Brandies Earns $1,000 In Front of Full House at Lee County

Hard work paid off for the Lee County Fair Board, promoter Mike Van Genderen, and likely the many, many volunteers who pitched in to get the Lee County Speedway race ready Thursday night after nearly two inches of rain fell on the facility in Donnellson that morning. The oldest county fair west of the Mississippi was buzzing with activity as the day closed and 99 race cars in five divisions filled the usable space in the pit area for an entertaining night of action in front of a packed grandstand.

The IMCA Stock Cars were the headliners with a $1,000 check waiting at the pay window for the winner and a stout field of 21 drivers signed in.  Brandon Savage and Austin Evens were scheduled to start from the front row for the twenty-lapper, but when Evens needed a push to get started he had to go to the rear per the sanctioning body rules. This would move David Brandies into the front row, but it would be Savage who would lead the tightly bunched field around for lap number one. The battle for the lead would heat up quickly as Brandies drove to the bottom and Kyle Brown went to the top to make it three-wide exiting turn two with Brown taking over the lead on lap two.

The first caution waved on lap four when Adam Bell spun in turn two and during the caution Savage retired to the pit area with mechanical issues, something that would soon take out the other early leader two laps after the restart when Brown's car showed a puff of smoke and then dropped some fluid exiting turn four before he pulled in to the infield. As drivers went four-wide in turns one and two to try to become the new leader a couple of the drivers in the back spun on the fluid requiring a caution flag that put that wild race for the lead on hold momentarily.

On the restart it would be Brandies who would establish himself as the leader with Damon Murty giving chase and those two were able to put some distance on the pack of four, Jeff Mueller, Jeremy Pundt, Johnny Spaw and John Oliver Jr. who were waging quite a war for third. Murty had drawn within striking distance of Brandies, and Oliver Jr. had used the high line to get to third when the caution waved for a Brad Egbert spin in turn four setting up a five-lap dash for the cash. Murty would have liked the race to stay green so that his focus could stay on the leader, but instead he found himself under fire from the gang of four and as the race for second went on Brandies would pull away.

Just as he had cleared himself from his new challengers, Murty got completely sideways in turn three on lap eighteen and while he was able to make the save he lost several positions in doing so and two laps later it was Brandies who raced under the double checkers from Kevin Eggleston to take the win. Jeff Mueller who has won six of the eight Stock Car features here in 2016 finished in second after starting in the sixth row and Jeremy Pundt was very impressive coming from tenth to third in front of his hometown crowd. John Oliver Jr. started eighth and finished fourth while Johnny Spaw completed the top five. It turned out to be a disappointig night for Murty as not only did his late race mistake drop him to seventh, but it was his backup car that Kyle Brown was leading in before the mechanical issues.

The IMCA Northern Sport Mods were the first of the six features to be run and they set the bar quite high for the rest of the divisions with their 18-lap event. I know that I am biased since I am from this area, but I have always felt that some of the best Sport Mod drivers anywhere race on the Donnellson-Burlington-Quincy weekend circuit and tonight's feature, and in paticular the fantastic battle for the lead between two talented veterans would support that boast. No slidejobs, no door slamming, just good hard racing between two drivers who wanted nothing more than to win, but by doing it the right way.

The fast guys definitely had the luck of the draw in their favor tonight with Brett Lowry, Tony Dunker, Jim Gillenwater, John Oliver Jr., Joey Gower and Kyle Hill making up the first three rows and it would be Dunker who would lead early. A Tanner Klingele spin on lap four allowed Gillenwater to make a run for the lead on the restart and he pulled even with Dunker as they raced through one and two and then down the back stretch. Tony would still lead at the line though and that would put him out front for the restart following Brandon Dale's spin in turn four.

This time Gillenwater was able to make it stick on the bottom and he would lead lap six before Dunker kicked off the cushion in turn one and then drove under the new leader in turn two to take back the point on lap seven. Gillenwater would have none of that though and he again used the bottom in one and two to take the lead on lap eight before Dunker used that same high to low move to take back the lead as the crossed glags were shown on lap nine. It looked as though Dunker had dampened the spirit of his challenger at that point, even pulling out to about a five car-length lead, but Gillenwater was not about to give in and as the laps faded away, so too did that margin.

After the white flag waved Dunker entered turn one in his favored line about midway up the track while Gillenwater drove to the botttom looking for some of that moisture that remained from the heavy early morning rains. He found it! Gillenwater's #10 stuck to the bottom like glue and he drove off turn two and down the back straightaway with the lead and while Dunker tried to make one last run around the top in the final set of turns it would be Gillenwater who would take the win in front of a completely entertained crowd. In victory lane Jim was quick to credit his crew for the changes made between his heat race and the feature as he was amazed that the track was not wet and heavy as nearly everybody had anticipated. Dunker was the runner-up and while it was hard to pull my attention away from the leaders I did see that there was a pretty good battle going on for third, fourth and ffith as well with Joey Gower, Brett Lowry and Dan Drury taking those positions. Drury, who won from the front the night before in Independence, worked hard tonight coming from the tenth starting position.

A solid field of sixteen 305 Winged Sprints were an added attraction tonight with Dave Getchell leading the way early in their twenty-lap main event. Ben Wagoner was tracking him though and when Getchell slipped high off of turn two on lap seven, Wagoner jumped to the lead down the back stretch. The field got strung out a bit as the race stayed green although Getchell was keeping the leader in sight before his son, Damian Getchell spun in turn four with four laps remaining. One more lap was completed following the restart before Joe Simbro spun in turn four and when the green flag waved again Wagoner left no doubt who the winner would be tonight as he drove away from any would be challengers. Dave Getchell would post another strong showing in second, Dustin Clark was third, Harold Pohren delighted his fans by advancing from seventh to fourth and Jarrod Schneiderman closed out the top five.

The Sport Compacts raced in tight formation throughout most of their fourteen-lap feature that saw pole-sitter Brandon Reu lead lap one. Josh Barnes started eighth, but was in the lead by lap two and looked like he might just drive away, but Barry Taft had other plans. Taft was working the back bumper of the leader before the caution waved for a Brandon Lambert spin in turn four and on the restart Taft stumbled at the drop of the green and he dropped back several positions. With Barnes pulling away to victory the driver to watch was Taft as he battled his way back to second passing Kimberly Abbott late for the runner-up honors. Reu would finish in the fourth spot while the tenth-starting Cody Van Dusen finished in fifth.

Scott Dickey is an infrequent visitor to the Lee County Speedway, a facility that his father Dan Dickey used to race at with much success back when it was a big half-mile. And even though Thursday was Scott and his lovely wife Tiffany's wedding anniversary he and his dad loaded up the car and headed to the southeast corner of Iowa to go racing and the result was a flag-to-flag victory in the IMCA Modified main event. Bill Roberts Jr. tried his best to dampen the occasion just a bit as he pulled even with Dickey a couple of times, but if you are going to go racing on your anniversary at a track that you don't usually compete at you better park it in victory lane at the end of the night! :)

The winner thanked his father, his wife and kids and all of his sponsors for their support, but also gave a well deserved tip of the hat to all of the people who worked so hard to even allow this race night to happen. Roberts would finish in second, Jeff Waterman and Dennis LaVeine battled the entire distance for third with Waterman prevailing and Tyler Groenendyk was fifth.

The Lee County Late Models would round out the evening with fourteen cars scheduled to go for 25-laps. Jay Johnson would use his pole starting spot to take the lead with Sam Halstead and Tommy Elston applying the pressure both high and low respectively. Elston would find the bite off the bottom of turn four to take the lead on lap four and Johnson would pull back even with him twice over the next two laps before the caution waved for Brandon Potts who had stopped in turn one with mechanical issues.

On the restart Elston was able to pull away as Johnson dealt with challenges from Halstead, Colby Springsteen and Jeff Guengerich, but Elston's lead was erased on two occasions late for a pair of Gunnar Frank spins. The final restart came with four laps remaining with Sprinsgteen now in second, but he could not mount a challenge as Tommy Elston celebrated his first-ever win during the Lee County Fair after nearly twenty years of trying for the Keokuk driver. Springsteen would take second with Guengerich in third, Johnson held down fourth while Derek Liles slipped past Halstead late to finish in fifth.

I know that I have already mentioned it a couple of times, but MVG and the Lee County Fair Board have to be thanked for working so hard to even be able to present this racing program and I am so glad that their efforts were rewarded with not only a solid car count, but also with a great crowd. I was too busy sparring with another message board warrior during the afternoon to notice, but apparently there were a lot of people posting crap on Facebook about the sanity of even trying to run the show, so much so that even normally mild-mannered announcer Tony Paris called out the "Negative Nancy's" just after the opening ceremonies. The sad thing is that while several of those "Nancy's" were probably in the crowd or in the pits last night, you always have to wonder how many people stayed home because of their comments. Oh well, it's a phenomenom that appears to be here to stay now and something that race promoters will just have to deal with going forward. Sad......

After three straight nights at the track I am going to take a couple off before returning to the Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway on Sunday for the Deery Brothers Summer Series. Hope to see you there!