Okay, so I am now officially tired of traveling. With trips for both business and pleasure over the past two weeks I have spent four times as many nights on the road than I have at home and it is starting to wear on me. One more trip this week and then hopefully the only traveling that I will be doing through the Holidays will be some road trips to the late season races that remain on the schedule.
This past weekend saw my wife and I take a quick weekend trip to Dallas to visit our two sons and before that I was able to make it up to the opening night of The Darkside Fall Bash at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton Thursday night. The same crew of three freinds that went with me to the Knoxville Late Model Nationals joined me again on Thursday as they wanted to see what quarter-mile racing was all about and Tipton is a great place to take some newbies for that experience. Just like our trip to Knoxville, the weather forecast for the evening was not favorable, but when the rains from Wednesday night and Thursday morning stayed south of Tipton we knew that the show had a fighting chance. The local weather stations were predicting more rain to arrive sometime after ten o'clock and since the Darkside had stated that the "Late Model feature will start no later then (sic) 9:00" in their pre-race promotional releases we were on our way.
A large field of cars was expected across the five divisions and they delivered with a pit area that was packed full including twenty-five Late Models racing for $1,000-to-win and a whopping fifty Sport Mods who were not only racing for the $300 winner's check, but also a guaranteed start in Saturday night's big show. There were also more than 25 cars each in the Four Cylinders and the Outlaw Super Bombers, plus just shy of ten in the Two Driver class and once they were all checked in hot laps got underway around 6:20.
It was great to have Jerry Mackey on the mic along with the Darkside's "Big Boy" and they kept us informed of who was driving what, and where they were from, since several of these cars were new to me even though we are this deep into 2016. The heat races rolled off in fine fashion even while lightning was frequent due west of the track, but the radar showed that this activity would move to the north of us. I was a bit surprised that the Late Models were the fifth in the order given the weather that was still approaching from the southwest and the stated goal of starting the feature before nine o'clock, but I figured that officials had a plan in place especially since there would be B-Mains required in three of the divisions.
It was 8:40 when the first of three B-Mains for the Sport Mods rolled onto the speedway and I figured that the Late Models would follow these especially with the lightning now getting closer in the southwest sky. Obviously the rain was going to arrive earlier than predicted and we were keeping a close eye on it with the radar. Two Super Bomber B-Mains were next on the track and then the first of two B-Mains for the Four Cylinders came out with four of the five cars looking to transfer. It was now after nine o'clock and when Big Boy told the Two Man cars to go to staging I became a bit agitated.
I'm not proud of it, and I wish that I had just kept things to myself but I yelled out a couple of times asking why the Late Models were not in staging. A fan behind me sarcastically said "why don't you write about it in your blog" and I am guessing that it was the gentleman who goes by 1147 BigBore on the iowastockcars forum as the next day he said that I was acting like a two year old. It was actually the perfect analogy as when I had kids that age, if you told them that you were going to give them something, and then didn't, they would definitely let you know.
The Late Models were called to staging to follow the Two Man feature and after doing a four-wide parade lap the green flag waved around 9:20 with Andy Eckrich racing out to the early advantage. A five-car scramble on the front stretch brought out the caution on lap five and as the field was being realigned the rain drops started to fall. One of the new fans in our group has had two knee replacements recently so the last thing that we wanted him to do was to have to climb down the metal bleachers and then run to the car when the storm cut loose so we were on our way to the parking lot as the race went back to green. The rain became torrential as we drove past the golf course on the way out of town, but apparently they were able to get to lap 22 before it hit the track and the race was scored complete with Eckrich taking the win.
We saw a lot of different race cars and there was definitely plenty of "quarter-mile" action to keep the conversation going on the 75 mile trip home and you can bet that these guys will want to return to Tipton whenever the next opportunity comes along. From Dallas I checked in to see how the rest of the weekend went and the Darkside Fall Bash, that debuted last year in Maquoketa, is quickly becoming an October "must see" event that has likely now found a home in Tipton. Next year though, I hope that they leave out the promise to have any particular event on the track at a certain time. It will help me to act my age.
In other events around the area last weekend Chris Ableson won his 35th Modified feature of the season during I-80 Speedway's Cornhusker Classic. Ableson has been fantastic for the past three plus years now and is walking away with his third straight All Iowa Points title leading fellow Sioux City area driver Ricky Stephan by 100 points. That means that "Racer Ricky" would have to win twenty features in order to equal Abelson's current point total.
Only one non track regular was able to find victory lane during the two night show at Oskaloosa and that was Ron Kibbe from Danville. The 2016 Four Cylinder track champion at 34 Raceway, Kibbe inherited Saturday's win when Adam Gates was disqualified for ported heads. Cayden Carter was phenomenal sweeping both nights in the Modifieds and the Stock Cars to take four feature wins on the weekend. Curtis Van Der Wal won both nights in the Sport Mods while Dustin Griffiths and Mike Hughes split the wins in the Hobby Stocks. Trent Orwig won Friday's Sport Compact main event. Mike Van Genderen's run of Fall specials continues this week at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson and it will be interesting to see if Carter can continue his hot streak.
One of the new names on the Late Model scene is Indiana's Hudson O'Neal, the teenage son of Don O'Neal. Hudson has been impressive in his first starts at Eldora this Fall after winning ten Crate Late Model features in 2016 and this past weekend at his home track, the Brownstown Speedway, it was no surprise that he would win the Super Late Model main event. But, the real surprise came when he drove a non-wing Sprint Car to a third-place finish after starting 11th on the field. The kid's a driver and look for him to start branching out to regional and national events soon.
Cedar Rapids native Griffin McGrath finished second in the Dick Trickle 99 during the Octoberfest racing weekend at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway. The 2015 Fest champion Dan Frederickson was the winner in the event that drew more than 60 Super Late Models on the pavement. Frederickson came up one spot shy from repeating his win in the ARCA Midwest Tour finale on Sunday as Ty Majeski took the win. That capped off a great "Fest" weekend for the Cambridge, Wisconsin, driver as he won the weekly Late Model feature on Thursday as well as the Big 8 Late Model feature on Saturday. Signed as a Roush Fenway Development driver back in May watch for Majeski to start climbing the ranks of NASCAR in 2017. McGrath posted a solid seventh place finish on Sunday.
The Scott brothers, Johnny and Stormy crashed the IMCA party during the Fall Nationals at the RPM Speedway in Hays, Kansas, as they went one-two in the Modified headliner. Former Super Nationals champion Jeff Taylor from Arkansas was third, David Murray was the best home state driver in fourth while one of the best from Oklahoma, Cole Traugott was fifth. Jason Rogers was the Stock Car winner with Iowa's Mike Nichols in second.
One of the tracks that I visited for the first time ever this year is the Montpelier Motor Speedway in Indiana and I noticed that their recent "Late Season Shootout" drew a whopping 79 UMP Modifieds. Michigan drivers Chad Bauer and David Mielke finished first and second with Bobby Stremme in third. The track has one more race on the schedule for 2016 with the Monster Mash on October 22nd.
Tulsa, Oklahoma's Chad Davis won his sixteenth Modified feature of the season Saturday night when he captured the Mark Robinson Memorial at the Brill Motor Speedway. Davis has been virtually unbeatable at his weekly Friday night home track, the Creek County Speedway, and he also won an NCRA sanctioned show recently at the Salina Highbanks Speedway.
I don't have to tell you that the racing season is winding down and that you might have to do some traveling to get to a show this weekend. Luckily I can stay close to home with at least one trip down to Donnellson for the Fall Extravaganza, perhaps I will see you there!
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Thursday Notebook: October 6, 2016
I am a lucky man, I have three fantastic children, and while my daughter will keep me hopping over the next year with the planning of her September 2017 wedding, my two sons each gave me a thrill this week. The older of the two, Kyle, is the President of Dallas-Fort Worth I-Club so he came back to Iowa City on Friday for meetings that the University had with all of the leaders of the clubs based throughout the country. With the trip he was given two tickets to Iowa's homecoming football game against Northwestern and I was thrilled when he invited me to go with him, but it didn't stop there.
Kyle had also "won" the opportunity in a lottery to buy two tickets to the Sunday finale of the Ryder Cup up in Chaska, Minnesota, so his invitation to me included that as well making for one fantastic sports weekend. Yes, I had to miss some late season racing, but believe me there were no regrets as just the opportunity to spend the entire weekend with my Dallas-based son was great enough.
It has been awhile since I have been to a game in Kinnick and while I had a great time it did nothing to change the thoughts as to why I stopped coming on a regular basis and of course the Hawks went down to a disappointing defeat to the Mildcats 38-31. Just after the game-sealing interception we hustled out to the car, parked about five blocks away in a nice gentleman's yard, well at least he seemed nice as he smiled and took my thirty dollars from me earlier that morning, and we then made the drive to Minneapolis for a short night of sleep before getting out to the Ryder Cup by 8 a.m. in an effort to "beat the crowd".
Let's just say that we didn't.
I have never been to a professional golf tournament, let alone the final day of a Ryder Cup, and I can tell you that it was absolutely nothing like I had imagined. Nearly half of the fans in attendance were decked out in some funky, or funny representation of the stars and stripes and it wasn't hard to spot a few European fans in attendance as well who were mostly wearing the flag of their home country as a cape. Let's just say that it was much more of a "festive" atmosphere than I had anticipated and that the local Budweiser distributor probably made more money in one weekend than he has all year. Yes, even here in the Twin Cities!
After failing to get there early enough to get into ANY of the grandstands, and remember that we were there more than three hours before the first tee time, we staked a claim to a spot along the first fairway that did put us about ten yards from announcer Mike Tirico as he opened the NBCSports and Golf Channel coverage. But it did not give us a view of the golfers as they teed off as we had anticipated due to the media and assorted entourage that ended up standing between us and the golfers on the first tee. Thankfully we were with Kyle's brother-in-law and sister-in-law who had attended on Saturday as well and they suggested that we head out to hole #15 and claim a spot along the fairway where the players would typically hit their approach shots from. Plus there would be a big video board that we could watch until the first pairing made it to that hole.
So, after being at the course since 8 a.m., it was around two o'clock when the weekend star of the United States team, Patrick Reed, hit his drive to a point right in front of us and finally we got to see our first actual shot hit "live". Seven more pairs came through and with the Cup all but in hand I decided to head for the exit to beat the massive crowd out and make the five and a half hour drive home while Kyle would spend the night and fly out of Minneapolis in the morning. The day was an absolute blast and while I was driving home I couldn't help but think of how I better never hear a golf fan say that you just don't "see enough" when they go to a race, local or NASCAR! With the face value of the ticket at $140, that wound up to be about ten dollars a swing that I actually saw in person. I know that he seldom reads this since I was never able to indoctrinate him into racing like his brother, but Kyle thank you so much for the fantastic weekend!
My youngest son, Morgan who is also currently based in Dallas and whom some of you know from around the tracks, had an adventurous weekend as well. On Friday he informed me that he had been offered a job in Des Moines, something that he was definitely considering, so when he was calling me just after noon on Sunday I thought that he had news about that. Nope, the first thing that he said was, "I want you to know that I am okay," and he then told me about how he had been hit over the head after leaving a convenience store in Dallas an hour earlier. The blow had knocked him to one knee and when his attacker then went for his car keys Morgan threw an elbow into his neck that knocked the wind out of the would be thief who then turned and ran. The store clerk had already called 911 and when Morgan gave the description of the man to police they told him that it matched a suspect who had committed a pair of armed robberies in the area that morning.
He did not think that he needed medical attention so Morgan returned home and a short time later the police called to not only check on him, but to also report that the man had been captured and that he was sporting a pretty nice bruise to the neck. Obviously Christine and I were worried about his head, but he assured us that he was fine and on Monday Morgan confirmed that he had accepted the job and that we would have him just a couple of hours away from us again in Des Moines! The lows and highs of parenthood, huh?
So I thank you for reading through all of that non-racing stuff because it will then let you know why I did not have a story from my Friday night visit to the widest track in the Midwest, the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri. That was my stop on the way home from Kansas City and once again the place delivered with another entertaining night of action. After not having a show there since the Fair race in July, promoter Mike VanGenderen had to do a little extra track work in between races to not only improve the surface for that night, but to also make it better for Saturday and from all reports it sounded like that was the case.
Cayden Carter started off a nice weekend for him with a win in the Modifieds after overtaking Steve Stewart on lap four and he doubled up with a win on Saturday night as well. Carter was also one of the five Stock Car drivers that raced in tight formation for the lead through Friday night's finale that saw Jeff Mueller hang tough to the low line and take the win. John Oliver Jr. was definitely letting Mueller know that he was there in the closing laps, but they raced each other clean just as they have on numerous occasions over the years. Carter finished third, Mike Hughes was fourth and Nathan Wood was close in fifth.
Hughes doubled up with a convincing win in the Hobby Stocks that saw a surprisingly short field of just six cars on Friday night before growing up to ten on Saturday. The race between Josh Barnes and Barry Taft was as good as you will see anywhere in the Sport Compacts as they essentially raced side-by-side for the final ten laps of the 14-lap event. Even while splitting lapped cars Barnes would hold the lead at the stripe for every lap except for the one that counted as Taft would take the win. I believe that Barry also doubled up on Saturday as well. The Sport Mods drew the strongest car count with 34 signed in on Friday and the competition was stout as evidenced by the fact that the defending All Iowa Points Champion, the newly crowned IMCA National Champion and the recently named Eastern Iowa Driver of the Year Tony Olson could not crack the top five either night. In Friday's show Curtis VanDerWal slipped by Brett Lowry at the mid-race mark to go on to victory ahead of Logan Anderson, Lowry, Tim Plummer and Jim Gillenwater. The hard charger in this one was definitely Plummer who came all the way up from a ninth row starting sport. Gillenwater came back to win on Saturday as VanDerWal apparently broke and Lowry made the short trip down to Moberly to run in the top five there during the Magic City Nationals.
Positively Racing's Brian Neal and Danny Rosencrans both filed more detailed reports from Memphis and I encourage you to take a look at their work. I also encourage you to mark your calendars for Friday and Saturday October 21st and 22nd for the Memphis Fall Nationals because if you have not yet been to this hidden gem, this will be your next chance!
More non-racing plans will keep me away from the tracks this weekend so for the third or fourth year in a row I will miss the Musco Lighting Fall Challenge in Oskaloosa, plus I will not get to repeat my Sunday afternoon visit to Octoberfest in La Crosse. I am thrilled though that The Darkside, Timmy Current and Ryan Duhme, added a Thursday night session to their three-day Fall Bash at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton and now I am just watching the radar in hope that it will stay dry until after midnight for what might be the last "warm" night for racing this season. Hope to see you there!
Kyle had also "won" the opportunity in a lottery to buy two tickets to the Sunday finale of the Ryder Cup up in Chaska, Minnesota, so his invitation to me included that as well making for one fantastic sports weekend. Yes, I had to miss some late season racing, but believe me there were no regrets as just the opportunity to spend the entire weekend with my Dallas-based son was great enough.
It has been awhile since I have been to a game in Kinnick and while I had a great time it did nothing to change the thoughts as to why I stopped coming on a regular basis and of course the Hawks went down to a disappointing defeat to the Mildcats 38-31. Just after the game-sealing interception we hustled out to the car, parked about five blocks away in a nice gentleman's yard, well at least he seemed nice as he smiled and took my thirty dollars from me earlier that morning, and we then made the drive to Minneapolis for a short night of sleep before getting out to the Ryder Cup by 8 a.m. in an effort to "beat the crowd".
Let's just say that we didn't.
 |
| Kyle and I in front of the first tee |
After failing to get there early enough to get into ANY of the grandstands, and remember that we were there more than three hours before the first tee time, we staked a claim to a spot along the first fairway that did put us about ten yards from announcer Mike Tirico as he opened the NBCSports and Golf Channel coverage. But it did not give us a view of the golfers as they teed off as we had anticipated due to the media and assorted entourage that ended up standing between us and the golfers on the first tee. Thankfully we were with Kyle's brother-in-law and sister-in-law who had attended on Saturday as well and they suggested that we head out to hole #15 and claim a spot along the fairway where the players would typically hit their approach shots from. Plus there would be a big video board that we could watch until the first pairing made it to that hole.
 |
| Patrick Reed walks to his drive on #15 |
My youngest son, Morgan who is also currently based in Dallas and whom some of you know from around the tracks, had an adventurous weekend as well. On Friday he informed me that he had been offered a job in Des Moines, something that he was definitely considering, so when he was calling me just after noon on Sunday I thought that he had news about that. Nope, the first thing that he said was, "I want you to know that I am okay," and he then told me about how he had been hit over the head after leaving a convenience store in Dallas an hour earlier. The blow had knocked him to one knee and when his attacker then went for his car keys Morgan threw an elbow into his neck that knocked the wind out of the would be thief who then turned and ran. The store clerk had already called 911 and when Morgan gave the description of the man to police they told him that it matched a suspect who had committed a pair of armed robberies in the area that morning.
He did not think that he needed medical attention so Morgan returned home and a short time later the police called to not only check on him, but to also report that the man had been captured and that he was sporting a pretty nice bruise to the neck. Obviously Christine and I were worried about his head, but he assured us that he was fine and on Monday Morgan confirmed that he had accepted the job and that we would have him just a couple of hours away from us again in Des Moines! The lows and highs of parenthood, huh?
So I thank you for reading through all of that non-racing stuff because it will then let you know why I did not have a story from my Friday night visit to the widest track in the Midwest, the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri. That was my stop on the way home from Kansas City and once again the place delivered with another entertaining night of action. After not having a show there since the Fair race in July, promoter Mike VanGenderen had to do a little extra track work in between races to not only improve the surface for that night, but to also make it better for Saturday and from all reports it sounded like that was the case.
Cayden Carter started off a nice weekend for him with a win in the Modifieds after overtaking Steve Stewart on lap four and he doubled up with a win on Saturday night as well. Carter was also one of the five Stock Car drivers that raced in tight formation for the lead through Friday night's finale that saw Jeff Mueller hang tough to the low line and take the win. John Oliver Jr. was definitely letting Mueller know that he was there in the closing laps, but they raced each other clean just as they have on numerous occasions over the years. Carter finished third, Mike Hughes was fourth and Nathan Wood was close in fifth.
Hughes doubled up with a convincing win in the Hobby Stocks that saw a surprisingly short field of just six cars on Friday night before growing up to ten on Saturday. The race between Josh Barnes and Barry Taft was as good as you will see anywhere in the Sport Compacts as they essentially raced side-by-side for the final ten laps of the 14-lap event. Even while splitting lapped cars Barnes would hold the lead at the stripe for every lap except for the one that counted as Taft would take the win. I believe that Barry also doubled up on Saturday as well. The Sport Mods drew the strongest car count with 34 signed in on Friday and the competition was stout as evidenced by the fact that the defending All Iowa Points Champion, the newly crowned IMCA National Champion and the recently named Eastern Iowa Driver of the Year Tony Olson could not crack the top five either night. In Friday's show Curtis VanDerWal slipped by Brett Lowry at the mid-race mark to go on to victory ahead of Logan Anderson, Lowry, Tim Plummer and Jim Gillenwater. The hard charger in this one was definitely Plummer who came all the way up from a ninth row starting sport. Gillenwater came back to win on Saturday as VanDerWal apparently broke and Lowry made the short trip down to Moberly to run in the top five there during the Magic City Nationals.
Positively Racing's Brian Neal and Danny Rosencrans both filed more detailed reports from Memphis and I encourage you to take a look at their work. I also encourage you to mark your calendars for Friday and Saturday October 21st and 22nd for the Memphis Fall Nationals because if you have not yet been to this hidden gem, this will be your next chance!
More non-racing plans will keep me away from the tracks this weekend so for the third or fourth year in a row I will miss the Musco Lighting Fall Challenge in Oskaloosa, plus I will not get to repeat my Sunday afternoon visit to Octoberfest in La Crosse. I am thrilled though that The Darkside, Timmy Current and Ryan Duhme, added a Thursday night session to their three-day Fall Bash at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton and now I am just watching the radar in hope that it will stay dry until after midnight for what might be the last "warm" night for racing this season. Hope to see you there!
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