Aikey Dominates Summer Series Swan Song at Marshalltown's Dale DeFrance Memorial

Thursday was a special night at the Marshalltown Speedway. It took six attempts, but finally the 500th and final IMCA Late Model Summer Series event would be held. Granted on the first couple attempts it would not have been considered the "final" event of one of the longest running regional racing series in the history of dirt track racing. In fact during September of 2019 that 500th event was scheduled to be held at 34 Raceway west of Burlington, the same track that hosted the first event back on April 11, 1987. Yes, it would have been special for number 500 to be held at the same place as number 1, but alas Mother Nature stepped in and washed the event away, a fitting end to the 2019 Summer Series schedule that saw many events rained out leaving number 500 to be scheduled at 34 Raceway in the first place. It seemed fitting at the time.

Over the winter though the series was sold to Joe Kosiski and it would eventually become the Hoker Trucking SLMR East series where the rules package not only allows for Late Models meeting the IMCA standards to compete, but others who would not pass IMCA inspection to race as well. The Summer Series was over and so too was the amazing streak maintained by Marshalltown driver Darrel DeFrance. That's right, just one "l" in Darrel, perhaps a bit of trivia that you weren't aware of for the driver who was there at 34 Raceway in April of 1987 and then somehow made it to all of the following 498 events over twenty-four seasons. Many believe that Cal Ripken Jr.'s streak of 2,632 consecutive Major League Baseball games played over just more than thirteen seasons is a record that will never be touched, but race fans here in the Midwest will attest to who the true "Ironman" is.

Hats off to whomever it was (Toby Kruse? Brett Root? Kevin Yoder?) that came up with the idea that one more Summer Series race should be held and to have it at the Marshalltown Speedway during the night the track already memorialized the patriarch of the DeFrance, Gustin and Murty racing family. And with that the 500th and Final Summer Series event was scheduled as part of the Dale DeFrance Memorial. Virus restrictions and weather again pushed the show back a few times where it finally landed on Thursday September 17th as a lead in to the track's annual finale, The World Nationals. As Darrel and his family gathered in victory lane for the pre-race ceremonies and presentations, you just had a feeling that this race was all along meant to be held on this night and at this track. And even The Ironman himself showed his emotion as he thanked everybody involved in getting him to this point and with one more glance to heaven to thank his father Dale, the hometown favorite exclaimed "now let's go racing!" 

Hopefully I will be forgiven by ace photographer Jim "Zipp" Zimmerline for stealing this from his Facebook page! For the best pizza in Iowa go to Zipp's Pizzaria in Adair!

Thirty-one Late Models had signed in on the night with six of them (DeFrance, Curt Martin, Greg Kastli, Jeff Aikey, Gary Webb and Mike Smith) likely participants in that first one held in 1987 at 34 Raceway. I was the track announcer on that April evening in 1987 and I likely wrote a story and sent the results out to the media as well, but too many moves and a 1997 house fire would have wiped out any copies that I would have had of it. Besides, who would have known that it would become such an important keepsake twenty-three years, five months and 499 race events later? A request to a friend to dig up his archived copy of Hawkeye Racing News was made too late so for now, that would just be a guess where I am pretty confident on five of the six. You can bet that many of the young stars here at Marshalltown on this night had watched the Summer Series races as they grew up dreaming of someday competing against these legends of Iowa racing and one driver, seventeen-year-old Preston Stoecker will have the memory of making his dirt track Late Model debut at the final Summer Series event.

The feature race was scheduled for 44-laps, the number that Dale DeFrance raced with during his career, and as luck would have it Darrel DeFrance would redraw the twelfth starting spot, the worst possible position for drivers making the top four in the three heat races. "That will just make it more fun" is what he told announcer Ryan Clark. His long time friend Gary Webb would pull the pole position and he would complete lap one door-to-door with his fellow front row starter Dave Wada. Wada would pull ahead to lead lap two before the caution waved when Richie Gustin spun in turn three and on the restart Jeff Aikey would waste no time taking the lead exiting turn two.

The caution would wave again on lap eight after Eric Pollard inched his way far enough back toward the racing surface to get the call after spinning into the infield and on this restart Aikey would drive away from the field. His lead would grow to over half a lap over Webb who was racing a solid second as Matt Ryan and Justin Kay battled for third just behind him and when Curt Martin slowed with a flat  tire on lap thirty-eight the final caution of the race would fly.

Even with his big lead completely erased I don't think that there was any doubt that Aikey would still get the win, but would the septuagenarian Webb be able to hold off two of the current best in the Midwest to finish second? The National Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer could not fight off Ryan and Kay over the final six laps as they would finish second and third respectively while Webb was fourth just ahead of DeFrance who had steadily worked his way up to fifth at the checkers. On a night that would have made a nice movie script, the all-time winningest driver in the IMCA Late Model Summer Series and the seven-time series champion Jeff Aikey would be the man celebrating in victory lane for the final time.

My part of the script in minuscule, but it was important to me that I would have the opportunity to announce at both the first and the last race of the Summer Series and I want to thank Jerry Vansickel and Ryan Clark for giving me that opportunity by handing the mic over to me for the call of the first Late Model heat race. I felt like a celebrity afterwards when my phone started popping up with messages from friends and family who were watching live on Floracing not knowing that the old guy was going to be a small part of the show.

The thirty-one Late Models were just a segment of the 176 race cars that filled the pits for the first of three nights of racing at Marshalltown this weekend. 

The Mod Lites would run the first of six feature races on the night with Kansas City's Dillon Raffurty passing Mike Kennedy on lap five of the fifteen lap event to take the win. Corey Sonner came from ninth to finish second, Tim Glick and Kennedy were next in line with Randy Bryan filling out the top five. 

In the Sport Mods Brayton Carter drew the outside of row one and the current All Iowa Points leader would hold off the newly crowned 2020 Super Nationals champion Jonathan Logue to take the win. The winner's first cousins Dylan Van Wyk and Carter VandenBerg would be scored third and fourth while pole-sitter Austin Kaplan fell to fifth. VandenBerg actually took the checkers in third, but he was dinged a spot for jumping the final restart.

2020 Super Nationals Champion Nathan Ballard continued his winning week by coming from the seventh starting position to pass Luke Schluetter mid-race to take the Hobby Stock feature win. It was a career best runner-up finish for Schluetter as Marcus Wayne, Carter Koop and Jeremiah Andrews filled out the top five.

I said it in my most recent column, if there is a bite on the bottom when the Stock Car feature comes to the track you had better keep your eye on Jeff Mueller as this low line expert has over one hundred career feature wins and he added one more to his total Thursday night. Mueller started ninth and took the lead from Chanse Hollatz on lap four, just two laps after Hollatz, Jerry Schipper and Dallon Murty had the crowd on the edge of their seats racing three-wide for the lead. Damon Murty would come from the sixth row to take up the chase on Mueller, but not even the "Chelsea Charger" could run him down and in the end it would be his son Dallon who would edge Dad out for the runner-up position. Shawn Ritter would finish in the fourth spot and Steve Meyer would come from a ninth row starting spot to take fifth.

The IMCA Modifieds who will be the title division during Friday and Saturday's World Nationals here had a stout field of forty-four in attendance on Thursday night with Richie Gustin leading the way early. California's Cody Laney was hooked up and flying though and on lap seven Laney would put the slider on Gustin to take the lead in turn four and he would then drive away to a convincing victory. Tim Ward would be a distant second followed by Tom Berry Jr. who advanced eleven positions to finish third. Jeff Aikey moved from twelfth to fourth while Gustin completed the top five.

As always I want to thank my friends and Positively Racing colleagues Dick and Joyce Eisele for holding a seat for me and again thank you so much to the talented announcing duo of Vansickel and Clark for their hospitality. I am going to take tonight off to celebrate a good friend's milestone birthday and then on Saturday night I look forward to being at the Pepsi Lee County Speedway in Donnellson for the IMCA Late Model "Drive for Five" finale along with the Sprint Invaders.

Get out and enjoy a race near you this weekend!