Twenty-three winged 410 Sprint Car drivers and a solid crowd decided that Quincy Raceways was the place to be on a bright, sunny and warm Sunday night as the Midwest Open Wheel Association (MOWA) Sprint Car series joined the track's five weekly divisions for action on the quarter-mile bullring.
The series uses a passing points system in the heat races followed by a dash between the top six point drivers to set the field for the main event and this produced some entertaining action during the three heats. Two of MOWA's top drivers, Jerrod Hull and A.J. Bruns started from the front row of the first heat and while Bruns was able to stay close, the current point leader Hull was able to go the distance for the win. The second heat race was full of drama including a late race incident that would later play a big part in determining who would later win the feature. Ryan Bunton and Chris Urish started near the front and were battling for the lead while the driver currently ranked second in points, Joey Moughan, and the young charger Paul Nienheiser were coming on strong from the back. Moughan would slow mid-race with mechanical issues that would end his evening while Nienheiser was now up to third with his sights set on more.
With Bunton and Urish riding the cushion, Nienheiser dove into turn one on the bottom and slid up the race track in turn two. And while he had easily cleared the second-place car of Urish, the leader Bunton was not so lucky and the two made contact at the exit of turn two. Neither car got upside down, but both needed a tow truck to go back to the pits where I am sure that the two drivers continued their discussion that remained calmer than expected while on the track. Urish would go on to take the win following the restart landing him in the Dash, and even bigger things to come later in the evening.
The third and final qualifying heat saw a pair of #47's swap the lead back and forth in entertaining fashion before Australian driver Trevor Reynolds secured the win over Brent Sammonds. Jerrod Hull then dominated the Dash as well to put him on the pole for the 25-lap main event and it was looking very likely that the driver from Sikeston, Missouri, would be favored to make it a clean sweep for the night. Even more so when it was learned that A.J. Bruns was forced to scratch after discovering motor issues following his third-place finish in the Dash.
As the field was pushing off for the main event Reynolds somehow ended up rolling his car off of the top of turn two even before all twenty cars had taken to the track. During the intermission we had noted that Reynolds' crew consisted of his wife who was carrying a baby in one arm while working on the car with her free hand and an adorable little two or three-year-old daughter who was "checking" tires, so Trevor obviously got some quick help from other crews in order to make it back out onto the speedway before the green flag waved.
Hull would go to the bottom and lead lap one while Urish went to the cushion and soon found it to be the fastest way around as he blew past Hull on the second lap. By the time that Hull gave up on the bottom Urish had opened up a full straightaway lead and, while Hull was now chasing the rabbit Urish, the driver to watch was Paul Nienheiser who was banging the cushion hard and coming to the front from his ninth starting spot. It didn't take long for Nienheiser to get up to third and while he was also a straightaway behind Hull, he was gaining fast.
It was interesting to see that while the top three cars were flying around the topside of the speedway, almost all of the rest of the drivers were racing down low and therefore lapped traffic was not much of an issue for the leader Urish. With the laps winding down Hull was gaining on Urish and Nienhesier was gaining on Hull and with just two laps remaining the two challengers were within striking distance. Well at least I thought that there were two laps to go based upon the scoreboard (scoreboards are not "official"), but instead the white flag waved and Hull made a last ditch run at Urish off the bottom of turn four coming to the checkers that came up just a car-length short as Urish scored the win. Nienheiser was right behind them in third and unofficially I had Springfield drivers Korey Weyant and Jim Moughan running fourth and fifth in the non-stop event that took less than seven minutes to complete. But a check of the results on Monday afternoon shows that Joe B. Miller finished in the fifth position.
With it being 9:20 on a Sunday night we reluctantly decided to skip the remaining five feature races and make the 85-mile trip back home, despite the fact that both UMP Late Models and Modifeds were on the card. Sprint Car fans will get another chance to enjoy some winged and wild action at Quincy Raceways on Sunday August 17th when the Brockway Mechanical and Roofing Sprint Invaders will go up against the ASCS Warrior Region drivers in the third and final night of a big weekend for the Invaders. Mark it on your calendar!
Next up for me will be the Deery Brothers Summer Series for IMCA Late Models tomorrow night, Tuesday July 8th at the West Liberty Raceway. Hope to see you there!
No comments:
Post a Comment