I love racing in October. In case you haven't noticed there has been a shift in the weather over the past several years, well at least in my mind there has been. March and April seems to be colder and wetter than they were before making it very difficult to get in those early season specials, but in the Fall those warm temps seem to last longer each year and that is why you see a proliferation of race events on the schedule in the Fall.
I can remember when Oktoberfest in La Crosse, Verne Schumann's three race series on Sunday afternoons at Hawkeye Raceway and of course Shiverfest were about the only events scheduled during October just twenty years ago, but nowadays there are multiple choices each weekend with even a couple of Thursday night shows tossed in.
Did you know that this is one of the wettest Octobers on record in Cedar Rapids? Part of that is because it has also been one of the warmest giving us a climate that is now more like April as we used to know it and for the most part it has been a good month for racing in the upper Midwest. Not for me though as up until yesterday I had been shut out for October due to other events on my calendar.
After spending Thursday night September 30th at the Darkside Fall Bash in Tipton my wife and I took advantage of a great weather weekend to do one more weekend of boating on the Lake of the Ozarks. The second weekend of the month found us traveling to Lincoln as guests of our friends the Trautmans to go to the Michigan vs. Nebraska football game. I had originally thought that a Sunday trip to La Crosse might still be possible, but when kickoff was moved to nighttime for national television, that plan was scrapped and we could see the lights at I-80 Speedway as we headed back to West Des Moines afterwards. My first time at Memorial Stadium came in 1973 when we briefly lived in Lincoln and while Kinnick can get pretty crazy, this place was flat out LOUD with more than 90,000 in attendance.
Our twice postponed river cruise on the Danube had been scheduled across the following two weekends, but when Covid concerns prompted us to push it out again to next June we decided to make a good old fashioned road trip instead. Putting 2,400 miles on the car over a ten day journey we visited Asheville, Charleston, Savannah, Nashville and St. Louis and I did my best to not look sad whenever I spotted a race car being hauled down the interstate. After all, I knew that when I returned home I would have a USMTS race at Urbana, Shiverfest, November races at Davenport and Columbus Junction and the Turkey Bowl to wrap up my 2021 season.
The dominos started to fall this past Tuesday though when an unfavorable forecast scratched the show in Urbana so I switched my USMTS plans to Lakeside on Friday. The lingering rain washed that show away on Thursday and it didn't look good for Shiverfest when it was announced on Friday that they would make a decision at 11 a.m. on race day. Just a few hours later that plan was scrapped and it was stated that Shiverfest had been canceled for 2021.
I was not about to let the entire month of October slip by without attending a race so I collaborated with my Positively Racing colleague Danny and our friend Daryl to develop a plan of action for Saturday. All of the rain during the week left events at both Springfield and the I-35 Speedway in Missouri still in doubt heading into the day, but we knew that the USMTS finale at 81 Speedway near Wichita was definitely a "go" so when I picked them up in Canton, Missouri at 11 a.m. our destination for the night would be based upon the promised 12:30 decision made by Springfield Raceway promoter Jerry Hoffman.
If Springfield was going to race on Saturday, we would go there for the Cash Money Late Model series finale for 2021. If Springfield postponed to Sunday, we would go to Wichita and then catch Springfield on the way home and if Springfield canceled we would turn back north and head to I-35 for their season championship night.
Nearly right on schedule the announcement was made on Facebook that yes, the Springfield Raceway would be racing on Saturday evening as scheduled and that would now be my one and only race in October of 2021. During the road trip we also saw a couple of other Facebook posts of interest. One was that the Bethany Speedway in northwest Missouri would be shut down for 2022, well at least it won't be run by recent promoter Jon Boller. Originally scheduled to run every other week this past season, they had the bad luck of catching good weather on their off weeks and bad weather when they were going to race so they just never had any momentum established. Don't be surprised if some other prospective promoter gives it a try or, at the very least, look for a couple of events during the annual Northwest Missouri State Fair on Labor Day weekend.
The other post that caught our eye came from the Darkside Promotions page announcing the cancellation of next Friday's "Dirt In November" event at the Davenport Speedway. It gave me a bit of a chuckle as I read "Looking at next week's forecast we have decided to cancel this year's Dirt In November, this race was always a 'weather depending' event....last year we hit beautiful fall weather and we understand it's not always going to be that way." Why the chuckle? Because you will recall that last year's Dirt In November was put together in about three days when it was obvious that the weather was going to be unseasonably warm, so they didn't "hit beautiful fall weather", they took advantage of it. Also, the last time I checked, each and every outdoor racing event, no matter when it is scheduled is "weather depending". I do love the risks that Timmy and Ryan are willing to take and they have become some of the best special event promoters in the business. Hopefully Dirt In November will be back on the 2022 schedule and will "hit" favorable weather once again.
Arriving at the Springfield Raceway just before the 4:30 hot laps I immediately noticed a couple of big changes since I started my 2021 season here on March 6th. The infield of the quarter mile used to have what looked like a motocross layout including a big mound of dirt inside of turn three and some "whoop de do doos" scattered about the rest of the infield has now been completely flattened and appears to be covered by something similar to a white pea gravel surface. Hoffman must have put in a good tiling system when making this change because there was not even a hint of a puddle on the infield despite the more than three inches of rain that had fallen from Wednesday through Friday. The other addition that I am sure my colleague Ed Reichert will appreciate is a new scoreboard and lap counter positioned outside of turn two sponsored by O'Reilly Auto Parts.
Twenty-seven Cash Money Late Models were in attendance and this was actually one of the lower car counts that this four year old series has seen. Those of you who know me know that I am no expert on rules, but my understanding is that what makes this series unique is that it takes suspension rules back to the 1990's where a driver in not allowed to spend thousands of dollars on shocks in order to get the car "hooked up". Whatever the rules package is I would encourage other tracks and series who are struggling with Late Model car counts to take a look, because almost immediately thirty to forty cars a night were in competition. And since I do pay close attention to drivers' names and hometowns' what struck me was the roster as it was dominated by racers that seemed to have just started their career in this new revival of what was likely a bunch of old race cars sitting unused or discarded long ago by others who had spent the big money on the next "new thing".
Tonight's purse would offer $1,200-to-win and a very impressive $450-to-start the twenty car, thirty lap main event and it would be pole sitter Dustin Mooneyham who would race out to a big early advantage. Mitch Keeter who has been hard to beat lately on the series was on the move from seventh though and following a lap nine restart he would cruise around the outside of Mooneyham to take the lead. Another caution would wave though before the lap would be scored and on this restart Mooneyham would take a bit of a higher line to try to ward off Keeter.
When Mitch pushed up the track in turn four that would allow Jimmy Body III to get back to second and three laps later Body would drive under Mooneyham to take the lead. Hooked and hauling on the bottom of the wide quarter-mile Body would drive away for a convincing victory while Keeter and newly crowned series champion Cole Wells would battle it out for second. Wells had taken the position and while trying to hug the bottom to reel in the leader, he would clip the inside berm in two with six laps remaining. As Wells checked up to keep from spinning, Keeter sailed around his outside to regain second and he would then hold off Wells to take runner up cash money. Mooneyham would hold on for fourth while Jim Body would complete the top five.
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| Jimmy Body III from the Springfield Raceway Facebook page |
It was now shortly after 9 p.m. and with our plan to make the five plus hour drive home afterwards we chose to hit the road once again with five features still to be run reminding ourselves that when we come to a big show at Springfield we need to get a hotel room. While it may go unnoticed by most, when you are used to an MVG presentation it can get a bit frustrating, but we realize that we have been spoiled.
Checking MyRacePass this morning I see that three-time track champion James Thompson won the A-Mod feature from the pole and that Ryan Edde did the same in the B-Mod main event. Those of you in western Iowa may remember Karla Lampe who used to compete in the Hobby Stock class at Denison and other tracks in the area. Karla has been one of the top drivers in the Pure Stock division here at Springfield for many years now and she was out front of a five car pack in tonight's feature only to have Grayson McKinney get by her with just a few laps to go to take the win.
Springfield Raceway will be back in action next Saturday November 6th with a unique event. Originally scheduled as the Prelude to the Turkey Bowl, the day will now also feature a concert by country music artist and Bo Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard, John Schneider. A huge dirt track fan, I saw Schneider perform a stirring rendition of the Star Spangled Banner on a Pay Per Event back in March and don't be surprised if he negotiates a "ride" in one of the support divisions when the racing gets started after the concert.
The Turkey Bowl at Springfield is always one of our "must see" events and it is scheduled for Friday and Saturday November 19th and 20th. However, I now have another one of my favorite events scheduled for November 20th as later in the evening on Friday the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson announced that they would now try to run Shiverfest on that date. Hopefully both events will be greeted with nice weather and I will have a very tough decision to make!
With two events still on the schedule (Turkey Dash and Shiverfest), there are two All Iowa Points championships still up for grabs and while one will likely be decided at these races, the other will likely end in a tie. In the Limited Modifieds two-time champion Tyler Soppe (2017, 2019) holds a one-point lead over Logan Anderson who had topped the list for most of the 2021 season. In fact the two drivers were tied for the lead going into the final night of the Darkside's Iowa Dirt Nationals at Dubuque on October 16th where Soppe scored the win with Anderson coming from tenth to finish second. It is likely that both drivers will compete at both CJ and Lee County so on the All Iowa Points 5-point scale it will be fun to see how it shakes out on two tracks where Anderson has the experience advantage. The loss of the Davenport event eliminated Brayton Carter who was making a let season push to repeat his 2020 championship. He is currently eleven points out of first so he needed three races to be in the hunt mathematically.
When I previewed the Fall season back on September 16th I stated that Caine Mahlberg appeared to be headed to his first All Iowa Points title in the Four Cylinders. Well that statement may still be true, but as of right now he is tied with Cyle Hawkins who has been on a tear during the multi-day events here in eastern Iowa as well as at a couple of "extra" events that were added to the schedule at East Moline. It is doubtful that Mahlberg, who was just crowned as the IMCA Sport Compact National champion for 2021 will make the long pull over from Dunlap to compete in these final two events and I am not sure if Hawkins' car will be legal at either CJ or Lee County where IMCA rules will prevail. If the points stay where they are now then it will be the second year in a row where two drivers will share the Four Cylinder state championship as Chris Vannausdle and Jade Lange finished in a tie in 2020. Selfishly I would love to see both Mahlberg and Hawkins in action here in November, but the All Iowa Points don't even payout watermelons, it is all about pride!
Before I go I have to make light of one race "fan" who asked a dirt track promoter on Facebook what time the races would be over with this Sunday. Really? Would you message Fran McCaffery and ask what time the basketball game will finish on Friday, after all it shows a 7:01 tipoff on the schedule so it must be very predictable. Well at least that would be, more so than a DIRT TRACK RACE! The stupidity of people at times on Facebook is incredible. Just don't message Kirk Ferentz and ask when we might get a first down. I have never been so happy to be driving down the road instead of watching football over the past two game day Saturdays. The last time it was cold for a Turkey Dash that was run at CJ, the Hawkeyes creamed Ohio State in 2017. Hopefully I will have something good to watch on the DVR when I finally get home this Saturday night!
Thanks for stopping by the Back Stretch, hope to see you this Saturday in Columbus Junction!
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