Kollin Hibdon and John Oliver Jr. Headline Tuesday Action At Independence

Pick a night, any night at this point where the weather forecast calls for sunny skies, temps in the eighties with light winds and declare "We Are Racing!" That's exactly what promoters Dana Benning and Mike Van Genderen did on Tuesday at the Independence Motor Speedway and not only did the pit area swell with 137 entries in six divisions, but there was also a very solid crowd for a weeknight show that was not even on the schedule until the past seven days. And finally, the first race of 2026 in eastern Iowa went into the books on a beautiful night where shirt sleeves were the order until a sweatshirt was needed come feature time.

Always the innovator, Van Genderen also introduced a new qualifying procedure for the Modifieds and Stock Cars on this night where no more than eight cars at a time would take to the track for hot laps that would also serve as two laps of qualifying. The three heat races were then lined up with a six car invert where, for example, quick qualifier Casey Shelliam would start sixth in heat one and he would then need to finish in the top four to "earn" his qualifying spot for the feature. That he did by finishing second, thus putting him on the pole position for the twenty lap main event.

This definitely produced more action in the heat races and I would have to think that drivers found it to be fair as it definitely placed more of their fate in their own hands rather than the draw/redraw process. Sure a few of the fast guys will always lobby to qualify and then start straight up while the rest of the group will act like that is what they want even though you know that secretly they would like to see some type of a handicapping process that starts the faster cars farther back in order to give them a fighting chance. Just goes to show that the minority rules when it comes to setting the qualifying process in the major touring series. Or as the line says "money talks", and I do not see that changing anytime soon despite the fan-unfriendly-follow-the-leader heat races that so often comes from that.

That wasn't the case on this night in Independence though and it made good use of the technological advances that nearly all tracks now have with MyRacePass.

The penultimate event of the night, the Stock Car feature was a good one with Kodey Miles using the high line to take the lead over Shelliam at the drop of the green and when Miles slipped high off turn two the second time around, Shelliam went back to the front just as Adam Streeter's car went for a couple of rollovers in turn one. Miles would retain the lead for the restart and second row starters Tom Schmitt and John Oliver Jr. would take up the chase until lap fourteen when Jack Hockaday spun in turn one just ahead of the trio. All three would take evasive action wile two of the soon to be lapped cars were collected in the mishap.

As the cars were retrieved by the tow trucks, drivers were forced to go above the cushion in turns one and two to give them room, so on the restart the wily veteran Schmitt used that now even higher line to get a big run off of turn two and then drive to the bottom of turns three and four. Kodey was able to ward off each challenge though before the red flag waved with three laps to go when Vern Jackson tumbled off the top of turns one and two.

As they lined up for the restart I was surprised to see that Schmitt had chosen the inside of the first double row and, having only seen him to his inside in turns three and four, Miles went straight to the bottom at the return of the green to try to take away the line of his primary challenger. This was like a gift to John Oliver Jr. who had been consistently using a more middle groove approach to stay in contention and he would now use that line to take second away from Schmitt and then drive by Miles coming to the white flag to take the lead by inches. Then, in a drag race to the checkers, the two-time and defending All Iowa Points champion would edge out Miles by .051 seconds to take win! Schmitt was right there in third as well while Gage Neal finished fourth and Tanner Allen came from row eight to take fifth.

With thirty-one Modifieds on hand, four heats were run with the six car invert meaning that a driver had to get in the top three to earn their qualifying spot while the top five finishers all advanced to the feature. This was great in that just one eleven-car B-Main would then be needed to qualify the final four starters because if you are new to the Back Stretch, multiple B-Mains suck......imho.

Kollin Hibdon was on a rail from qualifying, to his heat race where he was the first driver to really get the bite off the bottom, to the feature where the Pahrump, Nevada, native who is now based in Waterloo went green to checkers to take the win. It wasn't a walk in the park though as Joel Rust kept him within striking distance throughout the twenty lap distance and, once lapped traffic was involved, Ethan Braaksma closed quickly to make it a three car chase. Hibdon would post the win while Braaksma slipped by Rust in the final set of turns to steal second. Spencer Diercks and Troy Morris III filled out the top five.

Once again the experimental qualifying procedure produced some great heat race action and while there were some glitches as the scoring staff tired to sort things out, it was not that noticeable to the crowd, other than when the Crown Vic feature was called to the track ahead of the Modified heats.

This would be the first ever Crown Vic main event at Independence and it would be a runaway for Derrick Dean who at one point enjoyed a half lap advantage over the drivers racing for second and he would lap all but the second, third and fourth place finishers in the thirteen car field. Michael Lamer held off Rob Culbertson to finish second, David Culbertson was fourth and Jacob Tuttle took fifth.

Zach McNeese would lead the first ten laps of the Hobby Stock feature until he slipped wide in turn two and that allowed Karter Miles to take the point and bring along his teammate Carson Butt into second. Things went from bad to worse for McNeese as he would limp to the infield with a flat tire a few laps later just before the checkers waved over Miles and Butt. Briar Kriegel drew the twelve after winning his heat race and he would race his way up to third. Joren Fisher came out of nowhere in the closing laps to finish fourth after a DNF in his heat dropped him to the back of the twenty-five car field and Leah Wroten closed out the top five.

Will Wolf set a quick pace in the Sport Mod feature, so quick that he slowed on lap thirteen and then ducked to the infield to the water hose to cool his engine before rejoining the field at the back for the restart. Cole Suckow would assume the lead from there and he would hold back Ben Chapman to take the victory in the twenty lapper. Tony Olson slipped off the back stretch while running third on the final lap allowing Austin Kemp to join the podium after starting from nineteenth, Jackson Carey finished in fourth while Olson recovered to salvage a top five. 

Traveler Tyler Fiebelkorn would pace the first two of fourteen laps for the Sport Compacts before Dyllan Bonk slipped by on lap three. Fiebelkorn would now stay close in second even though he was being challenged by Mike Peyton and contact between the two would leave Peyton's front bumper cover on the racing surface with four laps remaining. On the restart Bonk, who made the 210 mile tow from Hannibal, Missouri, would maintain his lead and take the win while contact again from Peyton in turn three of the final lap would loosen up Fiebelkorn enough to allow Drew Stanek to come from fourth to second at the checkers. Fiebelkorn would hold off Peyton for third while Devin Coghlan finished out the top five.

It was a great night of racing that was enjoyed with good friends Gary Lee and my Positively Racing colleague Ed Reichert, and it was also good to see another of our favorite Super Fans through all these years Bob Litton in attendance as well. Thanks to Dana, Mike and the entire Race Indee staff for their hospitality and remember that they will be in action next Tuesday night as well, April 28th, with the World of Outlaws Late Models headlining. While I may return for that show as well, I am definitely looking forward to working with my goof friend Jeff Kropf when the IMCA Summer Nationals comes to Independence on May 31st, June 1st, 2nd and 3rd!

Thanks for visiting the Back Stretch and we hope to see you at season openers at both Quincy and Oskaloosa in the week ahead.

Chris Martin Continues Early Season Success With Winged Sprint Car Win at Stuart

When I was at the Scotland County Speedway back on Friday March 20th, I told a friend that over the past several years we have had better weather to go racing in March than we we have had in April and, unfortunately, that trend has continued here in 2026. In fact there has not been a single race in Iowa east of Interstate 35 yet this season and it is going to take a "look, there is a good weather forecast on a Tuesday" event at Independence tomorrow night to break that goose egg. In the meantime though we made the trip west to the Stuart Speedway on Sunday for the annual visit from the Winged Sprint Cars that is becoming a must-see event.

With this co-sanctioned event now being the season opener for both the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders and the newly re-titled Malvern Bank ASCS Midwest Region, a stellar field of 41 360 Sprints signed in along with 118 drivers in the five IMCA Sanctioned divisions that race regularly at Stuart bringing the total to a whopping 159 cars for the Sunday night program.

With the co-sanction I had the night off from my announcing duties for the Invaders, giving me the opportunity to write about an evening where the Sprint Invaders were in action. The night got off to a bit of a rough start when it came time to simultaneously hot lap/qualify the cars by the four heat race groups as the ASCS format would prevail on this night with their officials taking the lead. Cars were slow coming to the track and slow pushing off creating a delay that set back the show from the beginning despite the 5:30 p.m. start of hot laps. Then, to make matters worse, it was later determined that some of the qualifying times could not be verified due to transponder issues, so the whole qualifying process was later scrapped and the heats would be lined up by the pill draw with passing points only from the heats determining who would make the show. However, I'm not quite sure how that all shook out either evidenced by the fact that Mason Heimbaugh, the grandson of Mackie Heimbaugh who was making his Winged Sprint Car debut tonight started tenth and finished tenth in the fourth heat and Austin Wood started seventh and finished seventh in that same heat race. Yet Wood, the 2025 Sprint Car Challenge Tour champion from Sacramento who flew to Iowa from California on Sunday after racing the night before at Placerville, later found himself starting sixth in the C-Main while Heimbaugh made his way into the B-Main to start sixteenth. But I digress.....

Once they got to racing the Sprint Cars offered up plenty of speed and action and outside of a couple of minor incidents during the heat races, everybody stayed clean and green on the quick quarter-mile. With signs of the track starting to take rubber in the middle groove during the B-Main, promoter Mike Van Genderen took the time needed to groom the surface prior to the twenty-five lap feature and that gave the bundled up crowd the show that they deserved on this cool April evening. 

Colton Fisher would set a quick early pace and just as he was beginning to work lapped traffic he slowed suddenly after leading lap nine to draw the only caution of the race. It was another tough break for the young speedster from Danville who we had hoped had used up his share of bad luck in 2025 when incidents would take him out of the lead on three occasions. Once back to green the defending Malvern Bank series champion Chase Brown would assume the point, but he would soon be stalked by the two-time Sprint Invaders champion Chris Martin. A winner on the ASCS National Tour in Salina, Oklahoma, eight days earlier, Martin and his crew chief Danny Lasoski have the #44 dialed in and he drive by Brown with six laps remaining on his way to victory, his second here at Stuart in just the three times that the winged warriors started racing here in 2023.

Austin McCarl, who started alongside Martin in row two would be the runner-up with Brown holding down the final step on the podium. Seth Bergman would finish in the fourth spot while the winner's younger brother, Cameron Martin would be the hard charger on the night coming from seventeenth to fifth. Next up for the Sprint Invaders will be a long awaited Friday May 1st appearance at the CJ Speedway in Columbus Junction and then on May 8th these two regional series will collaborate for a second time on the Super Half Mile at the Eldon Raceway.

The Sport Compacts would start the evening with fourteen laps of two and three wide action with defending All Iowa Points champion Michael Gardner leading the way until the caution waved for a stalled Joseph Carolus in turn four. On the restart Gardner was swallowed up by both Carson Hayes and Tyler Fiebelkorn with Hayes now setting the pace. Colbin Funke, who had started seventh soon joined the battle and he would use the inside line to grab the lead on lap nine and he would hold off Fiebelkorn over the final six laps to take the win. Hayes would finish third followed by the opening night winner Johnny Thomas while Daniel Clayton filled out the top five.

With Brayton Carter, Jake Sachau and Dylan VanWyk lined up ninth, tenth and eleventh respectively we knew that the twenty lap Sport Mod headliner would be interesting, just not in the manner that we had hoped for. Josalyn Elmquist would lead the first three laps before it was ruled that Brayden Shepherd had turn Kaden Rice in turn three and that is where things would go downhill. Six more cautions would wave over the next eight laps and the drivers were then told that they could either go five more laps under green, or the race would be complete with one more caution flag.

That elite trio had already made their way to the front and when the race was under green flag conditions we were being treated to quite a battle with Sachau doing his best to hold off the duo from Oskaloosa. The final caution would come with two laps still remaining on the scoreboard when it was determined that Dayton Swatek was at fault for turning Elmquist in turn one as they were racing for fourth and the checkers would finally wave over Sachau. VanWyk would take second over Carter while Elmquist was scored fourth and fifth went to Will Wolf.

Twenty-one of the twenty-three IMCA Stock Cars on hand took the green for their twenty lap main event with Miciah Hidelbaugh doing his back to hold off several challengers. A flat tire would sideline Todd VanEaton mid-race and Florida native had his challenge end with six laps remaining when smoke billowed from his exhaust while running second. The third and final caution of the race would fly when Brad Derry sat sideways on the front stretch. During the caution it looked like Hidelbaugh was having some steering issues with the two front wheels seemingly headed in different directions and when the race restarted he was no match for Buck Schafroth who powered by for the victory. The winner had started the race from seventh. Hidelbaugh would hold on for second, Dillon Richards advanced from twelfth to third, Austin Meiners came from tenth to fourth and Mike Albertson closed out the top five.

It was now 10:30 and we made the tough decision to head home as the Hobby Stock feature took to the track. Braden Gifford would take the win in that won and, from watching some highlights online today, we missed an interesting battle between Tyler Inman and Tom Berry Jr. where Berry wound up spinning late in the race. Todd Shute would then make the move on Inman to take the win. For more details on these two races as well as his full report on the evening, check out the report from my Positively Racing colleague Ed Reichert. 

Thanks to Mike Van Genderen for the hospitality as I was able to introduce my good friend Bruce Trautman to some good ol' Iowa short track action in style. My current plan is to follow MVG to Independence on Tuesday for that rescheduled event mentioned earlier and then on Sunday I hope to catch the season opener at the Quincy Raceways. Thanks for taking a look at the Back Stretch and I hope to see you at the track soon!