The unprecedented April weather has prompted a couple of promoters to make some unprecedented moves as did you know that you can go racing tonight? That's right, depending upon your location and what time you are reading this you might still be able to road trip to Brownstown, Illinois, tonight as the Fayette County Speedway is going to run a Tuesday night program of Late Models, Modifieds, B-Mods, Street Stocks and Hornets. Hot laps are at 6:30 with racing to follow. If I wasn't still fending off the effects of a Spring cold I would be making the trip.
Another unusual addition to the calendar comes this Thursday at the Marshalltown Speedway. After having his World Nationals moved from March to September for the second year in a row and then having his Frostbuster wiped out two straight weeks, promoter Toby Kruse has announced that he will race both Thursday and Friday this week with the Twin Highbanks Hustle. Of course that is now in jeopardy as yet another April snow storm threatens the area for Wednesday with the weather gurus wavering on just where and how much snow, ice or rain will fall.
That nasty weather forecast has already canceled the opener at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa on Wednesday night. The track will try again on Wednesday April 25th.
We were thankful to get the two Frostbuster races in last Wednesday at Donnellson and Thursday at Vinton since the weekend weather went downhill quickly as predicted. There was a large contingent of northern race fans on hand for those two races and it was entertaining watching them check forecasts for different areas to see if they should continue their race trip or head back home where some were expecting, and received more than twenty inches of snow.
Yes, there was some racing held at dirt tracks in our region over the weekend, but you can bet that the conditions were less than ideal at each. The I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Nebraska, had their Bugeater Bash on Friday night where Jamie Ball topped a field of fifteen Nebraska 360 Sprints. There were 47 NCRA Modifieds in the pits at 81 Speedway in Wichita Friday night with Tanner Mulens taking the win and Salina Speedway in Kansas also raced with their regular season opener on Friday night.
The Humboldt Speedway in Kansas held their tenth night of racing already for the 2018 season having only been rained out once on April 6th. One of the surprise entrants at Humboldt on Friday was Modified driver Travis Peery from Williston, North Dakota. Peery had made the trip down for the IMCA Frostbusters where he finished 14th at Donnellson and failed to make the show in Vinton, so rather than driving through a blizzard to go back home he headed south where he was fifth in a field of nine NASCAR Modifieds at Humboldt. Then on Saturday Peery made the tow back into Missouri as the Springfield Raceway braved the elements and he again finished fifth in the USRA Modified main event.
Other tracks that raced down in that direction this weekend included the Red Dirt Raceway, Creek County Speedway, Thunderbird Raceway and the Salina Highbanks Speedway in Oklahoma while in Arkansas both the Crawford County Speedway and the Diamond Park Speedway raced. Of course at DPS it was another "secret race" where you can see pictures, but can find no actual results.
It is the same story at Paducah International Raceway in Kentucky where photos on the Facebook page show a solid crowd on hand for the grand re-opening of the speedway, but as of yet there is no listing of results to be found. They have a beautiful new website with both a 2018 Schedule and a Results tab, but as of yet clicking on either yields no additional information. Hopefully they can get that straightened out soon. They did however announce this week that for this Friday's show any driver that pulls more than 75 miles to race with them will be admitted free. Then on Friday April 27th the track will host the ASCS National Sprint Car Series. Hopefully somebody will tip off Scott Traylor with the Racin' Boys who continues to promo the event as being held at the Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway, because if that is where he goes all he will be watching is cars and trucks using the new interchange.
Ahead of the cold front a couple of tracks in Indiana were able to race on Friday night with the Daugherty Speedway in Chase drawing a solid field of seventeen UMP Pro Late Models with Chad Stapleton taking the win and at the Bloomington Speedway Kyle Cummins won the Sprint Car feature, Kentucky's Tyler Nicely topped the UMP Mods and Ethan Barrow was the best of a full field of 305 Race Saver Sprint Cars. It also appears that Route 44 Speedway in Liberty raced on Friday night, but for now at least it joins a growing list of events in the region as one of those "secret races."
Come on promoters, make sure that your Race Results are being communicated properly either on your website or Facebook page (preferably both!) and don't just assume that the service you were using last year (SpeedNet Direct for example) is still functioning properly. I have never understood why a promoter who uses every method possible to tell you about a race coming up will then totally drop the ball when it comes to then letting people know what happened. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when somebody does that it tells me that "what happened" wasn't worth talking about so it makes me not really care much about the fact that you are now telling me what is going to happen this week.
The cancellation of the opener at Oskaloosa tomorrow night will hopefully allow me to put this cold bug to rest, because I would have been sitting out there in the cold and wind anyway had they tried to run. If I feel better on Thursday and if they still race at Marshalltown, then I might just make the trip and on Friday night I plan to catch the MLRA Late Models on the historic half-mile at the Davenport Speedway.
On Saturday night the tenth annual Slocum 50 will be held at 34 Raceway near Burlington and it will be the first time in those ten years that I will not have the microphone in my hand for at least part of the night as I have a friend's wedding to attend. I will miss it very much as not only will it be a great night of racing, but it is also a night to celebrate the "racing family" in memory of Brent Slocum. I know that both Brian Neal and Danny Rosencrans will give you all the details in the days to follow at Positively Racing. Hopefully I can come right back on Sunday night and catch an event at one of the tracks in the area.
The weather guy promised that tomorrow will be the last snow of the season with temperatures rising steadily over the next ten days. Let's hope that he is right this time and that all of you can get out to the tracks that you choose to support! See you on the Back Stretch.
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