Brian Birkhofer and Shannon Babb, the two former winners of the Diamond of the Dirt Nationals, swapped the lead back and forth during the early laps of the third annual event Saturday night. And when Babb was sidelined on lap eight with front end damage, Birkhofer was never seriously challenged the rest of the way for the $30,000 win at the immaculate Lucas Oil Speedway.
Babb and Birkhofer started the seventy-five lap main event on the inside of rows one and two respectively with Babb holding the lead for the first three laps. With Babb working the high line and Birkhofer down low, the two ran the next four laps in a fashion where Babb would have the momentum to take the lead down the backstretch while Birkhofer would pull even, or even lead by inches at the start-finish line. The third-place car of Brad Neat was maintaining the pace of the lead duo and when Birkhofer established himself as the leader on lap seven, Neat tried to put a slider on Babb coming out of turn number two for second. The two cars made contact causing significant damage to the left front of Babb’s ride and while he tried to continue after dropping several spots, he slowed a lap later bringing out the second caution of the event.
With the entertaining battle up front the lap eight caution gave the large crowd a chance to catch their breath and notice the impressive early charges by several drivers. Bart Hartman had moved from twentieth to ninth, Brian Shirley had come from twenty-second to twelfth, Scott Bloomquist had started twenty-fifth and was now thirteenth and Billy Moyer had moved to fifteenth after starting on the inside of row fourteen. Obviously the 3/8th-mile oval was in fantastic condition with drivers finding racing grooves from top to bottom.
On this restart, and on each of the remaining three restarts, Birkhofer ran off from the field as the battle behind him raged. Another driver on the charge was Dale McDowell who is the 2009 driver for Clint Bowyer’s dirt model team. McDowell changed cars after winning the first B-Main so he also started from near the back of the twenty-nine-car field and he was adapting quickly in his first appearance at the track. Over the final laps McDowell emerged from the rest of the hard chargers to take over the second spot and for the first time since Babb’s exit it looked like a driver was actually cutting into the advantage of the leader. Birkhofer worked lapped traffic like a master over the closing laps and still had a comfortable advantage at the checkers to complete a dominating victory over one of the most impressive field of Late Model drivers that you will find outside of Florida and Eldora. McDowell had to be happy with his second place run, Moyer showed that he is still at the top of his game by coming from deep in the field to finish third, Jimmy Mars came from row six to take fourth and second row starter Steve Casebolt Jr. completed the top five.
With seventy-six Late Models on hand, just making the main event was an accomplishment and all six heat races, plus the two B-Mains, were like mini-feature events. Scott Bloomquist did not appear as scheduled when the first heat hit the track possibly due to a tire issue in staging. Series announcer James Essex referred to a couple of drivers having such issues in staging, but I did not hear if he gave any specific names. Kelly Boen also did not take his scheduled front row starting spot in the fourth heat and never showed up for a B-Main either. Back to the first heat, it was quickly obvious that the fans were going to be treated to some great racing tonight as drivers ran three and four wide during the early laps. Shannon Babb prevailed over fastest qualifier Will Vaught to take the win while John Blankenship, who went to a backup car after hurting a motor in qualifying, started thirteenth and passed Ray Moore in the final laps for the third and final transfer.
Heat number two was decided in thrilling fashion down the backstretch on lap one when Birkhofer split the middle of front row starters James Ward and Matt Miller to grab the lead and then walked away in convincing fashion. The third heat saw a first lap caution when the event’s only Canadian entrant Ricky Weiss spun on lap one. Brad Neat looked to have this race firmly in hand until he made contact with a lapped car with five laps to go allowing Kevin Cole to take the lead. Neat recovered quickly and ran down Cole in impressive fashion to regain the lead three laps later and take the win. The fourth heat showed evidence that the one rough spot in the track was starting to be a concern. This event was originally scheduled for two nights, but when heavy thunderstorms and high winds rolled through the area on Friday morning the entire show was moved to Saturday night. The rains contributed to the great condition of the track tonight as it has been awhile since I have seen this track develop a cushion, but on the bottom groove in turn one the extra moisture had caused a pretty steep ridge to develop. Mike Collins proved just how steep it had become when he bicycled his car on lap one showing all of his underside to the crowd before settling back down on all four wheels. A late caution for local favorite Eric Turner allowed Wendell Wallace to make one last run on David Breazeale who held on for the win earning him the outside row one starting spot for the main event. Turner would return in his teammate Steve Rushin’s car to use one of the MLRA provisionals to start the feature.
Steve Casebolt, Freddy Smith and Brian Shirley raced three-wide for the lead for a couple of laps in the fifth heat race with eighth starting Earl Pearson Jr. looking for racing room behind them. As Casebolt established himself as the leader, Pearson made an impressive move going from fourth to second on lap eight, but he could not chase down the leader. The sixth and final heat race looked like it was going to be an all-Wisconsin transfer trio as Terry Casey, Jimmy Mars and Dan Schlieper separated themselves from the field. Jimmy Owens had something else in mind as he recovered from a near spin early that dropped him back to eighth and charged back to complete a pass of Schlieper coming off of turn four on the final lap.
The two B-Main events were relatively mellow compared to the six heat races although both had a couple of interesting items to note. Young second generation Wisconsin driver Chad Mahder made a name for himself as he settled in behind Dale McDowell and Ray Moore to claim the third and final transfer position holding off World of Outlaws regular Clint Smith. It was noteworthy that Terry Phillips started third and faded to ninth and that Billy Moyer was only able to advance one position to seventh at the finish. Scott Bloomquist started the race at the rear and stayed there in order to use a Lucas Oil Series provisional while Moyer would use one as well. Bart Hartman came from the third row to win the second B-Main with Brian Shirley and Alan Vaughn close behind. With Al Purkey joining Turner as the MLRA provisionals, and with Scott James using an “emergency” Lucas Oil provisional the twenty-nine-car field was set. Whatever this emergency provisional was, James looked like he was going to make the most of it as he had cracked the top ten just prior to dropping out of the main event.
The cameras of the SPEED Channel were on hand to record this event and I definitely recommend that you tune in on June 20th to catch the two-hour recap of this great racing program. I’ll be interested to see if they do some creative editing as far as a crowd shot is concerned at the start of the feature race. As the field was entering turns three and four preparing to take the green, one of the camera men stood up in the middle of the crowd (likely blocking the view of at least a few ticket buying fans) and frantically tried to get the crowd around him to stand up for the start of the race. While a few people waved at him only one young lady who must have thought that she was at a NASCAR race stood up while the rest of the section, like good dirt track race fans remained seated so that everybody, young and old, short and tall could enjoy the thrilling opening laps of the event.
A stout field of forty-five Modifieds provided exciting support class action using a unique qualifying format that worked out very well. The Modifieds were given one lap of qualifying with the top sixteen locking themselves into the feature and the rest of the field being split into two B-Mains. David Hendrix came out late in the qualifying order and set quick time putting him on the front row of the main event along with Jason Meadors. Meadors held the advantage on lap one only to give it up to Hendrix on lap two. Jesse Stovall was giving chase in second until his left rear tire went flat at the mid-race point and on the restart Hendrix pulled away from the field for the victory. Just like the Late Model finale the racing behind the leader was intense with Tate Cole coming from the eighth starting spot to finish second with Justin Folk coming home in third. Rex Merritt picked up the fourth spot while Cole’s teammate Chad Wheeler came from the eighth row to complete the top five.
The Lucas Oil Speedway staff did a masterful job of running off this monster show in an efficient manner and may have even started a debate as to whether or not it should just be scheduled as a one-day program in the future. They even split the two Modified B-Mains by running the first one right after the Late Model heats and holding the second one until after the Late Model B’s were completed. Even with about a half hour delay to improve the track conditions on the inside of turn one, an effort that was very successful, the final checkered flag of the night flew at five minutes before midnight. Late Models fans here in the Midwest should definitely put this event on their “wish list” for 2010!
Max Corporan - photo courtesy of Scott Tjabring, Action Track Photography
Gary Peiffer - photo courtesy of Scott Tjabring, Action Track Photography