TBJ Dominates In Inaugural Summer Challenge Series Event at Independence

For the second time in fourteen years the Independence Motor Speedway served as the host for the inaugural race of a new regional touring series for the IMCA Modifieds. In 2010 it was a yet to be well known Josh Foster who surprised a stacked field of fifty-nine drivers to take the first event of the Hawkeye Dirt Tour on a May evening in Independence. Fourteen years later, with Foster scoring his first career feature victory in an IMCA Late Model at 34 Raceway this past Saturday night, we were again in the stands at Indee on Monday for another "first" as the Farley's Wholesale Tire & Quick Lube IMCA Modified Summer Challenge presented by Mesa Muffler debuted with another talent laden field of forty-five drivers on hand looking for the $2,000 top prize and a leg up on the competition in the six event schedule that will later go to Spencer, Stuart, Marshalltown, Interstate and Park Jefferson.

Passing points from the five qualifying heat races would set the field for the thirty lap headliner and let's just say that tonight's winner earned his paycheck with a thrilling performance in the fourth qualifier. Starting seventh and with studs such as NASCAR Truck Series champion Matt Crafton, IMCA Modified National Champion Jeff Larson and IMCA Stock Car king Dallon Murty ahead of him in the first two rows, Tom Berry Jr. steadily picked his way toward the front using some aggressive, but clean slide jobs until he was behind the leader Murty in the final three laps.

We were all anticipating another slide job as he had perfectly executed on both Cole Czarneski and Larson, but instead Berry did not come all the way up to the top in his first attempt at the lead. Murty now knew that he was there and started to protect the lower line entering turns one and three only to have Berry stay up top and let him wonder where he might be coming from next. After the white flag waved the challenger again showed his nose to the leader in turns one and two and he was able to keep it there racing down the back stretch. Murty would then drive deep into turn three and when he drifted to the top in four, his momentum was too much for the slim cushion to hold him and Berry slipped by him on the bottom to take the win.

Tom Berry Jr. at speed - Barry Johnson photo

A former IMCA Modified National Champion himself, Berry would then start from the pole of the thirty lap feature and while he would lead each and every one of those laps, there would be plenty of action behind him to satisfy this race fan. Ethan Braaksma would try to maintain the pace early until he was overtaken by the 2023 Super Nationals champion Tim Ward who had started third. Cautions on laps four and twenty-two for drivers slipping off the top of the track would group the field and on that second restart a two car crash involving Trevor Fitz and Brennen Chipp would see both drivers have their evening come to an early end.

Barry Johnson photo

On the final restart Joel Rust would make a nifty move to get to second briefly after starting from seventh, only to have Braaksma get back to where he had started from earlier. As the checkers waved over Berry with Braaksma not far behind, Rust would slip the right rear off the top of turn four just enough to allow Ward to get back to third. Spencer Diercks, who had started eleventh would fill out the top five while the hard charger of the race would be Cody Laney who wheeled Timmy Current's #12T from twenty-first to to eighth. 

The Modified feature was the third of five main events to be contested on the night and the Sport Compacts would start off the list with a sixteen lap affair that was peppered with some good ol' fashioned door banging to determine the winner. The race would also feature five lead changes across four different drivers with just one caution flag when the field stacked up exiting turn four on the second circuit leaving behind a field of debris as a bumper cover was stripped off of one of the cars.

Jake Anderson had led the first lap and just nipped Christopher Mannion at the line before that caution waved and once back to action it would be Chris Pittman who would take the point. Oliver Monson had started fifth, but he was there to swipe the lead on lap four only to have the seventh starting Stephen Randall sweep by him two laps later.

Monson was not about to go away though as he would stalk Randall riding the top line until the wave of the green indicating just two laps remaining. Racing through turns three and four coming to the white flag, Monson would dive low and when he slid up the track the side-by-side contact would allow him to take the lead with one to go. At that point Randall felt that he could also play it in that manner so as they went into three and four for the final time, Stephen used the exact same tactic to regain the lead and take the win much to the delight of the crowd. Jaice Tuttle, who had started from twelfth was right there in third and ready to pounce if the lead duo roughed each other up too much, although a check of the results this morning list him as a DNF(?). Pittman and Mannion were next in line.

Oliver Monson (5) and Stephen Randall (47) battle it out - Barry Johnson photo

The Stock Cars were up next and they would go twenty laps of non-stop racing with pole-sitter Tom Schmitt leading the way. Cayden Carter in Michael Petersen's #1x started sixth and made his way up to second before gradually reeling in the leader. The final five laps would have Carter glued to the rear bumper of Schmitt waiting for a mistake from the veteran hometown racer and, with two laps to go, Carter was able to pull even with Schmitt in turns one and two.

The momentum off the top side was just too good though and there would be no stopping Schmitt from taking the victory ahead of Carter. Cole Mather held off an eighth starting Rowdee Van Genderen to finish third while Vern Jackson advanced from twelfth to fifth at the checkers.

Tom Schmitt on his way to victory - Barry Johnson photo

Following the Modified feature, the IMCA Northern Sport Mods would also knock off twenty laps of racing with no cautions with another pole-sitter warding off a strong challenge to take the win. With two-time All Iowa Points Champion Brayton Carter going from the pole, one would have figured this one to be a race for second, but young Taylor Kuehl had something else in mind as she quickly moved from fifth to second and then reeled in the leader.

Kuehl's line through the middle was definitely faster than Carter's high line through turns three and four, but she would give up any ground that she had gained as they raced those same line's through turns one and two. Taylor would draw even with the leader just shy of the mid-race point, but in the closing laps "Speedy Bray" would start to pull away as he captured his 100th career IMCA sanctioned Sport Mod victory. The personable young driver from Oskaloosa has tallied up those wins in a short period of time in both sanctioned and unsanctioned events as this was already his sixth of this season after winning thirty-one times in 2023, fifteen times in 2022, eighteen times in 2021 and twenty-three times in 2020. Kuehl would have to settle for second, Cole Suckow made an impressive run from tenth to third, Shane Paris finished fourth while Jarrett Franzen took fifth.

Taylor Kuehl (2) puts the pressure on Brayton Carter (01) - Barry Johnson photo

The Hobby Stocks would close out the evening for eighteen laps with Calvin Dhondt grabbing the lead at the drop of the green from his outside front row starting position. My eyes were on the twelfth starting Nathan Ballard who has been on a tear this year already with eight feature wins on the season coming at Memphis, Bloomfield, Marshalltown, Davenport and Vinton. The high line was definitely the place to be and passing would take precision as Ballard steadily made his way to the front.

Following a caution on lap nine he would restart from the fifth spot and when two drivers ahead of him made contact in turn two, Ballard slipped to the inside of them at the perfect moment in order to get to second. The caution would wave again a lap later and the leader would now have Ballard knocking on the back door trying to cause a mistake.

The challenger would slip his nose just under the left rear of Dhondt on several occasions and even appeared to have a run on him coming to the white flag before Jim Ball's spin created another caution. The green, white, checkers finish would give Ballard one last opportunity to perhaps force the issue, but he played it clean and Dhondt made no mistakes in taking the victory. Tyler Ball's third place run would be wiped out by a disqualification so that would make the rest of the top five look like this; Bradly Graham, Shawn Kuennen and Jacob Floyd.

I was surprised to look at my phone and see that it was 10:45 just after the final checkers flew as it did not seem to be that long of an evening. Perhaps it was made more enjoyable by sitting with Ed Reichert, Gary Lee and Dustin Jarrett, or it could be the fact that I had just watched five feature races with 104 laps of action slowed by only seven cautions compared to Friday night where I watched Super Late Models alone cause ten cautions in the first nineteen laps of their feature.

As always it was an enjoyable trip to Independence as I had the opportunity to catch up with my good friend Kevin Kemp and to get a quick word in with two of my favorite promoters Dana Benning and Mike Van Genderen. I know for sure that I will be back up to Indee on Tuesday, July 16th, for the return of the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders and there are some other events on their 2024 schedule that may coax me back again as well. I won't be able to attend, but don't forget that Independence will host the SLMR Late Models this coming Saturday night May 11th.

I will be checking the weather on Wednesday for a possible trip to Oskaloosa before a Mother's Day weekend full of events will keep me away from the tracks. Here's hoping that we see you again soon here on the Back Stretch!

Feger, Bollinger and Parga Usher In A New Era At Spoon

Over the past ten years or so we have seen some first time promoters try some unique ideas to try to breathe life back into their track's weekly racing program. Down in Oklahoma it was Free Grandstand Admission every race night throughout the season. In northern Iowa a new promoter tried a free will donation for entrance to the grandstand. Now, in 2024, first time promoter Cloyd Barden looks to revive the weekly program at the Spoon River Speedway south of Canton, Illinois, by moving the race night from Saturday to Friday and by offering a purse structure that would exceed many of the special events in the area.

Not only is he paying the UMP Super Late Model feature winner $2,000, but second gets $1,500, third collects $1,200 and even the fourth place finisher almost gets four figures with $950. And this is no "Dolly Parton" purse as tenth gets $350 and it is $250 just to start. The other four divisions are not slighted either with the UMP Modified first place prize at $1,500, the Pro Late Model king for the night takes home $1,000 while the E-Mods and the Hornets collect $600 and $300 respectively. All totaled, with a full field of twenty in each class, that is just shy of $30,000 in purse money for a weekly show, nearly three times the amount that gets paid out at most tracks. And this is not Knoxville where a weekly crowd of 3,000 looks like nobody is there in the spacious front stretch grandstands that seat around 15,000 during the Nationals. At an adult admission price of $15 and pit passes at $35, I would think that a crowd of 1,200 or more would be needed to have a chance of breaking even and while the stands did fill in pretty nicely as the night wore on, I'm not sure if that number was met. Revenue from track sponsorship does not seem high either as I only spotted nine signs in the infield.

I knew that I wanted to get over to Spoon River early in the season to see how this was going to all work and, after last week's races were rained out, that made my targeted date of May 3rd the opener for this newest experiment in weekly race promotion. Twenty cars each in the Super Late Models and Modifieds signed in, about ten fewer than I had expected, while the E-Mods topped the list with twenty-two. The Hornets had seventeen cars on hand while the Pro Late Models pulled just thirteen. While there were some drivers that had made nearly a 100 mile tow, the only one that I spotted on the list that had traveled farther than me was Austin Self, the native Texan and former NASCAR Truck Series competitor, who now lists Statesville, North Carolina, and he has towed his UMP Modified up to the Midwest to do some racing around the Illinois bullrings.

Jason Feger prepares for his record setting lap

While a bit dry and dusty to start with, the race track soon became lightning fast after the top was peeled off and while there was one soft spot at the exit of turn four, the surface was wide and racy despite the rains of the past couple of weeks. Two drivers, Daniel Adam and then a few moments later Jason Feger, lowered the track record previously held by Jonathan Davenport from 12.866 to 12.642 and the racing action was just like I love it here at the Spoon; lightning fast and multi-grooved.

The Pro Late Models would be the first of the five features to take to the track with twenty laps the distance and this one was basically decided on the first circuit. Jose Parga, who in 2023 won in each of his first nineteen starts, had lined up fourth for this one and he was in second exiting turn two and then after driving under pole-sitter Tommy Elston exiting turn four he would take the lead that he would never relinquish. Three cautions would slow the race, including a front stretch skirmish on lap thirteen involving two cars racing in the top five when Brad Denney and Vance Wilson got together.

Even with the late restart, Parga would drive away to win my more than a straightaway over Elston. Denny Woodworth would advance from ninth to third, Denney recovered to finish in fourth while Jason Oenning was fifth.

The twenty-five lap UMP Modified main event would be up next and the action throughout was furious, that is while under green flag conditions. Pole-sitter Mark Anderson would set the pace with the first caution coming on lap three when top-five contenders Austen Becerra and Zac Oedewaldt tangled on the front stretch sending Becerra's #22 nose first into the outside wall. After the lengthy delay to clear the track just one more lap was scored when Degan Dozard ended up stopped on the exit ramp from turn one to the pit area sitting in a precarious position. I'm not sure what the hold up was, but it seemed like forever to finally move his car the rest of the way into the pits and once back to racing only two more laps were logged before Brandon Roberts and Charley Hess both spun in turn four.

On this restart Trevor Neville made a big move to the inside of turn one forcing the leader Anderson up the track, and when Mark recovered he would clip the right rear of Mike Chasteen Jr's car sending Chasteen sliding toward the infield on the back stretch. That would put Anderson back out front for the restart and he would now block that bottom line to hold Neville at bay as Ray Bollinger now joined the battle. Bollinger who had apparent motor issues during qualifying had come from fifth to second in his heat race to earn a second row start in this one, and it was now obvious that those issues had been resolved as he joined Neville in putting pressure on the leader.

A caution for debris on lap thirteen created another restart and now Dave Wietholder would make it an entertaining four car battle at the front. Bollinger would get under Anderson exiting turn four to take the lead on lap seventeen and one lap later Wietholder would suddenly slow exiting turn four before driving to the pits at the top of turn one. One final caution, the sixth of the event, would fly on lap twenty-two as Tim Carpenter Jr. was cruising just over the banking on the back stretch and into turn three setting up a three lap dash to the finish.

Neville would make one last charge, but there would be no stopping Bollinger from taking the win as Anderson came home in third. Austin Self had steadily made his way through the field to finish in fourth after starting eighteenth while Evan Fink filled out the top five coming from a fifth row starting spot.

Surely the "yellow fever" had now been taken care of with that event as the thirty lap headliner for the Super Late Models rolled to the track?

Nope

The action was intense up front featuring Tommy Sheppard Jr., Daniel Adam, Jason Feger, Ryan Unzicker and late in the race Jake Little, and that was the only reason that I stayed in my seat rather than packing up and getting a head start on the two hour and ten minute drive home as, count 'em, ten cautions were needed in the first nineteen laps! I won't detail them all here in order to maintain the theme of our website, but perhaps the most significant one in regard to the outcome of the race came when Ryan Unzicker slowed to a halt on the front stretch while running second on lap thirteen.

Sheppard held the lead for the first two laps before the rim-riding Adam took over and on lap nine Feger charged into the lead exiting turn four. However, when he slid off the top of turn two, Feger would slip to fourth as Adam regained the point. Jason would battle back through the multiple restarts and he would go back to the lead with eleven to go and mercifully those final eleven laps would stay green as the new track record holder would add the feature win to his list of accomplishments for the evening. Daniel Adam showed that he is an up and coming star in this sport with his runner-up effort, Sheppard finished third with Jake Little, who at one time had moved to second, finishing fourth. Rich Bell ran a consistent race to move from twelfth to fifth.

As soon as the checkered flag waved over this one I, as well as many others in the stands, decided to call it a night and perhaps you will understand why as I give you how the time schedule played out for the evening:

Hot laps scheduled for 6:30, started at 7:05

Racing scheduled for 7:30, started at 8:23 with the first of three ten lap heat races for the 13-car field of Pro Late Models

Heats ended at 9:29

Features started at 9:41

Checkered flag for the Late Models waved at 11:15

I'll give the new promoter a pass for getting started late as that can happen to just about anybody on opening night when track registrations are needed and that first Driver's Meeting of the year can take some extra time. I will, however, scold whoever had the bright idea of running three ten lap heat races for the thirteen cars in the Pro Late Model class. Unless your sanctioning body requires you to do something different, there is no reason to run three heat races in any class until you get to twenty-one cars. And, if you are qualifying and then starting straight up by times, there is no reason to run ten laps either. And that goes for any class! Even the World of Outlaws Late Models and the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series only run eight lap heat races at their events.

Beyond that, the rest of the late evening falls on the shoulders of the drivers and again, perhaps the fact that this was opening night and that they had to shake some rust off of their driving skills had something to do with it. But nineteen cautions in the feature races of your top three divisions? Come on guys, you have to do better than that or there won't be this type of money out there for you to compete for much longer. 

Earlier in the day on Facebook, someone had asked why the E-Mod feature would only be fifteen laps instead of twenty and a random responder said, "probably because it would usually be a demo derby and caution after caution. That would be my guess." Here's hoping that both the E-Mods and the Hornets ran their feature races won by Kevin Morrow and Kenny Butterfield relatively caution free to put a little egg on the face of that commenter, otherwise this would have turned out to be a "two day" event to start the season.

Next up on the schedule here at Spoon River is a Wednesday May 8th visit by the Castrol FloRacing Night in America series that will feature the best of the best in Super Late Model racing. Then the next weekly show will be run on Friday May 17th and, just like any other racing program, both the drivers and the fans will need to show their support in order to make it a success. And I hope it is, because I absolutely love to watch the racing here at the Spoon River Speedway.

Next up on my schedule is the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders joining the always exciting weekly program at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton on Sunday night. Then, on Monday May 6th, I plan on being at the Independence Motor Speedway for the debut of the IMCA Modified Summer Challenge Series. Hope to see you soon, somewhere out there on the Back Stretch!

Wednesday Notebook; April 24, 2024

A couple of quick thoughts on this beautiful Wednesday where my readers in Iowa should be thinking about attending the races tonight at either the Stuart Speedway or the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. If I didn't have another obligation you can bet that I would be at one of those tracks tonight, especially given the stormy forecast for the weekend ahead!

I was watching the High Limit Sprint Cars on FloRacing last night and it was great to see a standing room only crowd at the Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis, Arkansas. Affectionately known as "The Ditch" the track seems to have a mixture of the "new" and the "old". Drone shots showed what looked like some very nice high rise bleachers that were completely full of race fans, I will count those as the "new", while the track's catch fencing seemed to be rather primitive as proven by a section of it being rolled up and landing on the track with Tim Crawley's flip and the fact that it offered up little, if any resistance when Brian Bell left the ballpark. I guess the good thing about the fencing though was that it was quickly repaired by just rolling out some more and fastening it to the existing structures.

During the repair process I couldn't help to think that Kasey Kahne was looking at it as if to wonder what, if anything that fence would be able to hold in.

As usual when I try to watch live dirt racing on TV, I fell asleep shortly after the restart and woke up just in time for Corey Day to celebrate in victory lane. But before that something really caught my attention. During that red flag period it was announced that all restarts for the rest of the night would be single file and that was met by a pretty generous chorus of boos from the patient crowd. Usually the High Limit Series has complete double file restarts during the feature race using the "choose cone", or whatever the current sponsor of it has it dubbed, where just before the restart the drivers approach the cone single file and then "choose" which line they will restart in by driving below it or above it. This was one of "new" features that the series introduced last season, however it has been a method that has been used on the paved short tracks for many years now.

Often on the paved tracks, the favored line will distinctly be the bottom so you will often see both the leader and the second place driver choose the inside for the restart. The third place driver then has to make a quick decision to either stay low and start behind the top two cars, or move to the outside and start next to the leader knowing that he or she may have a hard time getting back into the favored groove before losing positions beyond third. It adds a whole new level of intrigue to restarts, and keeps the field bunched together for more action, which is the reason why most tracks and organizations choose to have double-file restarts, right?

So why did the High Limit officials make this call to abandon the choose cone at Riverside? It didn't look like the track had locked down so early in the feature and, even if it had, isn't that the reason why you have the "choose cone" in the first place? Perhaps after a pair of fence ripping crashes in the first couple of laps they felt like it was unsafe to put cars two wide for a restart? If that is the case, that doesn't bode well for a return to "The Ditch" despite what looked like a huge success from a promotional standpoint.

The second item that caught my eye today was on Facebook where the Spoon River Speedway was promoting its season opener for this coming Friday night with a photo showing the purse structure for each of the five divisions. For those of you who do not know this yet, the track that is south of Canton, Illinois, has a new promoter for 2024 and he has posted some mind blowing payoffs for a weekly show: $2,000-to-win and $250-to-start for Super Late Models, $1,500-to-win and $150-to-start for UMP Modifieds, $1,000-to-win and $100-to-start for Crate Late Models, $600-to-win and $125-to-start for E-Mods and $300-to-win and $75-to-start for Hornets. With a full field of 20 cars in each class the total payout will be $29,750 which is unheard of for a weekly purse unless you are at Knoxville and if I didn't have my Class of '81 Golf Trip this week, I would be there this Friday. Instead I will try to make the trip next week on May 3rd to check it out.

Anyway, in the comments, a Crate Late Model racer stated, "We will be there if we can run both Late Model classes with our Pro Late Model". Sorry, but that just struck me as a bit demanding and presumptuous. Yes, I have seen tracks where the car count in the Super Late Models are so small that they go ahead and allow the Crate cars to race with them. In fact, there is a track in Texas that has been doing that every Saturday night so far in 2024. Perhaps that is where this driver came up with that notion, but with that purse does he really think that the car count will be short in the Supers? Staying with his same way of thinking, shouldn't the E-Mods demand to be allowed to use their same car and race with the UMP Modifieds. Why shouldn't they get to collect two purse checks after only paying for one pit pass as well?

Ah, you have to love social media where some really smart people can say some really dumb stuff.

That's all for today, I do hope that I can get a race in this Sunday night on my way home from our golf weekend. I am aiming for either the MARS Late Model race at the East Moline Speedway or the season opener at the Adams County IL Speedway in Quincy. Perhaps I will see you there!

Spectacular Opening Night At Vinton

After a couple of days of bitterly cold weather for April, the temperature was on the rise. The wind was still brisk, but it was out of the right direction for the fans in the stands. The track that had taken on quite a bit of rain over the past week held up nicely throughout the evening. And with the one good reason for starting a few minutes late, haulers still backed up at the pit gate resulting in a solid count of 109 race cars with the numbers spread fairly evenly across the six divisions, the one last ingredient that was needed for a spectacular opening night at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton was some exciting racing action and the drivers delivered in fine fashion!

This would also be the 2024 opener for the PRO Late Model Tour, now in its second season under the leadership of Brandon Davis, and with five of the eighteen events on the schedule here in Vinton you could say that this is the "home track" for the series. We were here last year when the Tour made its debut with only ten cars on hand and we were a bit skeptical about its future, however interest grew as the year went on and that momentum continues as on this nigh a stout field of twenty-two drivers were on hand looking for the $1,250 top prize.

National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member Jeff Aikey would draw the pole for the twenty-five lap main event and he would slide up in front of Nick Marolf in turns one and two to take the point. Third starting Dylan Thornton would soon move to second and the chase was on with the up and coming Late Model rookie pursuing the wily veteran. A pair of spins by T.J. Fortmann would slow the field on laps seven and eight and once back to green Thornton would start to show his nose under Aikey, especially in turns one and two.

The young native Californian would eventually pull even with the leader only to have Aikey use the momentum off the high line to regain the advantage going down the back stretch before the caution waved again when Bobby Hansen's #9 went up in smoke with nine laps remaining. Despite his efforts showing promise down low, Thornton chose to start from the outside of the first double row for the restart and that would allow J.D. Auringer to now race him side-by-side for second as Aikey started to pull away. The caution would fly again with just one more lap in the books when Lance Mish and Zach Less tangled in turn two and on this realignment Thornton made the right call by taking the inside position.

Parts of the nose piece off of the #20 of Less would negate the first restart, but once back to green Thornton would go right back to pressuring the leader, now pulling even in turns one and two and nearly staying that way heading down the back stretch, gaining a bit more ground with each lap. On the twenty-first circuit the two were even entering turn three and after driving in deep, Thornton would slide up in front of Aikey to take the lead as the always enthusiastic crowd at Vinton went nuts.

The lap was completed before Sam Halstead's spin in turn four brought out one final caution and Aikey quickly pulled alongside Thornton to express his feelings about the pass for the lead. As the field was reset for the final four laps, Aikey picked the high side and he would slip to fourth in turns one and two as both Auringer and Andy Eckrich would get by him. Auringer would then stay within striking distance, but there would be no stopping Thornton who would park the Brenda Kay owned #38T in victory lane for the second night in a row after also winning in Independence on Saturday. Aikey would get by Eckrich on the final lap to salvage third while Nick Marolf would complete the top five. 

Dylan Thonton's #38T in preparation for the night ahead

The PRO Late Model feature was preceded by a couple of appetizers featuring the Sport Compacts and the Sport Mods for twelve and fifteen laps respectively. Pole-sitter Jake Anderson would set the early pace in the feature for the four cylinders and by hugging the bottom he was able to ward off Lukas Rick for the first four laps. However, as soon as he opened the door just a bit, Rick came charging through and despite hearing his motor stumble on several occasions going down the front stretch, Lukas would drive on to victory. Anderson would hold off Cristian Grady for second, Spencer Roggentien would move from tenth to fourth as Stephen Randall finished off the top five.

After his wife made the suggestion just before noon that they should load up the car and make the trip from Muscatine to Vinton, Shane Paris made that a great decision as he went flag-to-flag for the feature win with the IMCA Northern Sport Mods. In an event that was slowed by just two cautions, the race to watch was for second as the Olson cousins duked it out with Tony prevailing over Kyle in the final lap. Brady Hilmer finished fourth while Rayce Mullen was fifth.

Twenty laps of IMCA Stock Car action would then follow the Late Models and this was a good one throughout. Gage Neal had started to the outside of Dustin Griffiths and it would be Neal who would get the early advantage and then glue it down to the bottom as that quickly became the preferred line for most of the eighteen car field. Griffiths would stalk the leader until lap twelve when he was able to squeeze under Neal for the point. Meanwhile, behind them a pair of drivers who had started from eighth and ninth respectively were searching for another line higher up the banking and that allowed John Oliver Jr. and Kaden Reynolds to make their way toward the front.

A caution for Tonia Stevens' spin in turn two would set up a five lap dash to the finish with Griffiths appearing to still be in control of the race on the first lap after the restart. However, as he exited turn two on lap seventeen the driver who had made the long tow in from Ottumwa suddenly slowed and made the left hand turn into the infield handing the lead over to Oliver. Kyle Olson, who had started tenth, was now in the mix as well as he was riding the cushion and with Reynolds challenging to his inside, Oliver had the dilemma of which lane to run in to try to get to the checkers first. Something in the middle had been working for him throughout the race anyway, so that is where he stayed and after the white flag waved Reynolds was able to find the bite that he needed off the bottom of turn two to take the lead and the win on the final lap. And once again, the Sunday night crowd was buzzing at the Bullring! Oliver would hold off Olson for second, Jay Schmidt finished fourth as Neal wrapped up the top five.

It would be hard to top those two last two features, but the IMCA Modifieds were up to the task in their twenty lap headliner with Troy Cordes holding the early lead. Dallon Murty was on the move though coming from sixth and he would use the cushion on both ends of the speedway to sail past Cordes on lap five. At the tail end of the field on that lap Jeff Aikey had slowed suddenly on the front stretch with mechanical issues sending both Stephen Streeter and Jeff Sampson scrambling to avoid heavy contact. For Streeter, his best option was grinding up against the front stretch wall and his car would then require the hook with damage on the right front.

Sampson's spin in turn four would pull a caution mid-race and then one final caution would wave with five laps remaining when Chris Snyder clobbered the infield tire in turn one. On this restart Tim Ward would pick up on his challenge to Murty's lead while behind them drivers would fan out five-wide going down the back stretch in the battle for third, fourth, fifth and sixth! Ward would pull even with the leader on the back stretch three times over those final laps, but Dallon's high side momentum off of turn four would allow him to maintain the lead and take the victory in another thriller. Ward, who had started from eighth, would be a close second with Cordes in third while Modified rookie Ben Chapman made an impressive run coming from fifteenth to fourth after missing his heat race earlier in the evening. Patrick Flannagan would finish where he started in fifth.

The sun was just starting to set as the Hobby Stocks came to the quarter-mile oval for the final feature of the night and for those who made an early exit, you missed a good one as this fifteen lapper would come down to two drivers who, combined, had already captured nine feature wins on this young season. Pole-sitter Joren Fisher would lead the opening circuit before being overtaken by the driver who had started sixth, Bradly Graham. Cautions on lap two and lap five would keep the field bunched and also allowed the ninth starting Nathan Ballard to methodically work his way toward the front.

Once back to green the final ten laps would click off quickly with Graham stretching out his advantage as Ballard had to work to get by Justin Wacha for second. By the time that he was there Ballard was nearly a full straightaway back from the lead and when James Pilkington spun in turn four with three laps remaining it looked like that lead would be wiped out by a caution.

Pilkington kept his car going though and rejoined the race just ahead of the final car on the lead lap, Michael Cheney. As the white flag waved Graham was patient working his way past Cheney in turns one and two allowing Ballard to close the gap and then, when entering turn three, the leader followed Pilkington to the cushion and had to check up to get below him and that was all that Ballard needed to go charging by on the inside to score the unlikely victory, already his seventh at four different tracks in 2024. Graham had to be a bit disgruntled as the runner-up as Wacha finished just behind him in third. Fisher slipped to fourth while Corey VanDerwilt filled out the top five.

Nathan Ballard (29) leads Joren Fisher (52) and Bradly Graham (2G) in heat race action

I was in no hurry to head for the exit, so I didn't check the time right away but I would guess that the final checkers had waved around 8:15. Very impressive considering that the scheduled start to hot laps at 4:30 had been delayed by about fifteen minutes due to the backup at the pit gate and they made up most of that lost time by not splitting the field up for hot laps where drivers were given just a green, white and checkers. I have been to tracks lately that would have taken the twenty-two car field of Late Models and split them up into three hot lap sessions. But not here at Vinton where promoters Rick and Corey Dripps know that an efficient, well presented program is the key to their success on Sunday nights.

As always we thank that father and son duo along with their entire staff for the hospitality and their efforts. And my good friend Ryan Clark sets the standard for what a great announcer is for a weekly race track. His connection with his hometown crowd (yes, he does now live in Des Moines, but he grew up here in Vinton) and his history of this great little bullring pulls you in and makes you feel like this is your Sunday night home as well, even if you do have to drive 102 miles to be there.

I am already looking forward to making that trip again in two weeks when the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders will join the Sunday night program in Vinton on May 5th. Before that, some non-racing activities will fill my schedule with my next projected event being the MARS Late Model show at the East Moline Speedway on Sunday April 28th.

It is warming up and it is time to go racing, get out to the track of your choice soon and bring a friend!

Wednesday Notebook: April 17, 2024

After spending most of last week out of state for my first business travel since February of 2020, I am finally caught up enough to pull out the Notebook for this entry on the Back Stretch. 

With my flight landing at the Quad Cities airport just before 6 p.m. on Friday, I hustled over to the Davenport Speedway for the season opener and the promotional debut of Jeff Struck Jr. It was what I would call an "unofficial" visit since I had set a personal curfew of 9:45 to make sure that I could stay awake for the drive home. Had the whole show been completed, yes I would have written a recap and when the first of six feature races came to the track shortly after eight o'clock I thought that we had a chance. However, that was quickly erased when the Street Stocks had six cautions in the first eight laps.

The car count in that division was bolstered by some long distance travelers that I assume were there in support of Struck who has raced in this division for the past several years and who has even found some success when he towed east to compete in some higher paying specials. Indiana visitors Kyle Anderson and Braiden Keller were involved in two of those early cautions with Keller's coming after he slipped off the back stretch after leading the first three laps.

The final seven laps would run under the green and it would be a slider by Nick Slepak on Nick Hixson on that final restart that would decide the race. Slepak, who had made the 140 mile tow in from Coal City, Illinois, would celebrate the win over Landen Chrestensen while another traveler, Kraig Hughes from Ottawa, Illinois, would finish in third.

After winning Thursday's show at Marshalltown, Nathan Ballard kept his early season hot streak intact here at Davenport passing Daniel Wauters on lap four to win the Hobby Stock main event. This division is new to Davenport for 2024 having replaced the IMCA Stock Cars on the weekly card and the opening night count was solid with sixteen on hand. This would be Ballard's sixth win already in 2024 after taking two each at Memphis and Bloomfield prior to last weekend's success.

Logan Veloz drew the front row for the Sport Mod feature and he would lead a race flag-to-flag that was slowed by just two cautions despite there being twenty-nine cars on the track! North Dakota visitor Robby Rosselli started twelfth and finished in fourth.

Only seven Sport Compacts had signed in so they would run a feature only on this night and I could hear them buzz to life as I climbed into my car just a couple of minutes before my self-imposed curfew. A couple of things that caught my eye as I reviewed the results the next morning was the fact that Mitch Morris had completed a clean sweep winning both his heat race and the main event in his first night racing an IMCA Late Model. And it was good to see that Ben Chapman was able to work his way forward from a ninth row starting spot to finish fifth in the IMCA Modified feature. It is rare today to see drivers who are enjoying a good deal of success in the Sport Mods or B-Mod class that take the step up to the Modifieds or Late Models. It will not surprise me to to see Ben in victory lane in his new division soon!

When I saw Jeff Terhune the following night he told me that additional cautions had pushed the final checkers to nearly an hour after my departure and, given the need for several pieces of bubble gum and some loud music to get me home safely, I am glad that I left when I did. All in all it had to be a good first night for Struck though as a very nice crowd was on hand and the pits were full of more than 120 race cars.

On Saturday night the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders kicked off their 2024 season at 34 Raceway west of Burlington and other than a stiff wind blowing in from over turn three, it was a pretty nice mid-April evening for racing. The car count was phenomenal with 35 drivers in attendance and when there are even names that my announcing partner Bill Wright doesn't even recognize, well then that's a treat! As I usually do with the Invader shows, I left the Notebook in the car in lieu of the clipboard that we keep all of the sponsors for both the series and the drivers on, so for the story and full results of Paul Nienhiser's victory, click here.

The Invaders have made a big change in their lineup procedure as for the first time in more than twenty-years the Dash will no longer be the "Shake Up" where the winner draws one of six pills to determine his or her starting position for the feature. As it has been for the past few seasons, the Dash is still made up of the heat race winners plus the top three in passing points (or four if there were four heats contested as there was this past Saturday) and in the recent past they would then lineup with the highest amount of passing points starting from the pole. That has changed now where the qualified drivers will now draw for the starting lineup in the Dash, so there is still a level of luck involved.

Nienhiser had drawn a seventh starting spot in his heat race where he raced his way up to second and he then drew the #1 pill for the Dash that he easily won to earn the pole for the twenty-five lap A-Main. Defending series champion Ryan Bunton made one good charge to the inside of turns one and two on an early restart, but after that Paul would use that line for the rest of the night to drive Scott Bonar's Midland Performance #50 to victory lane.

Surprise entrant Sterling Cling finished in second. The Arizona native was a two-time winner in 2023 racing without the wing in Indiana, but appears to be focusing on winged racing this season after getting an early start with Speedweeks in Florida. Hopefully we will see him again with the Invaders this season. Miles Paulus finished third in his #98. The Missouri driver has raced with the Invaders before, but as a hired hand, so after this strong start perhaps we will see more of him as well. The name that Bill W didn't recognize was Aaron Rixmann from Coulterville, Illinois. A search on the name shows that the high school senior is also a talented baseball pitcher for nearby Pinckneyville, so hopefully the scheduling conflicts will be few through the remainder of the spring season so that Rixmann can perhaps make a Rookie-of-the-Year run after making the show and finishing 19th. 

Other names that this announcer didn't expect included Wisconsin drivers TJ.Haddy and Eric Wilke as well as South Dakota visitors Clint and Cole Garner and Kaleb Johnson. Among the Sprint Invader stalwarts, young Colton Fisher is now driving for veteran car owner Jimmy Davies in the black #99 and while they were disappointed with a 15th-place finish in the opener, look for that combo to be challenging for wins as the season goes on. The next event for the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders will be a May 5th stop at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton.

Other winners at 34 from Saturday included Brian Tipps in the Mini Haulers, Josh Barnes in the Sport Compacts and Spencer Diercks in the IMCA Modifieds.

I watched the High Limit Sprint Car event from the Red Dirt Speedway in Meeker, Oklahoma, last night and the racing was fantastic with young Corey Day taking the victory after passing series point leader Tyler Courtney. This is a small facility just east of Oklahoma City and before the growth of live streaming, this facility would not have had the capacity to host an event of this magnitude. However, with sponsorship and the revenue produced online, it gave the place the opportunity to show just what kind of action that it has to offer each and every race night. There are a lot of tracks out there who, up until this era, just didn't have the seating capacity to host a national event, but would be a great place to shine if given the opportunity. What track would you feel fits that description?

One of the most anticipated debuts in a Sprint Car will come on Wednesday May 1st, when Jake Neuman's team will have a car wrapped with a #B5 for Late Model champion Brandon Sheppard. Talk about going all in, B-Shepp will be racing against the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars in that debut, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Pretty cool that he is doing it, and just remember as you look as his results, remember he is racing against some of the best in the business!

We are having some typical up and down April weather this week here in southeast Iowa with warm air clashing with incoming cooler air on Tuesday to spawn a couple of tornadoes not far from my home in Mount Pleasant. Thankfully no injuries have been reported , but several people are cleaning up from the damages and that was cited as one of the reasons why this weekend's Slocum 50 has been postponed at 34 Raceway. While Friday's Prelude has been canceled, the new date for the Slocum 50 will be announced once the track and the MLRA can find one that works for all. This Thursday's MLRA event at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton has been moved to Thursday September 12th.

I had been planning on being at 34, but with the change hopefully I can make it down to the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson on Friday night for the opener of their Spring Hooray doubleheader and then on Sunday night I will be looking to make the trip up to Vinton for the season opener at the Benton County Speedway.

Hope to see you on the Back Stretch!