The NKF Heartland Tour for a Cure Opening Season 1998 (Part Two)

If you are joining the story for the first time I ask that you click here to first read Part One so that you have context.

Just prior to what would have been our opener at Webster City, Loni Woodley came through with a second title sponsor commitment, this one from Toyota Industrial Products and since we had already announced our posted point funds for the inaugural Tour we decided to give the entire $10,000 check directly to the NKF of Iowa. This press release covers that as well as some details from our Contingency sponsors that first season.

Al Uhrhammer, then the promoter at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City was quick to respond to a proposal to hold an NKF Tour event and when we talked on the phone he gave me a brief description why. Jerry Dixon who had been a longtime competitor at his hometown track was in charge of track prep for Uhrhammer and having the NKF Tour race in Webster City was especially important to him. "We are very proud to race for this cause because of our personal interest in it," Dixon later wrote to me. "We have a grandchild with a form of Nephrotic Kidney Syndrome and she has had some very rough times lately and over the years. When we needed special equipment for her, the NKF was more than happy to help in whatever way they could. We are very grateful."

So when that opening race of the Tour was weathered out at Webster City, Uhrhammer made sure that we were rescheduled as quickly as possible and that would be on Thursday May 7th with both divisions running in support of the Deery Brothers Summer Series. The weather threatened once again, likely holding down the car count some, but we were able to get the show in with the following results.

Running the NKF Tour events in his area was also important to Jerry Dixon's brother Allen who was a frequent winner at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City

I am hoping that I had the common sense to have the second newsletter printed and mailed prior to the May 8th issue date, otherwise that would have been a late night drive back from Webster City to get it printed, prepared and mailed that next day. In that newsletter you will see that we were starting to get some extra help and support from folks like Steve Hurst at Dubuque Logistics, Clete and Vaneta Ward at The Pit Stop Bar and Grill as well as Kirchoff Distributing. We also had to make our first non-weather related change to the schedule when the race at Audubon was dropped due to poetential scheduling conflicts at other tracks.

Verne Schumann was not your typical race track owner/promoter. He did not have an outgoing personality and while he did not come off as a "risk taker", if you look back on it now he was actually quite innovative with his promotions at the privately owned Hawkeye Raceway between Muscatine and Blue Grass. In my eyes Verne was a shrewd businessman and a perfectionist as he was the first promoter that you would have ever seen driving equipment onto the track to do some quick grooming as the next race was lining up behind him. Also at that time the local dirt track season pretty much wrapped up by the end of September, but he was the first to stretch it into October with an annual three race series of Sunday events. 

When I sent out the proposals it was my hope that I could get him to feature the NKF Tour on one or two of the Fall events, but instead he scheduled us twice in that opening season, just five weeks apart on May 19th and June 23rd. With those events Verne definitely took advantage of our "no set purse" policy only paying $300 to win the Modifieds and $150 to win the Hobby Stocks, but to be fair we were running as the support classes to $1,000-to-win UMP Late Model shows. Still I felt that it was important that our drivers knew the payouts and that is why you see them in the newsletter above. While I am on this I want to point out that Verne Schumann continued to support the Tour by holding one or two events each season and he did increase the purse, sometimes quite significantly in those future events. He tried us out and then built upon the success, just like a shrewd businessman would do!

The first event at Hawkeye Raceway would be an interesting one for the Hobby Stock division as there really wasn't a true "Hobby Stock" class in east central Iowa. The Street Stocks could run on wider tires and had stock front stubs with tube frames back so they would have a definite competitive advantage over the drivers who were now chasing the Tour. But yet there they were, Steve Holthaus, Jeff Larson and Jason Rohde from northeast Iowa, Webster City winner Bob Dennis from Boone and Jeremy Mills making the long tow down from Marathon and even though they were outmatched by the locals, they held their own as you will see in the story and results that follow.

This night at Hawkeye Raceway turned out to be important as well because it gained us some more "Tour regulars". Finishing seventeenth in the Hobby Stock feature, Scott "Jack" Donlan from Burlington would now be hooked on the series and he would try to compete in every race that he could fit into his schedule. Jack and I became fast friends and we were able to work together for a few season recently when he was the official starter for the Sprint Invaders. Donlan now runs Paisano's Ristorante in Princeton, Illinois, and he checks with me often to see if I will be attending the same Sprint Car race that he will be at because he always puts on a fantastic pre-race tailgate feast. Just one of the many longtime friends that I made while running the NKF Tour.

In the Modifieds Corey Dripps established himself as the Tour point leader with his win at Blue Grass, but the three guys that finished behind him, Rich Smith, Bruce Hanford and John Bull would get hooked on the Tour here and become regular competitors going forward.

The Tour's next stop in Dubuque would produce a thrilling Modified feature event that saw nine lead changes in the twenty-five lap event. Russ Olson would take the win over local star Jason Schueller and Corey Dripps would build on his Tour point lead with another impressive third place run. Once again up against a class that was closer to the Stock Car division than the Hobby Stocks, Tour point leader Steve Holthaus challenged early before fading to fifth as Jeff Kennedy scored the win.

With a pair of short track events up next on the schedule I sent out the following press release.

And as far as I can tell, this is third and final Newsletter that I sent out for that first season. It was a thrill for me to be able to work with Bruce and Tammy Current who were the promoters at Tipton in 1998. I had come to know Bruce and his crew when they would come and compete at the Hawkeyeland Pro Stock Championships held at 34 Raceway just a few years earlier and they are some of the nicest people that I have come across in the sport. A fierce competitor on the track in his traditional red #75, Current and his crew definitely knew how to have a good time after the races, win or lose.

The trip to Decorah would be my first ever visit to the Nordic Speedway and I was excited to get there after listening to the stories being told by Steve Holthaus and Jeff Larson, and even those Hobby Stock drivers were interested to see what the Modifieds would do at the little quarter-mile circle.

Unfortunately rain was the winner at both Tipton and Decorah, but both races were rescheduled for a few weeks down the road. That meant that our next scheduled event would be just 45 miles to the west of my Mount Pleasant home at a track that I visited often during my youth. The Super Half-Mile at the Eldon Raceway always draws a big crowd during one of the first county fairs of the summer and I knew that it would be an opportunity for two of my favorite Modified Tour regulars to try to close in on Corey Dripps in the points chase.

Sadly, the show at Eldon was rained out as well and it was not able to be rescheduled so both Troy Folkerts and Todd Holman would have to continue to hit the road in their efforts to win NKF Tour point fund money.

That would bring us back to Hawkeye Raceway near Blue Grass where we had been just two races ago and the Modified field grew from 17 on our first visit to 24 on this trip. And for the first time I could claim that the entire top five were NKF Tour regulars as point leader Corey Dripps took the win ahead of Darin Thye, Bruce Hanford, John Bull and Rich Smith.

Jim Harland repeated his win in the Hobby Stock main event as Tour regulars Holthaus, Larson, Donlan and Bob Dennis all towed in to compete.

That race at Blue Grass was on a Tuesday and the next night we were on the road again to the northeast Iowa town of Cresco. Recall that Tom Barnes was the first to book an NKF Tour event and this was it. While the Tour had been the support classes at most of our first five race nights, we would be the show here and there was a buzz at the Mighty Howard County Fair. After getting to know Steve Holthaus and Jeff Larson out on the road, it was cool to see them here at their home track where friends, family and fans gathered around them after the races to not only celebrate another feature win by the "Dirty Rat" #70 of Holthaus, but to enjoy the camaraderie that the sport of dirt track racing will produce when you have two such friendly men behind the wheel.

Local favorite Larry Schmidt would win the Modified feature as championship contenders Darin Thye and Corey Dripps would finish fifth and sixth respectively and Boone's Bob Dennis would finish tenth in the Hobby Stock main event as he tried to keep Holthaus in sight.

 

Steve Holthaus made a habit out of winning at is hometown track - Photo provided by Kim Holthaus

The Tour would close out the month of June with the rescheduled visit to the Tipton Speedway where Ryan Dolan would be in the right place at the right time to take the feature win in the Modifieds and Jeff Kennedy cruised to his second NKF Tour victory in the Hobby Stocks.

With seven race nights now in the books we would look to the second half of the season and with no more rainouts we would hold five more Modified races and eight more Hobby Stock events including one that paid $1,000-to-win. All of that to come on Part 3 of the inaugural season of the NKF Tour here on the Back Stretch.