Anderson Gets His Fifth, Shryock and Garner Return While Six Drivers Score Their First All Iowa Points Championship

Shannon Anderson captured his fifth championship by the slimmest of margins, Kelly Shryock and Clint Garner both returned to the top of the standings and six drivers collected their first All Iowa Points Championships as the 2017 racing season in and around the state came to a close this past weekend.

Shannon Anderson - Barry Johnson photo

This was another banner season for Shannon Anderson who captured career win number 300 on his way to another IMCA Hobby Stock National Championship. His fifth title in the All Iowa Points though was a close one as he edged out Chanse Hollatz by just one point as neither driver chose to compete in any of the many October specials on the schedule. Anderson other All Iowa Points championships came in 2008, 2009 and 2015 along with 2013 when he shared the title with Devin Smith. Anderson tallied thirty-one feature wins as part of thirty-eight top five finishes enough to give him just one more point than Hollatz who had fifty-five top five finishes with eight wins. Brandon Nielsen, Jason Fusselman and Justin Luinenberg filled out the top five while Gregg Anderson of Perry was the "Newcomer of the Year", recognition of the driver scoring points in the division for the first time as he finished in a tie for 58th in the final standings.

Kelly Shryock - Barry Johnson photo

It has been since 1989 that Kelly Shryock ranked on top of the All Iowa Points Modified standings and even though he spent many of the past twenty-eight years on the road Shryock has come close to getting his second AIP title on a few occasions. In 2017 one of the all-time greats to wheel a Modified earned his second All Iowa Points championship in dominating fashion with a forty-one point spread between himself and runner-up Clint Luellen. Shryock had seventeen feature wins and stacked up fifty-six top five finishes on points-paying tracks while Luellen had an amazing rookie season in the Modified class and is the Newcomer of the Year. The 2014 AIP Limited Mod Champion picked up nine feature wins along the way and had forty-two top fives. Cayden Carter and 2017 USRA National Champion Jason Cummins tied for third while Michael Long stood fifth in the final standings. Three-time defending champion Chris Abelson was sixth, Jeff James had a strong showing in seventh and early season leader Hunter Marriott hung on for tenth.

Shryock's twenty-eight year difference between All Iowa Points championships sets a new record eclipsing Danny Lasoski's twenty-two year span from his 410 Winged Sprint Car titles in 1993 and 2015.

Clint Garner - Barry Johnson photo

Even though Clint Garner hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he considers his home track to be the Knoxville Raceway and this year he achieved a career goal by taking his first ever victory in the Knoxville 360 Nationals. Then, with a couple of late season runner-up finishes other AIP tracks he fought off Jamie Ball to capture his third All Iowa Points Championship. Garner had five wins and thirteen top five finishes as he adds to his titles in 2002 and 2013, while Ball comes up just nine points short in second after winning twice in his fifteen top fives. North Dakota's Lee Grosz ranked third, Nebraska's Cody Ledger was fourth and Canadian Thomas Kennedy was fifth in the final standings. With his guest appearances in Scott Bonar's #50 car, 410 ace Bill Balog is the official Newcomer of the Year in the 360's and you have to go back to drivers tied for 40th in the standings to find true rookies in Brayden Gaylord, Giovanni Scelzi and Tanner Gebhardt.

The remaining six divisions all featured first time All Iowa Points Champions in 2017.

Matt Ryan - Barry Johnson photo

In the Late Models, which now includes the six or more different rules packages that we now have racing in our near the state, Matt Ryan enjoyed his best year ever with forty-three top five finishes and thirteen feature wins to add his name to the list of All Iowa Champions that includes some of the all-time greatest in Dirt Late Model racing. Running both a Crate and a Super this season, Deny Woodworth ranked in the second spot with eleven feature wins to his credit and there was a tie for third between three-time champion Justin Kay and the driver who has scored the most points overall since 2000, but has yet to win an All Iowa Points championship, Todd Cooney. For the Newcomer of the Year honors I will recognize three drivers with Pat Quinn ranking twelfth in his Limited Late Model, Brandon Savage 64th in his Crate and Mark Elliott tied for 69th in his IMCA Late Model.

Nathan Wood - Barry Johnson photo

The Stock Car division had a great battle for much of the season until Nathan Wood emerged from the pack in August to earn the title "All Iowa Points Champion". Racing weekly on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, plus catching the Saturday shows that were available to him Wood racked up fifty-seven top five finishes, seven more than runner-up John Oliver Jr., and in those he captured fourteen feature wins. It was a stellar year for Oliver as well who had sixteen feature wins on the season while the four-time defending champion Damon Murty finished third this year despite a whopping twenty feature wins. All three drivers raced against each other weekly at the Benton County Speedway on Sunday nights. The Newcomer of the Year in the Stock Car division is the 2014 Hobby Stock Champion Dustin Griffiths who impressively won eleven features and finished eighth in the Stock Car standings.

Tyler Soppe - Photo courtesy of D&M Racing Photography

After chasing Tony Olson to the finish last year, Tyler Soppe got out of the blocks quickly in 2017 and essentially went "flag-to-flag" in dominating fashion to put his name on the All Iowa Points list of champions in the Limited Modifieds. Soppe scored seven wins at seven different tracks before the end of April and by the end of the season he had amassed twenty-nine feature wins in fifty-five top five finishes and his 236 points were the most scored by any driver across the nine divisions this year. Olson had another stellar year, one good enough to earn his third straight All Iowa Points title if not or Soppe, as the Cedar Rapids driver captured nineteen wins in forty-six top fives. Austen Becerra showed that he is a contender to earn his second AIP title in another division as the 2014 Four Cylinder champion ranked third just four points behind Olson. The top Newcomer in the division was Justin O'Brien who ranked 82nd, but since he came from the Modified ranks let's also recognize Chance Huston who finished in a tie for 100th.

Barry Taft - Barry Johnson photo

While the Hobby Stock point chase had a chance to go right down to the wire, but didn't since the top two stopped racing at the end of September, the Four Cylinder division had a new champion crowned due in a big part by how he finished in the final three races held this season. Barry Taft who hails from the southeast Iowa town of Argyle took advantage on the many late season special events held in his area to catch and surpass two-time champion Nate Coopman (2009-10) to earn his first All Iowa Points title. With the division being the only one that has the car count set the points scale Taft trailed Coopman by seven points going into the final two weekends of scheduled events and had Shiverfest in Donnellson and the final Sunday in Quincy been canceled due to the cold conditions he would have lost his opportunity. A runner-up finish at Donnellson earned him four points and when Taft defeated a field of seven at Quincy, that gave him three more points to put him into a tie with Coopman with just the Turkey Dash remaining at Columbus Junction. Again weather threatened, but the track moved ahead with the show and when Taft finished second in a field of twelve cars those four points would be the difference on the season. The new champion had six wins over fields of ten or more and had thirty-six events where he earned points. Coopman had thirteen wins over fields of ten or more and had thirty events where he earned points. Defending champion Kimberly Abbott got off to a slow start this season, but she rallied back to rank third in the final standings.

Kerry Madsen - Barry Johnson

Taking over the reigns of the Muddy #2 car in 2017 Kerry Madsen stayed in and near Iowa enough to earn his first All Iowa Points title in the 410 Winged Sprint Car division. The native Australian has always been a force at Knoxville and other area tracks, but lately those appearances were more on a "drop in" basis while he was a regular with the World of Outlaws. Three feature wins in seventeen top five finishes gave Kerry a five point edge over his brother Ian Madsen who has been in the top-five in the final standings each of the last four years and twice as a close runner-up. Ian had six feature wins and seventeen top fives as well, but Kerry's eight second-place finishes were the difference. Brian Brown, who surprisingly has still not finished at the top of these standings, finished third in 2017. Only six drivers earned points in the division for the first time this season; James McFadden, Giovanni Scelzi, Cory Eliason, Sheldon Haudenschild, Skylar Prochaska and Tony Stewart.

Jarrod Schneiderman - Photo courtesy of D&M Racing Photography

Jarrod Schneiderman not only captured a track championship at 34 Raceway near Burlington, his performance throughout the year places him on top of the All Iowa Points standings for the 305 Winged Sprints for the first time ever. The driver who comes from a racing family picked up four feature wins on the season in a division leading eighteen top five finishes to edge out Dusty Ballanger by ten points. Ballanger, the 2003 AIP champion in the 360 division, was a winner six times in 2017 and the third rated driver, defending champion Tyler Drueke had three wins as well. Looking at the Newcomers to the division for this year former 410 and 360 regular John Lambertz leads the way in tenth and former 360 regular Joey Danley was fourteenth. The true top rookie would be Ryan Leavitt who finished in a tie for 20th.

For a full rundown in each division you can click the champion's name above or visit the Points page at PositivelyRacing.com and choose the division that you would like to explore.