No Frost, But Plenty of Wind at 34 Raceway

With temperatures approaching sixty degrees under bright sunshine one would have thought that it would have been a perfect night for the 1st Annual Frostbuster at 34 Raceway near Burlington. Just one problem though and that was the twenty-five to thirty mile per hour sustained wind that had quite a chill to it, especially when that sun went down. Lucky for the fans in the stands that wind was at their backs allowing them to enjoy a dust free night of action as the track opened its 2009 season. Those in the pit area were not so lucky!

A solid field of twenty-three IMCA Modifieds were on hand and their feature race was first on the docket. Pole-sitter Kevin Goben paced the first lap before yielding to Josh Foster on lap two. Lonne Heap, who made the trip down to West Plains a couple of weeks ago to compete in the three day Justin Stanfill Memorial, looked as if he had a few nights under his belt already as he drove past Foster for the top spot on lap five. The early laps of this race were littered with cautions and when the field finally settled into some green flag action Foster was able to drive past Heap once again on lap seven. With the laps winding down Heap was still within striking distance, but he now had to deal with a hard charging Scott Hogan who had raced his way forward from a sixth row starting spot. Hogan passed Heap coming to the white flag, but he was now too far back to pressure the leader as Foster cruised in for the opening night victory. Hogan and Heap were next in line with Dusty Kraklio and Adam Birck completing the top five.

Josh Foster preps the #77 for a winning night at 34 Raceway

Scott Hogan started twelfth and finished second Saturday at 34 Raceway

The IMCA Stock Cars were up next and they put on quite a show with more side-by-side action and fewer cautions than the race before them. This turned out to be a two-car battle for the win as John Oliver Jr. led the first half of the event before giving way to Jason Cook. With Cook hugging the bottom and Oliver running the middle groove the two drivers crossed the line twice late in the race in a virtual dead heat. With two laps remaining Cook hit his marks perfectly and established enough of a lead to take the checkers by just over a car length in front of Oliver. Abe Huls was right there behind them in third waiting for the leaders to make a mistake, while Jim Redman finished fourth and Darin Thye passed Jeff Mueller on the final circuit to take fifth.

Jason Cook (27J) picked up the IMCA Stock Car win while teammate Nick Fenton (17N) had a tough night.



When pole-sitter Marty Stephenson charged into turn one too hard and went over the top of the bank, Bobby Mincer went from third to first on lap one on his way to a flag-to-flag victory in the 305 Sprint Car division. Josh Schneiderman chased Mincer throughout the twenty lap distance and finished second with Rob Kubli, Donnie Steward and Jayson Dittsworth completing the top five.

Dean Kratzer and Tanner Thomann both have nice shiny Hobby Stocks with bodies that are yet to have a dent on them and despite a side-by-side battle for the lead over the final laps, both cars still look "showroom new". At the drop of the green Kratzer watched the front two rows drift high in turns one and two allowing Dean to go from the fifth starting place to the point down the backstretch. Thomann kept pace with Kratzer and on the final three laps Tanner decided to give the top groove a try. It nearly paid off as he was able to pull even with Kratzer on two occasions, but could not complete the pass as Kratzer pulled out the exciting victory. Young Derek St. Clair was a consistent third followed by Doug Fenton and Tony Witte.

The third place car of Derek St. Clair

With raindrops starting to fall the Four-Cylinders hit the track and put on a good race to close out the evening. Travis Yakle passed race-long leader Bill Whalen Jr. with four laps to go and then fought off a late bid by Whalen to earn the victory. Chuck Fullenkamp followed Whalen Jr. in for third with Geoffrey Theobald and Jeremy Sloan next in line.

The high winds and cool temps made this a tough night at the races and with two big special events coming up at 34 Raceway the next two weeks here's hoping that the weather turns for the better soon. This Saturday, April 11th, the Deery Brothers Summer Series for IMCA Late Models will kick off their 2009 campaign here with the Slocum 50 in memory of the late Brent Slocum. Then, on Friday & Saturday April 17th and 18th, 34 Raceway will host the Sebastian Sandblasting Sprint Nationals featuring the 360 c.i. sprints of the Ideal Ready Mix Sprint Invaders as well as the track's 305 c.i. Sprint Car division. The Brian Hetrick Memorial will be part of this big two-day event that should draw a solid field of sprint cars in each division.

Check back mid-week for the first set of the All Iowa Points found on the "Points" tab at www.PositivelyRacing .com. Thanks for stopping by and checking us out. We'll see you on the Back Stretch.