It is only fitting that on "Deuces Wild" night, the prelude to tonight's Grant Junghans Memorial at the Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, there were two first-time winners with the USMTS as the pits filled on a beautiful night for racing. Sixty-two USMTS Modifieds pulled in for Thursday's tune up and promoter Todd Staley is confident that the count will exceed one hundred for the big show that will pay $10,002 to the winner, but on this night there were two 25-lap main events with each paying $1,500-to-win.
Dereck Ramirez moved to the point as the first feature took the green and he would pace the field until lap four when Terry Phillips slowed on the back stretch. Once the caution waved Phillips darted to the pits hoping to return to action, but his issue was a broken left front and not a flat tire. On the restart Ricky Thornton Jr., who had started fifth, was now in position to challenge and he would take the lead as lap six was scored. Thornton would stretch it out a bit until Johnny Scott moved to second and lap by lap Scott would inch ever closer to the leader.
The fast groove was around the top side and with just five laps to go Scott had closed to within six car-lengths, but he was not getting any closer. However as Thornton closed in on a lone lapped car he decided to use the low line through turns three and four and Scott was thrilled with that decision. As the white flag waved Scott flew around Thornton down the front stretch and would lead him through turns one and two. Knowing that he had just given away the point, Thornton resolved himself to take it back and he drove deep into turn three, sliding up in front of Scott into turn four. Johnny turned left off the cushion and got back under Ricky, but it would be Thornton who would win the drag race to the checkers to score his first career feature win with the USMTS.
Scott would settle for second while Austin Seibert trailed in third, Stormy Scott joined his brother in the top-five finishing fourth while Travis Saurer was impressive in fifth. The Elizabeth, Minnesota, driver competes in two Modified divisions in his home state and has had more success in the limited Midwest Mods than the headline division.
The second 25-lapper got off to a rough start when the fifth-starting Trevor Latham got crossed up on the back stretch and the ensuing pile up eliminated at least four cars. After the clean up Lakeside regulars Lance Town and Aaron Marrant would bring the field back to green with Marrant racing out to the lead. Defending World of Outlaws Late Model champion Shane Clanton quickly moved to second in his Junghans Racing Shop Quik #25 and gave chase, but he was not making up any ground on Marrant who has thirteen feature wins to his credit this season, six in his Modified and seven in a ULMA Late Model.
The caution waved on lap fourteen when the lapped car of Kevin Guinn got into the turn three wall and the fourth-place car of Jake Gallardo avoided disaster when he clipped Guinn with his right rear, but was able to continue with cosmetic damage.
On the restart Jason Hughes replaced Clanton in second, but not even the former USMTS champion could keep pace with Marrant who pulled away over the closing laps to make his first series win a convincing one. Hughes finished in second, Chase Junghans slipped by his teammate for the weekend Clanton late to finish third while Lucas Schott closed out the top five.
Forty-seven USRA B-Mods and eighteen Stock Cars were also in action on the night with the B-Mods going fifteen laps for a $500 winners check. Pole-sitter Dakota Foster assumed the lead at the drop of the green and when his rear deck lid flew off on lap two that necessitated the first caution. More hood pin issues struck a contender on the restart when the hood peeled up on the third-place car of Gene Claxton and with his vision competely obscured Claxton used the next two laps to find his way down into the infield. Defending USRA B-Mod National Champion Andy Bryant was on the move after starting eighth and he quickly moved to second, but Foster would maintain his advantage until the white flag was set to wave.
Apparently Foster was not paying attention to what had happened earlier with Ricky Thornton as he too left the cushion in turns three and four and that allowed Bryant to drive by on the outside and he would drive away from Foster on the final lap to secure the win. J.C. Morton who had started fifteenth made a late charge to finish behind Foster in third while a pair of #17's, Jake Richards and Shadren Turner completed the top five.
The Stock Car feature might have been decided on lap two when Kevin Anderson spun in turn two while running third and he required a tow truck to return him to the pits. Anderson, you see, had driven from the back to the front to win his heat race and appeared to be the class of the field quickly going from sixth to third before the incident. With him now out of the mix there would be nobody who would be able to catch Trevor Hunt who went flag-to-flag for the win with Chad Walker running second.
Deuces Wild Notes......The Modified field was stout from top to bottom and it will only get stronger tonight as the count swells with drivers who are not so much here to race for the big money, but instead to honor a friend who was lost much too soon to cancer.....A big thanks to friend and superfan Gary Lee who saved a prime seat for me and he had the new term of the night when he pointed out that Tommy Weder Jr.'s car had been "Bloomerized" in reference to the fact that Scott Bloomquist had driven it three weeks ago during the USRA Fall Nationals at the Mississippi Thunder Speedway. The car definitely had a distinct look to it and with it being gray and black in color you could almost refer to it as the Batmobile.....With the two feature races only fourteen cars closed out the night as "non-qualifiers" and one of them was the new pairing of R.C. Whitwell and Gressel Racing. Whitwell was just not fast enough this night as he faded back to tenth in the first B-Main missing the show by two positions......If the announcer happens to read this today, you do a great job! But keep in mind that the people in the grandstands cannot hear you at all when cars are on the front stretch, so forget about pleasing the online viewers so much and time your introductions and the summary of the finish so that the paying fans can actually hear you. After all, you should have a packed house tonight.....Passing points determined the qualifiers in all divisions tonight and we all now how much Shane Clanton enjoys passing points, but when he charged from sixth to win the third heat race he was comfortably locked into the field. Johnny Scott made the biggest move in the six heats though coming from eleventh to second in the second heat and he was closing fast on the winner Weder......Chad Lyle was doing double duty in the two Modified divisions, but that was topped by Stock Car winner Trevor Hunt who raced in all three classes.....It was great to catch up briefly with the Staley family, Todd, Janet, Ryne and Logan and it made me realize just how long it has been that I have been at a USMTS show. The series has been cursed by weather this year and there were two nights where I had planned to join them only to have Mother Nature intervene. On this night though the weather was close to perfect and, for tonight, it is even supposed to be a bit warmer.....It was also good to see series publicist Jeff Nun as well as Trenton Berry with RacinDirt.com who will have live pay-per-view coverage of tonight's show.
While I would love to stay for tonight, I do have an 11 a.m. kickoff in Iowa City to see on Saturday and there is a pretty darn good show closer to home as well with the opener of the Bottom Heavy Nationals at the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri. Perhaps I'll see you there!
No comments:
Post a Comment