A lot of cars, a lot of racing, a lot of watering requiring a lot laps to run the water in and even a little track grading before the features made for a long night at the Mississippi Thunder Speedway Friday night. And, with my lovely wife joining me for one of her two or three trips to the races each year, she hung in there pretty good, but with the clock nearing 1 a.m. at the conclusion of the Discount Shop Towel Late Model Dirt Kings main event we headed for the exits with two feature races yet to be completed.
A lot of cars. With this being the first of two big nights of racing at MTS this weekend, and with the Supreme Court in the state of Wisconsin pretty much lifting all restrictions, both the pits and the grandstands were overflowing with one local fan telling us that it was the biggest crowd that he had ever seen here. We were pretty comfortable with spacing, but to establish it we had arrived at 5:45 for the 7:30 show making it an even longer night than usual. Back to that big car count, there were 60 USRA B-Mods, 47 Dirt Kings Late Models, 38 USMTS Modifieds and 33 USRA Hobby Stocks making a total of 178 entries.
A lot of races. The huge car count required 27 qualifying events to set the field for each of the four divisions.
A lot of watering. With this being my first ever visit to the track that is just north of Fountain City I had been told that the dust will fly and thankfully tonight the wind was coming from behind us, so we were pretty much spared all night. To try to keep the dust down, and to keep the track incredibly wide and racy all night, the Terragator would come out after every set of heat races and B-Mains to put some water down which then of course meant that the next race out would have to circle the track for several laps to work the moisture in before taking the green flag.
And at 11:30, when all of the qualifying races were completed, the grader came out to work on a bit of a hole that developed at the entrance of turn one. Then, with more water, the B-Mod feature field probably ran twenty laps of wheel packing before they were lined up for their twenty-lap main event.
There is no doubt that all of the attention to the track surface made the racing better and the finish to the first main event of the night would prove that. Two of the best in the division, Dan Hovden and Jim Chisholm lined up on the front row and Chisholm would be scored the leader by inches on the opening lap. Hovden would take over on the second lap before Tony Bahr spun down the front stretch for the first caution. On the restart Parker Hale joined the battle for the lead with Hovden maintaining control until the caution flew again on lap twelve for Nathan Butterfield who had spun in turn four.
Once back to green Hovden and Hale pulled away from Chisholm and it looked to be a two car battle for the win only to see heat race winner Bob Cisewski spin in turn four with three laps remaining. One more lap was scored before the rear end locked up on Kadden Kath's car and we were now set up for a green, white, checkers finish. On the restart though something faltered on Hovden's car and he would go pitside under caution leaving it up to Hale and Chisholm to decide who would take the win.
Hale would hold the lead by less than a car length as the white flag waved, but Chisholm had found something on the top side and as they raced through turns three and four for the final time Chisholm swept around the outside to beat Hale to the finish line by inches. Defending track champion Ryan Olson would finish in the third spot ahead of Ben Moudry and Taylor Skauge.
Another shot of water and after some more packing we were set to go for forty laps with the Late Models and it would be Brett Swedberg racing to the early lead with pole-sitter Chad Mahder in hot pursuit. Mahder would take the lead away on lap five only to have the pass negated when Justin Ritchie and Troy Springborn spun in turn three. So it would be Swedberg bringing the field back to green and just one more lap would be completed before a six car melee in turn three required a red flag because the track was completely blocked. Jake Redetzke, who was dominant in his heat race would retire to the pits along with Jeff Massengill.
Once back to racing Jake Timm would now take up the challenge on Mahder for the lead, but Chad was up to the task and kept the young challenger at bay until lap thirty when the leader slowed exiting turn two and pulled to the infield. Timm would assume the lead, but he had Ryan Gustin closing fast and as Gustin worked the top side of the track it looked like we might have a thrilling finish coming up. With just five laps to go though, Gustin got too high entering turn one and clipped the wall at the exit to the pits, With the damage Gustin would limp to the infield with the race staying green and that would allow Timm to coast to victory, repeating his Dirt Kings success as he won here in his first ever Late Model race last year. Jesse Glenz would be the runner-up, Swedberg held down the third spot, Dustin Sorenson came from eighteenth to finish fourth and Iowa's Jeremiah Husrt started eleventh and finished in fifth.
That was enough action for us and thankfully it was a short drive to Winona where our hotel room was waiting. Checking the results I see that Dustin Gulbrandson was the Hobby Stock winner ahead of Chris Hovden and Steve Dwyer. I hated to miss the USMTS main even as I don't get to see Todd and Janet Staley's series race more than once or twice a year and on this morning it would be Dustin Sorenson taking the win ahead of Jake Timm, Jacob Bleees, Rookie-of-the-Year contender Calvin Iverson and Mississippi traveler Brooks Strength. Now I will just have to track 'm down somewhere else this season.
It was my first-ever visit to Mississippi Thunder Speedway already making it two new tracks for me in my first five races for 2020. On Sunday night though I look forward to being back at one of my "home" tracks when the Sprint Invaders, Late Models and Stock Cars open up the season at 34 Raceway in Burlington. No fans are allowed in the stands in Iowa yet, but you can catch all of the action on SpeedShift.
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