Flander returned to action and finished in sixth.

Speaking of being "all over but the shouting", Cayden Carter drew the pole position for the Stock Car main event and even though the only driver that has defetaed him here this season, Derrick Agee started to his outside, there was no doubt who would win this one from the drop of the green. It may be time to put up a bounty on Cayden in hope of bringing the car count back up as ten signed in tonight, but only eight started the feature. Nathan Wood was a distant second, Agee was third ahead of Mike Hughes and Todd Reitzler.

Danny Thrasher would lead the first five laps of the Hobby Stock main event before another driver who is on a hot streak here right now, Dustin Griffiths powered by on the outside of turn four. The 2014 All Iowa Points Hobby Stock Champion would then drive away to the feature win while the checkered flag waved just in time for Brad Stephens who limped across the stripe in second with a flat tire. Bill Bonnett would finish in the third position, Thrasher held on for fourth and Jamie Songer filled out the top five.

A talented field of fifteen IMCA Modifieds would close out the night with Colt Mather taking away the early lead from Hunter Marriott on lap two. Ricky Thornton Jr. was on the move though from his sixth starting spot and the Arizona native is really enjoying his new mid-week playground as he drove by Mather mid-race and went on to win for what I believe to be his third time here this season. Mather would secure the runner-up spot ahead of Richie Gustin driving the Shawn's Hay Grinding #7SR, Jacob Murray returned to action at Oskaloosa with a fourth-place finish while Marriott held down fifth.

As mentioned before, the MLRA Late Models move on to the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson tonight where the Lee County Crate Late Models will also be on the card along with IMCA sanctioned Modifieds, Sport Mods, Stock Cars and Sport Compacts. Hope to see you there!