The Deery Brothers Summer Series and the Hawkeye Dirt Tour suffered their second straight Tuesday night rainout in June last night after nagging light precipitation all day forced a postponement at Tipton. I may be wrong, but I am betting that it wasn't because the facility was too wet to hold a race, but rather the fact that the day's gloomy weather would have put a serious hit on both the car count and the fan count. It was a smart move by first year promoters Rodney and Debbie Ohrt. If I were in their shoes I would have done exactly the same thing as under conditions like this the only entity that was going to make any money last night if the race were to be run would have been XSAN. The intent is to find a new date for the dynamic doubleheader at the Cedar County Raceway and I do hope that it fits into my schedule!
Speaking of XSAN, it looks like they have a new competitor on the scene in Speed Shift TV who started out with events at 141 Speedway in Wisconsin and from the Marshalltown Speedway leading me to believe that Toby Kruse has an interest in this effort. Tonight for just fifteen dollars you can stay at home and watch the action live from the Buena Vista Raceway in Alta no matter if you live two, twenty, two hundred or two thousand miles from the track. What a bargain!
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| Jerrod Niemann |
Late Models at Osky though do win out over Chris Young on Thursday night as well as Friday night over, believe it or not, Toby Keith. Something tells me that the crowd at Steamboat Days on Friday will be huge and I would prefer to avoid that, but I do hope that I will be amongst 1,500 or more of my racing friends watching the MLRA Late Models at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson instead.
My lovely wife Christine and I spent a nice three-day weekend in downtown Chicago to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this past weekend. You won't see Chris with me at the races very often as it just isn't her "thing", but she is truly a sweetheart to know that it is mine and that is why you do see me at the track probably more often than I should be. I have included a couple of pictures from our weekend here where the weather was absolutely gorgeous on Saturday in stark comparison to the rains that fell that day on most of Iowa.
It may look as though "The Donald" has the same policy on his tower as we do in our backyard pool, but what you don't see is that the "P" was sitting on the ground and being prepped to be hoisted into position soon. We also made our way to the Billy Goat Tavern made famous by the sketch on Saturday Night Live featuring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. While looking for that clip to link here I came across this brief one that shows the actual guy who was working the grill on Saturday who greeted Christine with, "Lady, no need to look at menu, double cheezborger the best.....you want double cheezborger."
And for those of you who might have a more eclectic taste for cuisine we highly recommend our favorite place to eat in Chicago, The Purple Pig.
I have been to the Quincy Raceways twice so far in the 2014 season and on both occasions I knew that I would have to be up and on the road early the next morning so a full-fledged Back Stretch report would not be possible. Last Thursday night the track hosted the POWRi Midgets and the Winged Micro Sprints for the first time as the opening night for the Illinois Midget Speedweek. A fantastic field of 35 Midgets and 39 Micros filled the pits and a very solid crowd for a Thursday was on hand. The racing was very good with Californian Darren Hagen and Oklahoma's Frank Flud taking feature wins and here's hoping that promoter Kenny Dobson and crew ink more shows with POWRi in the future as I love watching the midgets, but usually have to drive more than two hours to do so.
I love it when a driver just shows up out of the blue somewhere leaving fans to wonder why he made the trip. For example, Justin Temeyer of Independence made a nice top-five run at Oskaloosa in his Stock Car about a month ago and announcer Tony Paris shared that his reason for being there that night was because he was on his way home from picking up the car in Hays, Kansas. A few weeks ago San Antonio, Texas, Late Model driver Allen Murray was a surprise entrant at Quincy's 40th Anniversary event and he had a nice seventh-place run. And this past Sunday night I see that Kyle Schmauss pulled his IMCA Hobby Stock all the way from Eagle Grove to Dubuque to finish third in the feature event. with Quincy being cancelled due to wet grounds on Sunday, current All Iowa Points leader Austen Becerra made the trip up to East Moline with his Four Cylinder where he finished fourth in the main event.
Our webmistress Sue will soon be updating the All Iowa Points through June 8th and it will show that Becerra contimues to hold a solid lead over two-time (2009 and 2010) Four Cylinder champion Nate Coopman and extra trips like the one to the Quad City Speedway will likely lead to Austen's first title. In the Late Models will it be deja vu for Todd Cooney as he tries to corral his first All Iowa Points title? Just like last year Cooney holds a solid lead over Justin Kay, but since Todd's weekly shows at Des Moines and Webster City shut down early, Justin has a good chance at overtaking him again to win his second straight state championship.
It looks to be a two horse race in the Modifieds where Jesse Sobbing and Chris Abelson both have already posted twenty-five top-five finishes. Sobbing is looking for his fifth straight All Iowa Points title over two divisions while Abelson is seeking his first. The battle for the top in both the Stock Cars and the Limited Modified divisions should be fun to follow along with as nobody has broken away from the pack like we see in some of the other divisions. Just six points sepearate the top six drivers in the Stock Cars; Derek Green, Damon Murty, Brian Blessington, Jay Schmidt, Donavon Smith and Mike Nichols. And in the Limited Modifieds the top four Tony Dunker, Ben Kates, Clint Luellen and defending champion Carter VanDenBerg are separated by just three points.
Shannon Anderson continues to cut into the lead of Dustin Griffiths in the Hobby Stock standings as it is down to five points while Dan Keltner is 25 points better than Charlie Brown in the Mod Lite division. The battle for the top in all three Sprint Car divisions are still developing as Craig Dollansky, Jon Agan and Clint Benson set the pace.
The UMP Summer Nationals "Hell Tour" kicks off tonight at the Brownstown Speedway in Indiana (Note: Brownstown was rained out, they will try to start up again Thursday at Kankakee) and both Barry and I are looking forward to making the trip up to Farley when the Tour rolls into town on Tuesday the 17th. I hope to catch up with it again two more times at Peoria and at 34 Raceway before it comes to an end. The Thursday date at Quincy unfortunately coincides with night one of a doubleheader for the Brockway Mechanical and Roofing Sprint Invaders as they will be at the Lee County Speedway on Thursday June 19th and the following night at the Mountain Dew Bloomfield Speedway. Thursday's show in Donnellson will include the Hawkeye Dirt Tour for the IMCA Modifieds.
That's it for now, the sun is back out in southeast Iowa and the forecast is looking good for the MLRA double header at Osky and Lee County where I hope that you will see me on the Back Stretch. But for now, this dirty old man will leave you with one more glimpse of what I will be watching tonight :)
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