The Marshalltown Speedway remembered former promoter Steve Priske with the Miller Lite 50 Tuesday on a beautiful night for racing in central Iowa. The skies overhead were clear with a couple of pop up storms safely off in the distance to the north, the temperature was warm and with a steady breeze from the south not only was it comfortable but any dust from the well prepared racing surface was blowing away from the large crowd in attendance. As usual the racing action at Marshalltown was intense with plenty of slide jobs and crossovers and things really got intense on lap ten of the IMCA Modified main event when the track lights suddenly went dark. More on that later.
The Deery Brothers Summer Series for IMCA Late Models were the headliners of the night with a solid field of twenty-nine drivers signed in. Fresh off of his Memorial Day win at Boone, Curt Martin would start from the pole position for the 50-lap main event with Andy Eckrich to his outside and it would be Martin taking the lead at the outset. Eckrich found the top of the quick quarter-mile to his liking and he would sweep past Martin to the point on lap three. The first caution of the race would come on lap eight when hometown favorite Darrel DeFrance spun in turn four and following the restart the scramble for positions in the top five heated up.
Matt Ryan and Cayden Carter made contact in turn one while racing for fifth with Ryan spinning to a stop on lap ten and the caution waved again one lap later when Chad Coyne had issues exiting turn two. Again the green flag racing was intense and on lap fourteen the battle for third was three wide between Jeremiah Hurst, Carter and Todd Cooney. When Hurst and Carter touched though both cars slid to the infield and the damage was too much to continue for Hurst who retired to the pits while Carter restarted from the rear.
Once back to green Cooney took second away from Martin and looked like he might be able to make a run at the leader. Eckrich had other ideas though and when Justin Kay began to work on Cooney for second the leader pulled out to a full straightaway advantage. Kay would finally wrestle second away on lap thirty-six, but even with lapped traffic lending a hand he could only cut the gap in half over the final fourteen laps as Eckrich scored the win. Kay and Cooney would join him on the podium, Jeff Aikey drove Scott Fitzpatrick's #24 to a fourth place finish while Denny Eckrich made it two from the Precision Performance family in the top five. Joe Zrostlik came from the eighth row to take sixth, DeFrance rallied for a nice seventh-place finish with Carter chasing back toward the front in eighth, Nick Marolf was ninth and Chad Holladay rounded out the top ten.
Both the Late Models and the Modifieds paid $2,000-to-win tonight and that drew a stout field in the Mods as well with thirty-two on hand and some top talent not making the main event. Two of the best in the Midwest right now Kelly Shryock and Hunter Marriott would bring the field to green for twenty-laps with Shryock holding the early advantage. Marriott would drive around him on lap three with the first caution coming on lap six when Chris Simpson spun his #31 car in turn two.
On the restart the field stayed tightly packed with several two and three-wide battles for position taking place throughout the field until BAM, the track lights suddenly went dark. It is amazing that given the tight racing that was taking place at the time there was no apparent contact and everybody was able to get slowed down and stopped without incident. The concession stand and pit lights were still up and running so there was hope of a quick resolution to the problem and after a twenty-one minute delay we were once again fully illuminated and ready to get back to racing.
Cayden Carter had worked his way up from ninth and was already challenging in the top three before the blackout, but on the restart he really went to work on Marriott as the top five raced nose-to-tail around the bottom groove on both ends. On lap thirteen though Marriott moved back up to the cushion in turns three and four, a move that he would soon regret as not only did Carter charge to the front, but he would drop two more positions over the next two laps before the final caution waved with ten to go when Brad Diercks and Tony Cox tangled in turn two.
Ricky Thornton Jr. would move to second on the restart, but he could not mount a serious challenge for the lead as Carter notch an impressive win over a star studded field. Richie Gustin would follow Thornton in for third, Marriott was fourth and Joel Rust took fifth. Chris Simpson charged back up to sixth at the checkers, Jordan Grabouski came all the way from seventeenth to move into the top five late before dropping to seventh at the finish, Todd Shute was eighth, Ethan Dotson ninth and and Racer Hulin was tenth.
M-town Notes......It was good to see some Late Model drivers that I didn't expect make the pull all the way over to Marshalltown from their home towns in Wisconsin and Illinois. The IMCA Late Model program is at an interesting point right now and this kind of support from its drivers is what is needed as the sanctioning body looks toward the future......Ben Seeman made an amazing run to win the first Late Model heat race only to be disqualified in tech for having too short of a wheelbase. That battle with Jeff Aikey and Terry Neal was worth the price of admission in itself so it was unfortunate that Seeman's night was over after that.....The new passing points system that is now in place is interesting in that it apparently penalizes a driver for losing positions from his original starting spot. Otherwise how else would a driver who started his heat from seventh and finished in seventh end up with the outside front row starting spot in one of the B-Mains?......And speaking of B-Mains, there is absolutely no reason to have two B-Mains with a field of twenty-nine cars in any format! Take the top eighteen in passing points from your heats, have one B-Main with eleven cars where the best four advance, no chance of unbalanced fields due to scratches and/or quality and then add your two series provisionals to set your twenty-four car feature field. I have never understood the need to run two B-Mains. With the format that I proposed above you save six drivers from having to race twelve more laps cutting costs and making for a better show......Want proof that it can be done? Promoter Toby Kruse had the thirty-two Modifieds run four heats with the top five from each going to the A-Main and then ran just one B-Main (as it should be) with four more drivers advancing.....In my two trips to Marshalltown this year so far the Modified heats have had me on the edge of my seat both times.....Last Friday's winner here, Ryan Gustin went for a tumble off the top of turn one in the first heat as he was battling with Joel Rust for the third and final redraw position. The two had been trading sliders for a couple of laps with some contact along the way and that might have contributed to Gustin's miscalculation......Justin Kay started the Late Model feature from twelfth and ran to second. He was not able to crack the top ten in his Modified after starting eighteenth.....Todd Cooney's third-place finish started from seventh. He had a close call in his heat race going over the top of turn two, but was able to keep it on four wheels and return to action.....Ricky Thornton's runner-up finish in the Mods started from inside row six while Richie Gustn started next to him and finished third.
Mod-Lites and the Dirt Trucks were also in action. In the Mod Lites Joe Glick grabbed the lead at the drop of the green and went the distance for the win. Randy Bryan was second, R.J. Gonzalez made the tow from the Quad Cities to take third, Travis Stensland was fourth and another Quad Cities driver Jason Masengarb passed Mike Morrill on the final lap for fifth.
Steve Jackson had the Truck feature in his grasp until a late caution setup a green-white-checkers restart. Taking the green Jackson went to the high side in turn one leaving the door open for both Pat Graham and Rick Clark to get by him. Jackson got back to second at the white flag, but then slipped off the top of turn one losing several positions. Clark then threw a big slider at Graham in turn three, but when he didn't close off the high line exiting turn four Graham powered past to win a thriller at the checkers. Clark settled for second, Myles Michehl was third and Lou Sipolt was fourth.
Even with the "lights out" delay the racing action wrapped up before 11 p.m. and I was able to catch enough sleep to allow me to make the trip to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa tonight. Hope to see you there!
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