On an absolute perfect night for racing weather wise Friday, the Pepsi Lee County Speedway in Donnellson played host to the first of six special events for the IMCA Late Models known as the Shottenkirk Parts Express "Drive for 5". Each of the first five events pay $1,000-to-win and, if a driver simply competes in four of the first five events, in the finale on Saturday September 12th a feature win will be worth $5,000 instead of $2,000 for a winning driver who has not met the participation criteria.
Fourteen drivers signed in for the opener with a pair of cars housed out of my hometown of Mount Pleasant drawing the front row for the twenty-two lap main event. Mark Burgtorf in Lynn Richard's #15R and Matt Strassheim in Blaire Barton's #7B brought the field to green and as Burgtorf slid up in front of Strassheim in turn two, Matt gave him a pretty good shot in the rear bumper launching Mark to a sizable lead down the back stretch.
With those two driving away from the field, the battle for third was the one to watch as Tommy Elston and Darin Duffy, driving Curran Beckler's #35, went at it with another pair of 45's, Denny Woodworth and Dustin Griffin in hot pursuit. Nick Marolf was joining the group as well at the mid-race point and when he pulled alongside the fifth-place car of Griffin going down the front stretch they also had the lapped car of Patrick Shumaker to their outside. Entering turn one, both Marolf and Griffin were going for the same piece of real estate and contact nearly turned Griffin's car upside down as Marolf slid up the track and into the guardrail. Shumaker was involved as well and the next pack of three, Luke Pestka, Dalton Simonson and Jay Johnson had no place to go as they did the best that they could to avoid hard contact. Once everything was cleaned up, both Marolf and Johnson had been eliminated due to damage.
Once back to green Elston took second away from Strassheim and a lap later Matt slowed in turns three and four perhaps a result from that opening lap contact. Duffy established himself in third, but they were still chasing Burgtorf and the field would get one more shot at the leader when Pestka slowed to a halt in turn four after slowing from fifth. On this restart Duffy took second away from Elston and he was able to keep pace with Burgtorf, even peeking a nose under the leader on a couple of occasions, but he could not mount a challenge as Burgtorf scored the wire to wire victory. Duffy was impressive in second, Woodworth picked up third late from Elston while Griffin, in Woodworth's second car, recovered to finish in fifth.
All IMCA Late Model drivers still have a chance to keep themselves eligible for the $5,000-to-win finale by competing in the second "Drive for 5" qualifier on Friday June 26th.
Sport Compacts were the first feature of the night and, with this being an IMCA sanctioned weekly points race, the average points invert system for setting the lineups were in use and it was obvious that the front row drivers have had nothing but bad luck in the opening points races. Josh Barnes and Jason Ash are consistent winners, but would start up front in this fifteen lap main event and they would race door-to-door through the opening lap before Barnes edged ahead at the stripe.
Kyle Francy spun in turn two on the second lap and on the restart Barndon Reu joined the race for the lead going three-wide with Ash and Barnes in turn two on lap four. Ash would emerge with the lead and a lap later Barnes would extend his bad luck as he slowed and pulled to the infield with mechanical issues. Reu would chase Ash for the remainder of the race waiting for a mistake and in the closing laps he looked like he might have a run on the inside, but when he had to dodge a slow car exiting turn two on the final lap that allowed Ash to pull away and take the win. Reu was the runner-up followed closely by Adam Christy in third. Craig Bangert had a nice run from twelfth to fourth in his first appearance here in 2020 and Chuck Fullenkamp finished fifth after starting tenth.
Nicholas Profeta looked good leading the first half of his heat race earlier in the evening and his fourth place finish in that event landed him on the pole position for the eighteen lap Sport Mod main event. As the green flag waved Profeta drove up across the nose of fellow front row starter Derek Goble and then continued toward the outside wall before collecting the cars stating on the outside from row four on back including Trent Brink, Ron Kibbe and Jace Morrow. Once the track was cleared a second try at a start was waved off when Brian Berghager stopped at the exit of turn four with a broken right front.
When the race finally went green it was the new pole-sitter Jim Powell racing out to the lead for the first two laps before Brandon Dale challenged to his inside and Austen Becerra went to his outside in turn two. Becerra emerged from that three-wide battle as the leader and he would try to drive away before Joe Roller stopped on the apron of the front stretch to pull a caution on lap six. Adam Birck would take up the chase of Becerra on the restart and when the caution waved on lap sixteen when Powell spun in turn three we were setup for a green, white, checkered finish.
With Becerra riding the cushion, Birck dove to the bottom and pulled even with the leader in turns three and four coming to the white flag, but Becerra's high side momentum prevailed and he would take the win a lap later a couple of car lengths ahead of Birck. Dale was close behind in third, Carter Vandenberg finished fourth and Barry Taft filled out the top five.
Just one early cation slowed the Stock Car feature as Chad Krogmeier found the heavy cushion to his liking taking the lead from the start. John Oliver was soon there to challenge and on several occasions he would dive to the bottom and even pull ahead briefly only to have Krogmeier maintain his composure, hit his marks and come back to maintain the lead heading down the straightaway. At some point you thought that Krogmeier would have flinched under the constant pressure from Oliver, but he did not and after showing a puff of smoke in turn four Oliver's bid for the win ended with three laps remaining as he slowed and pulled into the pit area.
Abe Huls was now right there waiting for the mistake that never came as Krogmeier completed the flag to flag victory, his first win for 2020. Huls was second ahead of Jason Cook, Jeremy Pundt and Beau Taylor.
The twenty lap IMCA Modified feature would close out the night with twelve drivers trying to figure out a way to keep Michael Long out of victory lane. Daniel Fellows would give it his best effort racing out to a big lead early only to have the field brought back to him when Jardin Fuller had issues in turn three that then collected Mark Burgtorf and Dennis LaVeine. When the race resumed Long moved quickly to second and would start to put the pressure on Fellows.
Much like the Stock Car feature just before this one, the hunted was hoping to stay perfect on the cushion as the hunter explored the inside line on both ends of the speedway and while Fellows was able to fend off the first few challenges, Long made a bold move on lap ten driving deep into turn three to then slide up in front of Fellows in four and take the point. It was all over but the shouting from there as Long pulled away for his fifth win in six nights of action here in 2020. Fellows scored his best finish yet after jumping up to the Modified division late last season with his second place showing, Jeff Waterman was behind him in third with Burlington, Iowa, veterans Bill Roberts Jr. and Dennis LaVeine next in line.
A sincere thank you to Brian and Marcie Gaylord for their hospitality as it is not often that my wife chooses to join me for a night of racing. This was a big week for us with the birth of our second grandson and our 31st wedding anniversary, so it was good to have her at the track!
We will take tonight off to celebrate with friends and then on Sunday I look forward to making the drive down to Moberly, Missouri, where the Sprint Invaders will be in action at the Randolph County Raceway along with the A-Modifieds and the Four Cylinders. Perhaps I'll see you there!
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