A couple of interesting tidbits in regard to area Late Model racing coming out this morning. First is that Joe Hayes has been named the Division Director at IMCA for the Late Models. Hayes has spent the past season and a half working for the Farley Speedway Promotions trio and has been around the sport for some time now also doing stints with both Al Frieden and Keith Simmons. I like the fact that this is a "newly created position" as it shows that IMCA is making a commitment to the division that frankly needs to see some growth once again both in the number of tracks running them and in the number of competitors. I would think that Joe Hayes will be very helpful in that process.
Since this announcement comes this morning Joe probably can't take any credit for the two gains that were announced this past week. The Friday night crowd at the Dome were the first to hear promoters Brad Stevens and Jessi Mynatt say that IMCA Late Models will return to action on an every other week basis at 34 Raceway in Burlington next season. The duo were being interviewed by Trenton Berry during the live Pay Per View broadcast on Dirt On Dirt, so consider that the perfect way to reach Late Model fans first! We had heard earlier that 34 had sponsorship in place to run the Crate Late Models on a regular basis in 2019 and when it was announced last week that the 604 Chevy Performance Crates would now be allowed in IMCA, that likely sealed the deal for Stevens and Mynatt in regard to being sanctioned. Their signature annual event, the Slocum 50 was an IMCA Deery Brothers Summer Series race for the first five years and while it will once again be an MLRA race in 2019, Stevens and Mynatt have a great relationship with several IMCA drivers which should give them a good car count base when the division returns to 34 next season.
The other gain this week came when the Independence Motor Speedway announced at their banquet that the Late Models would go back to being IMCA sanctioned in 2019. Last season Indee went along with the ill-fated Farley Late Model rules in order to be the Saturday night tie in for the Highway 20 weekend. Independence made Late Model news this morning as well when the World of Outlaws schedule was released as the series will return to Indee on Friday night July 5th just ahead of the annual Gopher 50 at the Deer Creek Speedway in southeast Minnesota. The only other Iowa date on that schedule is on Wednesday July 24th when the Outlaws will return to the Davenport Speedway.
The USRA sanctioning body has had a tough couple of weeks losing the A-Mods at the Springfield Raceway to IMCA and this week Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City confirmed that they will go unsanctioned and partner with the Central Missouri Speedway in Warrensburg in 2019. Both tracks will still be running USRA rules though and Lakeside encourages IMCA legal cars to also compete, but state that the car must be fully compliant with IMCA rules. In the Modifieds though that would be the ultimate "bringing a knife to a gun fight" scenario.
My third "annual" visit to the Dome in St. Louis on November 30th was my 63rd race event that I attended in 2018 starting back on February 24th at the Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tennessee. Overall I went to 29 different tracks in seven states with Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas and Michigan joining Missouri and Tennessee. I only made it to one "new to me" track this season and that was the Thunderbird Raceway in Muskegon, Michigan. The Knoxville Raceway once again topped the charts with ten nights of action followed closely by both 34 Raceway near Burlington and the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa with eight nights each. I went to the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson for six nights of racing and to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton three times. Tracks in Davenport, Marshalltown, East Moline and Jacksonville had two visits each while one trip was made this year to Bulls Gap, Beatrice, Lakeside (KC), Peoria, Memphis, Mason City, Spoon River, Muskegon, Grain Valley, Bloomfield, Dubuque, Boone, West Union, Quincy, La Salle, Granite City, Tipton, Rockford, Springfield MO and downtown St. Louis.
When I have done these wrap ups in the past, especially back in the days of Hawkeye Racing News (RIP), I would go through and list some of the highs and lows of the season. But now, here in this electronic format, I will just encourage you to go back and read some of the many 2018 entries into the Back Stretch where you should be able to figure out which events were high points, and the two or three that were low. Let's just say that there is a track or two in that list above that you probably won't be seeing me at again anytime soon while there are others that I will look forward to visiting more often in 2019!
For those of you who enjoy the many different state points that we compile, keep checking in as our next entry will be our second annual Best of the Midwest standings where the points for all of the states that we track will be combined to list the top drivers in the Late Models, Modifieds, Limited Modifieds and Winged Sprint Cars. Then beginning after Christmas we will start listing the updated Cumulative All Iowa Points standings for all nine of the divisions that we follow and it looks like we will have a change at the top in at least three of those classes.
Finally today, you have to go back to the good ol' days of raceaholic and 96Late to find such a spirited back and forth between two posters on the Iowastockcars forum. And this one even throws in some new age insults as well.
Thanks for stopping by the Back Stretch and my wife says "hi".
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