"Wind from the east, not fit for man nor beast." Track announcer Jerry Mackey was already feeling a bit under the weather going into Saturday night's weekly opener at the West Liberty Raceway and a cold, damp sustained wind of over twenty miles an hour out of the east did nothing to help that as he described the action from the tall infield tower. Despite the strong wind though, track conditions were nearly perfect as drivers could race high, low and in between around the sweeping half-mile.
Chad Simpson drove the Steve Diercks owned car #30 at a pair of season ending specials in 2013 and that obviously went well as tonight the car was lettered up with Simpson's traditional #25 and, along with Diercks' strong set of sponsors, Chad's top supporter Liebe Trucking was on the side as well signalling that we will be seeing more of the driver from Marion in IMCA spec-engine Late Model events in 2014. As the track's first point race of the season the format was draw/re-draw and with Simpson pulling the number two it was likely that tonight's 25-lap feature was going to be a race for second.
It was.
As Simpson opened up a solid margin Andy Eckrich quickly moved from fifth to second and tried to maintain the fast pace. A caution for a slowing Nick Marolf on lap seven and another for Johnny Spaw's blown engine on lap ten brought the field back to Simpson and while Eckrich was able to take one look to the inside of the leader following that second restart, there was nobody that was going to pass him on this night. For Simpson it was a treat to race in front of family and friends so close to his Marion home and he thanked Steve Diercks and his crew from victory lane for giving him this opportunity. Eckrich, who won $2,000 the night before at Farley's Tri-Track Challenge, closed out a good weekend with a strong second. Colby Springsteen who won the Deery series event here two weeks ago continued to impress by running third. Brian Harris shook off the bugs that have hampered his team in the early going this season with a solid fourth place run and pole starter Nate Beuseling held on for the fifth spot.
The IMCA Modified field was twenty-one strong as Mike Weikert Jr. established the pace early in the twenty-lap main event. Kurt Kile had started eighth and was on the fly working the top side of the speedway and he drove around Weikert in turn one to take the lead on lap five. Jonathan Huston's contact with the turn four wall brought about the event's only caution and on the restart Cayden Carter made a big move around the top to climb to the third position. Carter's run leveled out from there though and it was Chris Zogg who would gradually pick away at Kile's lead over the closing laps. Entering turn three for the final time Kile had to be patient with a lapped car and Zogg made one last valiant effort, but he would come up just a couple of car-lengths short at the checkers as Kile scored the popular win. Zogg is looking like one of the most improved drivers in the region right now as he posted his third runner-up finish of the young season while Cayden Carter came from the eleventh starting spot to finish third. After taking a year off Larry Herring is back and running strong as he started next to Zogg in the fifth row and finished fourth and Dakota Hayden filled out the top five.
The IMCA Stock Car feature looked to be a ho-hum affair until a caution with two laps remaining set us up for some fireworks at the end. Brandon Jay would use his pole position start to take the early lead as David Brandies quickly moved from his third row start to second. Brandies was the class of the field and he drove past Jay on lap three to open up a big lead and with the field completely spread out I was about ready to start writing down the finish when Chris Hinrichs spun in turn three just before the white flag waved. Brandies, who had been coasting through the final laps, would now bring the field back to green and as he raced into turn three once again his motor let go in spectacular fashion sending out a huge billow of thick white smoke. The caution flag waved first for the lack of visibility and then for the opportunity to pick up the multitude of engine components left behind on the racing surface and the field was lined up two-by-two for the restart. Only six cars remained but what happened next is what you would typically see on a green-white-checkered restart on a NASCAR Superspeedway. Lane Kauffman and Shane Paris would shuffle Jay back to third at the drop of the green and as they came under the white flag Kauffman and Paris were in a virtual dead heat. They stayed side-by-side through one and two and down the backstretch entering turn three and coming off of turn four, but with the waiting checkered flag just teasing them, they suddenly could no longer run wheel-to-wheel without making major contact. As both leaders spun and Kauffman made hard contact without the outside wall, Brandon Jay was able to pick his way through the scramble and reach the checkereds first to score the improbable victory. Josh Woods and Duayne Herb also made it through while Hinrichs clipped Kauffman's car and could not make it to the stripe with heavy front end damage. Jay was your winner, but how the rest of the race was officially scored complete will remain to be seen.
Bobbie Lake passed Corey Sheetz on lap three and appeared to be headed to an easy victory in the IMCA Sport Compact main event until the caution waved for a Rick Hurlbut and Cody VanDusen get together in turn one with two laps remaining. On the restart Bill Whalen Jr. applied the pressure to Lake and entering turn three on the final lap Whalen made his move to the inside, but when Hurlbut spun again just under the flagstand the caution waved and the race was scored complete on lap nine as Lake celebrated his first career win. Whalen would settle for second, Jordan Walker was third, Sheetz finished fourth and Doug Watkins took fifth.
The IMCA Sport Mods are new to the West Liberty Raceway in 2014 and, as Mackey mentioned early in the evening, the class will go through some growing pains early on as five cars were on hand tonight. Tony Olson would take the win in his #T23 followed by Aric Becker, Charley Weber, Cody Harris and Ryan Pace. My unofficial observation is that the SportMod division is often the largest car count at other tracks these days and it will be interesting to see how steady the growth will be here at West Liberty.
It was great to spend a Saturday night at the track where I spent so many Saturday nights of my youth and I enjoyed sitting up top with several racing friends. As always thanks to promoter Keith Simmons and his staff including Kevin & Carey Feller and Doug Haack for their hospitality and I really appreciated the plug that Jerry Mackey gave to Positively Racing considering that he had no idea that I was even there!
I am closely watching the weather here on this Sunday morning to see who has the best chance of beating the rain tonight. Will it be Vinton? East Moline? Quincy? Or will it be a rare late Sunday afternoon event at the Fairbury American Legion Speedway? Here's hoping that you find me on a Back Stretch somewhere this evening!
No comments:
Post a Comment