A couple of rounds of heavy rain this past week left the quarter-mile oval at the Quincy Raceways a bit on the choppy side during qualifying races Sunday night. However, a full grading of both sets of turns during intermission produced a wide and tacky racing surface that allowed for some wild racing action come feature time, especially for the UMP Late Models who were literally flying around the Bullring on Broadway.
The Stock Cars were the first to get a shot at the newly groomed surface and the early battle for the lead in the 18-lap feature was a good one. With this being a non-point night due to it being IMCA Super Nationals weekend, Brian Hoener turned over the wheel of his #66 to former track champion Aaron Brocksieck and he showed no signs of rust leading Michael Larsen through the opening laps. Rudy Zaragoza made it a three car battle as he worked the top side and just as Zaragoza made his way into second on lap six disaster struck for his teammate Mike Hardwick.
Racing mid-pack Hardwick got sideways on the front stretch and, when he was t-boned by Dean Kratzer, Hardwick's car rolled onto its side with the nose of Kratzer car climbing high into the air atop of it. A small fire erupted in the engine compartment of Krazter's car and he scrambled out quickly to make sure that Hardwick had escaped as well and both drivers were uninjured. Thank goodness that a long boomed wrecker that is not usually at the track was there tonight otherwise we might still be there as the nose of Kratzer's car was at least ten feet off the ground and it needed to be lifted off of Hardwick's damaged ride in order to flop it back over.
Once back to racing Brocksieck would continue to hug the bottom with Larsen and Zaragoza going back and forth for second. With three laps remaining Zaragoza had the advantage on Larsen down the front stretch so he drove to the bottom in turns one and two to try to shut the door. Instead he got completly sideways forcing Larsen to slide through the infield to avoid him and when both drivers kept moving the green light stayed on with Abe Huls taking advantage of the miscue to move to second. Huls was able to close the gap on the leader over the final laps, but not enough to mount a challenge as Brocksieck made it clear in victory lane that his wife considers this a one night only return to racing at this point. Huls, who made the big dance up at Boone this week, finished in second, Zaragoza recovered for third, Brandon Savage finished fourth, Jerry Jansen was fifth and Larsen had to be frustrated with sixth.
A solid field of nineteen Late Models would be up next for 25-laps and a $2,000 top prize with local favorites Jason Perry and Denny Woodworth starting from the front row. Bo Brockway spun in turn one to wave off the initial start and McKay Wenger spun in turn three to negate the second try, so on the third attempt it was Perry who vaulted to the lead with fourth starting Kevin Weaver giving chase. The leaders were setting a blistering pace and by lap five Perry was closing in on traffic, perhaps a little too fast as Perry hooked the right rear of Mike Hammerle and spun him in turn one to bring out the next caution.
Following the restart the high speed chase continued with Perry getting so sideways on a couple of occasions that it looked like he would spin, but somehow he would manage to regain control and still hold onto the lead. The caution waved again for Bo Brockway on lap fourteen when smoke billowed from under the hood and a caution for debris allowed everybody to catch their breath again on lap seventeen.
Mark Burgtorf had now joined the race for the lead and with Weaver choosing the bottom on each restart Burgtorf would go to the cushion and stay right with the lead duo. On the lap seventeen restart though the fourth place car of Dustin Griffin spun up the track in turn three and collected Chuck Mitchell knocking both contenders out of the race. The caution flew again one lap later when Vance Wilson ground along the front stretch wall and during that caution Woodworth had to hustle to the work area to change a flat tire.
The three car race for the lead would really heat up on the restart, but when the rear end went out of Ricky Frankel's car and when Shawn Deering slowed along the front stretch the caution waved once again with just three laps to go.
You just knew that this one was going to get wild as long as everybody else would quit stopping on the track and as Perry completed the first lap following the restart he veered high coming off of turn four. This gave Weaver the opening that he had been waiting for and he raced underneath Perry into turn one while Burgtorf hammered the cushion and drove to the outside of both of them. In an effort to hold onto the lead Perry kept his foot to the floorboard as well and he again got completely sideways in turn two with his left front making contact with Weaver's right rear. This turned Weaver hard right and sent Perry toward the infield as Burgtorf rocketed by on the outside.
Weaver did everything that he could to recover nearly doing a full 720 degree spin down the back stretch as the rest of the field scrambled to avoid him. The caution waved even though the only driver that may have actually stopped on the track was Brian Diveley. As the field circled under caution officials were obviously trying to figure out how to handle the situation while both Perry and Weaver quickly placed themselves back at the front of the field. Both Burgtorf and Justin Reed were happy to give their opinions to officials as the discussion continued and finally the call of an "inadvertent yellow" was announced with everybody going back to the positions that they were in on the last fully completed lap.
Now obviously you are going to find a full range of opinions on how this should have been handled, most of them being biased as to how it affected their particular favorite driver, but in my opinion this was probably the "best" call that could be made given the circumstances. Note that I said "best", not "right" as I am sure that somewhere in a rule book it says that somebody should have gone to the back and for those of you who might remember the most renowned "inadvertent yellow" involving Danny Lasoski and Brian Brown at the Knoxville Nationals many years, the track now has a rule that in the case of a yellow being thrown where all drivers kept moving, the scorekeepers would then determine where the spinning drivers would have been running had the green stayed on and then place them in that position for the restart. So in this case neither Perry or Weaver would have still been at the front. Anyway, what happened next kind of made the majority of the place happy, so no harm no foul.
Officials had to pull away the left front nose piece on Perry's car during the caution and Weaver may have needed a change of undergarments after his crazy ride so when the race went back to green it was Burgtorf who immediately took second and then stormed past the leader when Perry was again sideways off turn four coming to the white. On the final lap Perry made one last charge to the inside in turn three and as he slid up the track in four Burgtorf did not flinch and took the win with the crowd on its feet and cheering the outcome. Perry would finish in second, Weaver would go third, McKay Wenger ran back up through the field to finish fourth and Justin Reed would fill out the top five.
The 15-lap Sport Compact main would follow and with nearly all drivers in the eleven car field capable of taking the win it looked like this one could be interesting. Front row starters Kimberly Abbott and Jeffrey DeLonjay swapped paint on the opening lap with DeLonjay taking the lead. On lap five, as the tightly bunched field entered turn one it appeared that the throttle stuck on the car driven by Alyssa Steele as she slammed into Brandon Lambert sending him up the track and into the path of Barry Taft. Contact between the two sent Lambert for a tumble while Steele continued up and over turn two and hard into the guardrail protecting the pit area.
All drivers were okay, but during the long red flag period DeLonjay's car sat steaming on the front stretch leaving a big pool of water beneath it. DeLonjay would maintain the lead once back to action with 34 Raceway track champion Ron Kibbe moving up to second. Kibbe was set to challenge but when he ran over the infield marker exiting turn two he did his best Joie Chitwood imitation driving on two wheels down the back stretch. When the left side came back to earth it must have caused some sort of damage as Kibbe then slowed to bring out the caution.
DeLonjay's car would make it to lap ten before he pulled to the infield turning the lead over to Craig Bangert, but it would be just one lap later that Abbott would make her way back to the front to score the win. Bangert was second and Brandon Herron was the only other car still running at the checkers in third.
Twenty-one UMP Modifieds were up next for twenty laps of action with Michael Long racing to the lead from the pole position. Five cautions in the first seven laps though pushed me to my self-imposed curfew of ten o'clock and I headed for my car a bit disappointed that I would miss the rest of the Mods as well as the Sport Mods, but still electrified by the wild action that I had witnessed with the Late Models.
Thanks to Jack Walbring who does a great job reporting the results for Quincy (if only they had someone like him at Jacksonville as well) I know that Long would go on to win the Modified feature followed by Ray Bollinger, Rick Conoyer, Brandon Roberts and Dave Wietholder while in the Sport Mods it was Brandon Lennox taking the win ahead of Tony Dunker, Joey Gower, Austen Becerra and Cole Campbell.
Two more Sunday's of racing action still on the card at Quincy for 2016 so drop on in before the season ends!
Opening night of the Knoxville Late Model Nationals is next up for me on Thursday night, hope to see you there!
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