Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Simpson, Kile and Plummer Dominate West Liberty's Tuesday Show

Three drivers put on dominant performances as Coors Light, through Fleck Distributing, and Arnie Ranta Motorsports presented the annual Open Late Model Shootout at the West Liberty Raceway Tuesday night. A large crowd was on hand as the Farley Speedway Promotions crew not only booked Late Model legend Scott Bloomquist for the evening, they also made arrangements for Brian Birkhofer to take a brief break from his retirement to thrill his fans at the track where he made his first laps.

For the second night in a row Birkhofer, driving the Arnie Ranta Motorpsorts car #30, would set quick time over the sixteen car field and he would then draw the number one pill for a straight up start the remainder of the evening. The reason for the #30 on the car? Brian had stated the night before in Farley that the #15B had been retired so he went with the number of his favorite basketball player, Steph Curry.

Birkhofer would start on the pole of a stacked first heat, but would fade to sixth at the finish as Chris Simpson took the win. This would then put Simpson on the pole for the forty-lap $10,000-to-win main event and even with Bloomquist lined up directly behind him Simpson quickly opened up a comfortable lead. A slowing Jay Johnson would bring out the first caution of the event on lap seven and Simpson would again drive away from the field on the restart.

Joel Callahan's right rear tire shredded on lap twenty-four and as Chris pulled away once again on the restart his brother Chad Simpson did battle with Bloomquist for second. Chad would gain the advantage for a couple of laps before Bloomquist took back the position and by then the leader was more than a straightaway ahead as Chris Simpson completely dominated this race. Bloomquist was a distant second followed by Chad Simpson, Rodney Sanders came from tenth to fourth while Monday's winner at Farley, Spencer Diercks was fifth. Birkhofer was passing cars over the last half of the race and finished sixth after starting eleventh, Brent Larson was seventh, Tyler Bruening eighth, Denny Eckrich was ninth and Matt Furman filled out the top ten.

Nick Marolf was the other heat race winner on the night and he was impressive racing in the third position for several laps before fading and then dropping out of the event.

A solid field of eighteen Modifieds were on hand, but when Kurt Kile finally had some luck in a redraw they would all be chasing him for twenty-five laps. Until tonight it seems that I am always writing about Kile starting in the fifth or sixth row and then racing his way into a top-five finish, but after starting second here he was unchallenged on his way to a convincing victory. Jeff Waterman and Brandon Banks literally raced each other throughout the entire distance and, up until lap seventeen when Derrick Stewart drove around them both, it was for the second position. At the checkers it would be Waterman who prevailed in the battle to finish third behind Kile and Stewart, Banks took fourth and young Jarrett Brown completed the top five.

Colton Livezy would lead the opening laps of the twenty-lap main event for the Sport Mods before Tim Plummer drove around him on the outside going down the front stretch on lap four. The race would then be delayed by three different cautions on lap ten before Plummer again left the field in his wake. One final caution waved with two laps remaining when Cory Van Zante and Ryan Walker tangled in turn one while racing for fifth and on the restart there would be no challenge to Plummer as he eased on in for the win ahead of Dalton Simonson and Charlie Weber. Cody Harris would hold down the fourth spot while Van Zante used the top shelf to pass five cars in those final two laps to get back to fifth.

I'm sure that there was, and will be much discussion as to how to get more than sixteen cars for a $10,000-to-win Open Late Model show here in eastern Iowa, just like there was last year after this event and even earlier this year when the MARS West crew pulled out of the Slocum 50, just as they did at this event. We might just have to accept the fact that first, there just aren't very many open cars in Iowa anymore, and second that the open late model drivers that are to the east and south of us are used to racing on little bullrings that make West Liberty look like the dirt equivalent of Talladega. Short counts are not just happening here as there was a $5,000-to-win Super Late Model race in Kentucky this past weekend that only drew nine cars and even the Friday night MARS West event at Lebanon's Midway Speedway in the heart of their southwest Missouri region had only seventeen.

Creative promoting like bringing in Bloomquist and getting Birkhofer back on the track for a couple of nights packed the stands and, from what I saw of the people in attendance on Tuesday night, they were plenty happy with what they saw.

Tonight kicks off the 57th Annual Five Hour Energy Knoxville Nationals and you will find coverage of all four nights here on the Back Stretch!

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