It has been a few years since the Modified division has been on the schedule at the Eldon Raceway, but with the support of several area sponsors the class was added to Friday night's card and they definitely stole the show with a photo finish at the checkers.
With a car count bolstered by the morning cancellation at Webster City and the mid-afternoon postponement at West Liberty, eighteen drivers signed in and it was one of those drivers that had originally planned to race elsewhere this night, Bruce Hanford who started from the pole position in the 16-lap main event. The veteran driver out of Davenport would grab the early lead with pressure from Colt Mather before the only caution of the race waved when Brandon Banks slowed around the high side on lap five.
Nick Roberts had started the race in tenth and on the restart he drove around Mather and third-running Kyle Brown like they were standing still to take second and by lap seven the young Des Moines area driver was making a run at the leader. As Hanford rode the cushion, Roberts worked the low line around the "Super Half-Mile" and while Roberts would be in the lead in the middle of the turns, the momentum off the top side would vault Hanford back to the front down the straightaways.
The two contenders would race the next five laps in this fashion until Roberts pulled ahead by a car-length to officially lead the race on lap thirteen. Hanford was not about to give in though and when he found just a little more bite on the cushion Bruce was able to regain the lead on the following lap as the green flag waved indicating two to go. Roberts now moved up to the leader's favored line and tracked him to the white flag before again diving low in turn one. They would race off of turn two side-by-side before Hanford again eased ahead down the back stretch, but he now had a big decision to make as the leaders were closing fast on Terry Doud who was running up on the cushion entering turn three.
Hanford hedged his bets by going to the middle while Roberts surprisingly first went to the top in turn three. Since he didn't see his challenger to his inside, Hanford then went back to the cushion in turn four while Roberts drove to the inside. As they raced wheel-to-wheel toward the checkers Hanford had no choice but to cut down the track to avoid running over Doud and the three cars crossed the finish line in tight formation. From my angle, which was about ten yards ahead of the finish line, it looked like Roberts might have won by inches, but the people who count, and the people who are looking directly across the stripe had Hanford by a nose in a finish that I am told was confirmed by a photographer who was shooting the finish.
As one of my four NKF Modified Tour champions, and one of my favorite people in racing, I was thrilled for Bruce and his wife Carol as they celebrated in victory lane and I was very impressed with Nick Roberts who was the first to greet the winner with a hand shake followed by a big hug. As I talked with Bruce at least three people stopped by and told him that it was the best race that they have seen in years.
An early race contender, Colt Mather took home the third spot followed up by Kyle Brown in fourth and another impressive run for young Dugan Thye in fifth. Brown dodged a penalty earlier in the night when officials did not see his slidejob that had gone wrong stuffing North Dakota driver Justin Medler into the turn four wall on the final lap of the heat race.
Turn two was definitely calamity corner during the first lap in three of the other four feature races.
Stock Cars were first up on the night and an opening lap skirmish triggered by a spinning John Hemsted gathered up five cars and set the tone for a 16-lap race that took nearly thirty minutes to complete. Mike Hughes led the entire distance from his pole position start and survived four restarts to take a convincing win. The battle for second was definitely entertaining with drivers going three-wide late in the race before Donovan Nunnikhoven went for a spin out of that pack and collected Travis Bunnell. In the end it was Greg Gill who was the runner-up with Dan Gordon, who himself had spun earlier in the race but avoided penalty when the other car stopped as he scrambled through the infield finished in third, Tyler Picket made the tow down from Boxholm to take fourth while Brad Egbert was fifth.
Front row starters Casey Lancaster and Andrew Burk made contact on the opening lap of the 15-lap Sport Mod feature turning Lancaster sideways and when Brandon Dale tried to scoot under him, contact with Dale's right rear straightened out Lancaster, but turned Dale hard right in turn two where Burk then t-boned him. Once that was cleaned up Carter VanDenBerg now found himself on the front row and he would lead the opening lap before Curtis Van Der Wal blew by on lap two. It was all over but the shouting from there as Van Der Wal drove out to a big lead and cruised the rest of the way to the checkers. VanDenBerg would hold onto second racing through heavy traffic in the closing laps as this division went 23 cars strong tonight. Colton Livezy finished third, Jason McDaniel was fourth and Brayton Carter filled out the top five. Erik Laudenschlager, the 2016 Track Champion at the Nodak Speedway in Minot, North Dakota, finished in the seventh spot.
Doing double duty, the only race of the four that Mike Hughes did not draw the front row for tonight was the Hobby Stock feature where he started sixth and he narrowly avoided the turn two calamity when pole-sitter Christian Huffman slid sideways on the opening lap. Kelsie Spilman drilled Huffman ending the night for both drivers and on the restart the new pole-sitter Danny Thrasher grabbed the lead. P.J. Veenstra spun in two four as the opening lap was scored and on this restart Hughes cruised past Thrsaher for a lead that he would not relinquish scoring his second feature win of the night. Nick Ulin was the runner-up, Aaron Martin went third, Thrasher was fourth and Scott Shull filled out the top five.
The Sport Compacts had no trouble negotiating turn two on the opening lap of their 12-lap main event as third-starting Barry Taft raced to the lead. The event was slowed twice, first by debris on lap six and then on lap ten when Kyle Bond dumped Kirk Hopkins in, you guessed it, turn two and on both restarts Taft would drive away to eventually secure the win. Darin Smith and Trent Orwig chased him in for second and third, Brandon Housley came from the sixth row to place fourth while Chuck Fullenkamp completed the top five.
Eric Knapp, a new name to me at least, hot lapped a sharp looking "Lee County" Late Model car #57 tonight, but on his second time out the motor let go on him.
This was my third trip to Eldon this year and the hard working crew definitely made it a clean sweep in my eyes for 2016 with another very entertaining race program. Thanks to announcer Jeff Kropf for the Positively Racing mention, not only for myself, but also for Brian Neal who was also assisting in the tower tonight.
Hard to believe that on September 23rd I was sitting in the stands with shorts and a t-shirt on and something tells me that it will be the last time that I can pull that off in 2016, unless of course I am able to make it to West Liberty on Saturday for the second half of the twinbill for the Liberty 100. We'll have to see what my pretty lady has in mind......
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