In his own words Luke Goedert is having his best season ever behind the wheel of an IMCA Late Model. With nine feature wins overall and as the current track point leader at the Maquoketa Speedway, Goedert came close to reaching double digits Thursday night when race leader Denny Eckrich bobbled in turn two on the final lap. But the veteran driver made the recovery and went on to win his second Deery Brothers Summer Series race of the season and the fifth in his career.
Morning rains followed by humid conditions in the afternoon left the track very heavy and the 27 Late Model drivers who signed in had to be cautiously aggressive during the three qualifying heats as the track was still coming into shape. In the first heat race the Deery Series Ironman Darrel DeFrance never even took the green flag as his car was smoking while the field did some packing and he retired to the pit area. Once underway the action was rough and tumble, especially for local driver Jon Poll who had to wonder if his primarily white car was invisible as two different drivers would drive right into him entering turn three during the event. Seven-time Deery champion, and current point leader Jeff Aikey was taking evasive action in the opening laps and veered toward the infield only to run over one of the big mud clods that lined the inside of the track after the crew worked hard to get the surface into shape for racing. The mud clod won and folded under the nose of Aikey's Late Model causing him to retire from the event early. Jon Merfeld would go on to win that first qualifier followed by Justin Kay and rooke contender Eric Pollard.
Heat two saw early leader Richie Gustin slide sideways in turn four with the remaining eight cars bearing down on him. When the scramble ended nearly every car in the race had some level of damage with leading rookie contender Cayden Carter being done for the night. Tyler Bruening would go on to take the win followed by Joe Zrostlik and local driver Marty Scheckel.
The third heat race was pretty much clean and green with Chad Holladay showing everybody that there was a top side to use as he swept around the competition to take the win over Denny Eckrich and Ryan Dolan.
B-Main action would complete the field and taking the tenth and final transfer spot was long time Stock Car competitor Jerry Miles who was driving the #38 car normally driven by Curt Marks. It was not an easy night to make his Late Model debut, but Miles looked good and for the most part avoided any trouble and was credited with a 15th-place finish after pulling off of the track late in the main event.
Denny Eckrich and Dan Shelliam would bring the field to green for the 40-lap finale with Shelliam using the momentum off the top side to take the early lead. Eckrich kept the pressure on though and before the leaders got into lapped traffic Denny would take the lead on lap six. It was quite a battle up front, enhanced by Luke Goedert who had started fourth and with lapped cars in play the leaders were having to change lines often. Shelliam pulled even with Eckrich as they crossed the stripe on lap fifteen, but when he got a little too deep into turn one Shelliam went sideways and nosed straight into one of the track tires marking the infield, perhaps not allowing him to make a save and only lose a few positions.
That first caution of the race definitely caused a rash of yellow fever as Marty Scheckel and Tyler Droste spun in turn on on lap sixteen. Then, on the restart. Don Pataska, Curt Schroeder and Jon Merfeld all collided in turn two. The final caution of the event waved three laps later when Eric Pollard slowed to a halt on the front stretch since the infield was not an option due to mud and standing water.
With the final twenty-one laps going green it was now Goedert in pursuit of Eckrich while behind them Jeff Aikey was making the drive of the night after starting in the eighth row. Aikey was sixth for that first restart and as the laps wound down he was up to third, but still several car-lengths back from the lead duo. The traffic had thinned somewhat with attrition, but after the white flag waved Eckrich made a mistake in turn two and drove up to the track to make the save. This allowed Goedert to pull nearly even with the leader as they raced down the back stretch only to have Eckrich execute the final set of turns to perfection to secure the victory. Goedert's tenth win of the year would not come on this night, but with Maquoketa back in action this Saturday it might be a short wait for him to reach double figures. Aikey, who came into the night with just a one-point lead on Tyler Bruening stretched that out to five with his impressive run from sixteenth to third, Matt Ryan finished fourth and B-Main winner Andy Nezworski raced his way up from thirteenth to fifth. For the full finish as well as a picture of the winner, check out the official story from IMCA here.
The support classes, quite frankly, didn't provide much support with only seven Sport Mods and four Hobby Stocks signing in for action. Nathan Ballard, who is not a track regular here at Maquoketa, passed Kile Vohringer on lap three and then cruised to the checkers in the Hobby Stock feature whith Vohringer, Shane Oberbroeckling and Bobby Taggart next in line. In the Sport Mods Tony Olson took the lead from the pole and would have seemed to be a sure bet to go flag-to-flag for the win. Gage Neal didn't buy into that line of thinking though as on lap seven he showed Olson his nose on the outside going down the back stretch and through turns three and four, so when Olson moved up the track entering turn one on lap eight Neal dove to the bottom and stole the lead from the defending all Iowa Points champion. A caution with five laps remaining gave Olson another opportunity to challenge, but Neal fought him off and then drove away to take the win. Olson finished second while Jake Morris was the final car on the track at the checkers to take third. Jarrett Franzen and John Irwin would be credited with fourth and fifth.
Obviously it was a tough day and evening for track promoter Scott Schurbon and the race committee with the Jackson County Fair as their decision to proceed, and the work then required to make it happen was not rewarded with a solid crowd or car count in the two support divisions. Schurbon later posted this on the Iowastockcars.com forum board in a thread where one member in particular had been very critical about the Dubuque Speedway cancelling a Deery Series race a couple of weeks earlier. "We did race and some of the reason we did is social media pressure. Every time a race is canceled you hear so much negative about the racetrack. In the end we should have cancelled.. the track was rough and heavy. We have had a pretty good race track the last few weeks and some great racing but that will be buried in a haze of how the track wasn't great at the Deery show. Racetracks in our area don't get the support we need. I don't mean this in a negative way, our racers and fans can't go every night of the weekend racing like they used to. Money is tighter now days race car parts are more expensive including towing expenses. All I can say was it was a good late model race for the fans thank you for your loyalty!! Thank you to all of the racers who came you were great!!"
As I read this this morning the first thing that went through my mind was what a former promoter told me a few years back. "You know Jeff, not everybody on social media really knows what they are talking about." So chalk this one up as a lesson learned and going forward make the decision that you feel is best for the track, the racers and the fans.
My cousin Jean, who by the way turns 82 today so say "Happy Birthday" to her tonight if you see us at Knoxville, and I made the two hour plus drive to Maquoketa and we were more than happy with the racing that we saw. Even better we were home before midnight so thank you to Scott Schurbon, Kevin Yoder, Grant Ostvig, Brit Montgomery and everybody at the Maquoketa Speedway for an entertaining Wednesday night!
In other news.....I completely forgot about setting the DVR to record the Truck race from Eldora last night, but how about our dirt drivers controlling the top five. Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Rico Abreu will rightfully get a lot of recognition, but how about young Jake Griffin from Quincy finishing in the fourth spot? And it was Tyler Reddick completing the top five.
Always remember that when you use the Calendar at Positively Racing you need to always confirm that the event is still happening before you go to it as tracks will often change their plans after issuing thier first schedule of the season. I compile these schedules primarily from November through March and if a track later makes a change it will often go unnoticed. Last night was a good example of that as the changes at the Frontier Raceway Park lead to a Wednesday night show at Mason City instead. The Crawford County Fair race in Denison, that was originally on the schedule for July 20th, disappeared at some point as did the Indiana Midgets event at the Plymouth Speedway. Then, just yesterday, this was posted on the Facebook page of the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer in regard to their NSL Sprint Car show that was scheduled for last night.
Because of volatility in the sprint car world, tonight's NSL 360 Sprints sponsored by Arnold Motor Supply has been cancelled due to a potential low car count. "Sprint car racing in the upper Midwest is difficult right now because some of the power players who are making it tough on us little guys - and we are a little guy in the race world," said Clay County Fair CEO/Manager Jeremy Parsons. "I don't want our fans to experience a sub-standard show, which is what they would have seen tonight. Rumors surfaced last night that there would be less than 10 cars, " continued Parsons. "For the long-term viability of the track financially, I cannot take that risk and upset our fans."
So always check ahead and especially this weekend as there has already been a couple of tracks that have cancelled their shows due to the excessive heat in our area.
Tonight we will sweat it out at the Knoxville Raceway as the Hawkeye Dirt Tour for IMCA Modifieds will be joined by the Northern Sport Mods on the historic half-mile and then there will be no racing for me this weekend as it will be the first of two straight weekends attending weddings. Next Tuesday night I look forward to the opening night of the annual Dubuque County Fair as the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders and the Hawkeye Dirt Tour IMCA Modifieds will be the grandstand headliners. Hope to see you on the Back Stretch!
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