A pair of road trips in the opposite direction bookended this first full weekend of September as on Friday night I made the journey to the Jacksonville Speedway, then on Sunday Barry and I headed west to the Eagle Raceway in southeast Nebraska for the Inaugural Stewart Alley Memorial.
While driving to Jacksonville on a cool, crisp evening that was well suited for week two of high school football I realized that just about every time that I visit the high banked quarter-mile is during the Fall. Promoter Kenny Dobson does not shy away from football Friday nights and there was a good crowd on hand for a seven division show that would feature twenty-two 410 Winged Sprints and and shorter field of Midgets than I had expected at nine.
The mighty Midgets would be the first feature to the track shortly before 9 p.m. and the first seventeen laps were pretty pedestrian with Karter Sarff leading the way without challenge. However, when Zach Daum spun in turn four that would bring the field back together for a restart with the final three laps making my long trip worth every minute.
Jake Neuman would go from third to first sailing around the outside of Sarff and Will Armitage in turns three and four to lead lap eighteen and when Neuman stumbled on the cushion in turn three the next time around, Sarff would drive under him to be the first to take the white flag. Armitage was right there as well and it would be a three car race for the win over the final lap with Neuman again passing Sarff in the final turn to win by just a half a car length. The crowd was buzzing as Jake climbed from the car in victory lane and they gave the local favorite a big round of applause. Armitage would take third followed by Wisconsin driver Parker Jones and heat race winner Daniel Adler.
The Midwest Throw Back Sprint Cars would be up next and much like the AIRS series that we have here in Iowa, these guys are out there to race, not just putt around in these older non-wing cars. Tres Mehler who still races in today's Sprint Car shows in Indiana was the class of the field and was proud to earn his first ever win here at Jacksonville.
Twenty of the twenty-two winged 410's would start the twenty-lap feature with pole-sitter Brayton Lynch taking the early lead. A caution would wave on lap three as Cory Bruns spun in turn four and following the restart Luke Verardi would get to second after starting from fifth. Verardi's challenge would soon end though as he slowed and pulled to the infield just shy of the mid-race point and as Lynch started to work slower traffic Tyler Duff closed in quickly.
Duff would drive under a hesitant Lynch in turn three to take the lead on lap thirteen with both Corbin Gurley and Joe B. Miller in hot pursuit and as the lead trio diced their way through traffic it would be Gurley going to the point with five laps to go. The caution would wave again one lap later when Trevin Littleton and New Zealand driver Zackary Sokol tangled in turn two while racing for fifth and it would be Gurley that would bring the field back to green with four laps remaining.
Duff and Miller would stay tight with the leader on that first circuit , but when they made contact exiting turn four while battling for second that would allow Gurley to get away and race on to the feature win. Miller, who had started sixth, would get the runner-up position ahead of Duff, Lynch would settle for fourth while Joey Moughan who had tagged the wall on the opening lap of his heat race made repairs and battled all the way from twentieth to fifth.
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| 410's to the green at Jacksonville |
It was now 9:40 and while the Street Stocks had put on some good heat races and I would have liked to have stayed and watched both the 305 Sprints and a good field of Modifieds, I decided to head for home very satisfied with what I had witnessed. A check of the results after getting home around 12:30 showed that Ryan Taylor, Jake Powers and Nick Justice had finished where they had started, first, second and third in the Street Stock A-Main. The top five in the 305's finished where they had started as well with Jaxton Wiggs taking the win. He had impressed me during the heat race with a high side run that brought him from sixth to second so it was no surprise to see Jaxton at the top of the list for the feature. Burlington's Tanner Gebhardt finished second. And in the Modifieds, front row starters Brian Dively and Tim Luttrell went one-two in their main event.
Four nights of racing remain on the 2024 schedule for Jacksonville starting with this Friday's appearance of the MOWA Sprint Cars along with the Badger/MARA Midgets. Another fine weekly show will go on September 20th and then on October 4th and 5th it will be the Ron Milton Race of Champions featuring the MOWA Sprints and the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets. Don't be surprised if you find me back in the stands at Jacksonville one more time before the season ends.
On Sunday I left home half past noon, picked up Barry in Pella and arrived at Eagle Raceway just as qualifying was about to start at 6 p.m. for the Inaugural Stewart Alley Memorial. It was a beautiful evening for racing in southeast Nebraska and it was a festive atmosphere with a full pit area and a big crowd rolling in for the two division show. As we made the long trip I told Barry of my memories of going to Eagle on a semi-regular basis when my Dad was transferred for his job to Lincoln from 1973 to 1975 as I also recalled the old Midwest Speedway that was in the middle of town with a tall brown fence trying to funnel the noise of race cars toward the sky rather than out to the neighbors. Let's just say that the facility at Eagle was much more "rustic" than it is today, but the track is still very fun to watch, especially for a ten-year-old who had grown up watching nothing but half-miles in southeast Iowa.
The Malvern Bank SLMR Late Models had just shy of thirty cars on hand with a $4,000 top prize up for grabs while the 360 Sprints Cars were racing for both the Malvern Bank and the Midwest Sprint Touring Series (MSTS) points, but more importantly for a $10,222 winner's check! Plus, as the evening went on, the talented and informative announcing team rattled off an incredible amount of additional bonuses and contingency prizes that just added to the draw.
With the late arrival of many time track champion Mike Boston, that brought the diverse and talent laden field to an impressive count of 53, including several drivers who either race regularly or often with the Sprint Invaders series based here in southeast Iowa. In fact two of them, Colton Fisher and Tyler Lee were impressive in winning two of the six heat races, along with three B-Mains, that were needed to set the 40-lap feature field.
But first let's review the thirty-lap main event for the Late Models where Tad Pospisil and Bill Leighton Jr. would start from the front row. This one would go green to checkers with Pospisil setting the pace until he caught the back of the field on lap ten. The fast way around was the bottom and as the leader looked for an opening under Jake Bridge, Leighton used a higher line and he would be scored as the leader on laps thirteen and fourteen as they still raced behind the soon to be lapped car.
Bridge would slip off the bottom exiting turn two the next lap allowing Pospisil to squeeze under him while Leighton went around him on the outside and with Billy forced to an even higher line, Pospisil was able to get back to the front exiting turn four.
The next challenge for the leaders would come a few laps later as they closed in on both Jason O'Brien and Chris Spieker who were in a battle for position of their own and again Tad showed his patience as he stayed glued to the bottom. In fact, in the closing laps, O'Brien and Spieker actually pulled away from the lead duo by several car lengths and Leighton would not be able to find the traction that he needed to get around the low-riding leader as Pospisil took the win by just a bit more than a car length at the checkers. Chad Holladay was impressive in his Eagle Raceway debut coming from fifth to finish third, Andrew Kosiski advanced from seventh to fourth while Ben Sukup posted his best ever SLMR finish in fifth.
With a five hour drive home ahead of me I was watching the clock and it was now 9:23 with some track prep equipment rolling to the speedway before the Sprint Cars were pushed to the track. The track work was completed quickly though and if the Sprint Cars could race as clean as the Late Models just did, then I would be able to make it home before three in the morning.
Quick qualifier on the night, Tony Rost had spun in turn two on the opening lap of his heat race, but was allowed to restart in his original sixth position and he would finish fourth giving him enough points to be in the six driver redraw where he pulled the three for the feature. And again, on the opening lap Rost would spin in turn four to bring out the caution. This time, he would restart the race from the rear.
On the second try Cam Martin would get out of shape in turn two nearly going over as he tangled with Riley Goodno and again the race would have to look for a third try to get a start and this one would stick with pole-sitter Kaleb Johnson setting a quick pace. The racing was fantastic as drivers used all of the wide racing surface and there were some nasty slide jobs being thrown, in particular by Aaron Reutzel as he was coming from his fifth starting spot. The talented Texan would drive all the way across the bottom of turn three and into turn four before sliding to the top at the exit of turn four and after getting to third he tried the same move again , but this time he spin out on the front stretch.
Following the restart one more lap was scored before Don Droud Jr. got upside down in turn three and during the red flag the crews were allowed to put more fuel in the cars with just thirteen of the forty laps completed. In that break Jack Dover, who knows this speedway well from his success here over the years, said that he was concerned that the track would soon take rubber and that they would all be ripping around the top with passing then being a premium.
As the race went back to green Brant O'Banion who had come from twentieth to ninth threw a slider at Colton Fisher, but hit him squared up right rear to left rear exiting turn two. The contact sent Fisher for a couple of flips down the back stretch and he quickly emerged from his car and made his way to O'Banion's #20 to express his chagrin.
Yes, it was now past ten o'clock and I was hoping that this race could just stay green and I found it interesting that when we were back to racing, Dover was one of the few drivers who were trying to work the bottom. After scrambling in the work area, O'Banion made it back out for the restart, but he would shred a right rear and smack the guardrail in turn two on lap twenty-one to end his night.
It would then only take a few laps of green flag racing for Dover's prediction to come true and with ten laps remaining Barry and I tried to get a head start to exit the crowded parking lot. The checkers were waving over Kerry Madsen who had moved to the front on lap eight and we could read the scoring pylon in the infield as we drove out of the facility showing that Chase Randall in the Beaver Tool & Drill #12x had finished second with Sam Hefertepe Jr. third, Kaleb Johnson fourth and that Hank Davis had completed the top five.
It was now 10:24 and after a coffee stop and some loud music during the drive, I climbed into bed at 3:30 giving me less than four hours of sleep before a Monday workday. Believe me when I tell you that this is something more suited for a younger man, but we enjoyed the trip and will have it marked on our calendar again for 2025! Who knows, I must just be retired by then?
With another great week of weather in the forecast I currently have three nights of MLRA Late Model racing in the plans at Tipton on Thursday and at Davenport on Friday and Saturday. Then, on Sunday night, I look forward to making the trip down to what is back to being called the Quincy Raceways to see what new owner Jeff DeLonjay has going on at the quarter-mile bullring.
Hope to see you again soon on the Back Stretch!
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