Payne and Clark Take Checkers at MLRA/Lucas Oil Speedway Opener

After persistent rain for the two days prior, it took some extra time to get the 3/8th-mile oval at the Lucas Oil Speedway to pack in Saturday night for the track’s 2009 season opener that included the lid lifter for the O’Reilly Auto Parts MLRA Late Models. It was worth the wait though as the result was a track that yielded racing grooves from top to bottom for the 101 cars that showed up in two divisions. And for the second year in a row it was the young native Arizonan who now calls Springfield Missouri home, Jeremy Payne, walking away with the top prize.

Just a few years back the future of the MLRA, one of the longest running regional Late Model series in the country, looked a bit uncertain, but with fifty-one cars on hand tonight including drivers from a wide geographical area it is obvious that this series is set for a standout 2009 season. The driver roster tonight included hometowns stretching from Wichita to Omaha to east central Iowa to Quincy through southeast Missouri down to Texarkana and back to southwest Missouri. The fact that there are at least five drivers running for rookie of the year honors also confirms the strength of the series.

Tonight’s thirty-lap feature had Corning, Iowa, driver Bryant Goldsmith on the pole with Will Vaught on the outside. Vaught set a quick early pace as he, Goldsmith and the third starting Jeremy Payne began to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. Earlier in the night Payne had shown his strength by steadily working his way to the front to win the fourth heat race, and that same sense of dominance was evident again here in the feature. Jeremy drove past Goldsmith on lap four and he then went to work on Vaught making the pass for the lead on lap nine. The next lap Vaught tried to pull a slider on Payne in turns three and four, but the new leader didn’t flinch, held his line and maintained his advantage down the front stretch.

With Payne pulling away through lapped traffic, there were two great battles for the fans to focus on. Jack Sullivan had closed in on Vaught and they jockeyed back and forth for the remainder of the race for the second spot while a full straightaway behind them you had a multi car battle that included Alan Vaughn, Eric Turner, Al Purkey and Goldsmith. Plus in the final laps you could add Chad Simpson, Duke Whisenant and Terry Phillips to that mix. This pack was running high, low and in between proving that sometimes the battle for fourth is every bit worth the price of admission. At the finish it was Payne by a half a lap over Sullivan and Vaught. Eric Turner prevailed in the race for fourth while Purkey completed the top five.

The fifty-car Modified field had their issues tonight, but when the green flag could stay on display their racing was frantic as well. It took until the fourth try to get the first lap in on the scheduled twenty-lap feature and even on that one the whole field did not make it back to the green as four of the cars at the back skirmished in turn three. Gary Clark, who was missing most of his driver side body work after contact with pole sitter Jeff Cutshaw who spun in turn two on the first attempt at a start, took the lead on that first completed lap and then held it for the other nine green flag laps that were scored before the time limit expired. Johnny Fennewald was second and commented during the post-race interviews that the race was too short for him to make a run at Clark. Eric Turner started tenth and finished third, David Hendrix was fourth and defending track champion Jamie Ragland finished fifth.

While Fennewald had the chance to say it, the one driver who really had to hate seeing the event shortened was 2008 All Missouri Points champion Tim Setzer. Setzer had a bad draw at the gate and started in the back row of his heat race. He was able to race his way up to fifth putting him near the front of the second B-Main that he then won with ease. This put him eighteenth on the starting grid for the feature race and, when the field was under green, he was the one driver who had something working on the very bottom groove. When the checkers flew on lap ten Setzer was all the way up to sixth and was closing fast on Jamie Ragland.

(Note: When the official results came out on Sunday, Hendrix had been relegated to 24th in the feature rundown moving Ragland to fourth and Setzer to fifth)

Lucas Oil Notes…..The Late Model feature went thirty laps green to checkers although a caution would have been needed if it were to go one lap further. Bryant Goldsmith had a left rear tire cut down during some three-wide action with four laps to go and valiantly tried to preserve a top ten finish. On the final lap the tire shredded down the back stretch and he coasted to the high side of turn three as the rest of the field took the checkers…..Eric Turner started sixteenth in the Late Model main and proved what I have said a few times already this season. He will be one to watch in his Late Model rookie campaign around the Ozark region…..Purkey who has teamed up with Omaha driver Bill Koons was equally impressive as his fifth place finish started from the seventh row……Terry Phillips spun on the opening lap of his heat race and had to win the second B-Main to start eighteenth in the feature where he raced his way up to ninth (saw later that Phillips was DQ'd for a physical altercation in the pits after the race)……Chad Simpson, who won the WDRL opener last week in Davenport, started fifteenth and finished seventh. His brother Chris came from twentieth to tenth…..Duke Whisenant who finished eighth in the feature had a little run in with Tony Jackson Jr. in the second heat race. Race officials stopped both drivers on the frontstretch after the race to calm the situation…..Vaught used a slide job in turn four on the final lap to edge out Aaron Seabaugh in heat race number three. The two drivers thrilled the crowd by racing side by side nearly the entire ten lap distance……Rookie-of-the-Year candidates had a wide range of success on the night. Rylan Long and Jeremy Kelley both finished second in their respective heats with Long finishing twelfth and Kelley 19th. On the other end of the spectrum Zach Goulden suffered damage in an incident during hot laps that apparently affected his handling for the rest of the night as he spun out four times, including once under caution…..The Modifieds made it through their heat races in fine fashion, but things went downhill beginning with the two B-Mains. After spending my last two race nights at tracks that use the “one spin and your in” rule during heats and B-Mains I couldn’t help but think that this is something that the Lucas Oil Speedway should consider. On at least four occasions tonight drivers would either get sideways or get too high in turns one and two where there is no retaining wall and they would obviously just shut the car down to pull a caution. Why wouldn’t a driver do this? After all, on the restart they are allowed to start right on the back bumper of the next to last car. If they would have kept their car running, and recovered from their own miscue they might be a full straightaway behind that car. So, in essence, they are rewarded for causing a caution, a caution that delays the show and likely interrupts a pretty good battle somewhere near the front of the track. Can you tell that I think that all tracks should use the “spin you’re in” rule?…..There were eight caution flags over the first six laps of the Modified feature. The final four laps were run under the green and as luck would have it the field looked like they had gained a rhythm and may have been able to make it to twenty laps. Nobody could argue with the early appearance of the checkers though…..The Modified division always draws a stout field to Lucas Oil and you can bet that they will be back on their game when the regular season gets underway here on April 25th.

Duke Whisenant had a top ten finish, but also had run ins with both Tony Jackson Jr. and Terry Phillips.

Rylan Long was the top finishing MLRA Rookie-of-the Year contenders.

A special thanks to the staff and management at Lucas Oil Speedway for some of the best hospitality that we come across anywhere on our racing travels. Make sure that you mark your schedule for Friday and Saturday May 8th and 9th for the Super Clean Diamond Nationals featuring the cars and stars of the Lucas Oil Late Model Series. You can check out their entire schedule that is dotted with several exciting special events at http://www.lucasoilspeedway.com/.

This weekend we will look to pull of our first “triple” of 2009 as on Friday and Saturday we’ll be at 34 Raceway near Burlington for the Sebastian Sandblasting Sprint Nationals, then on Sunday night we’ll head south to the Quincy Raceway to catch the Deery Brothers Summer Series for IMCA Late Models. Hope to see you on the Back Stretch!