In the small southeast Iowa community of Donnellson a siren wails each and every night at six o'clock and when it sounded on Friday I was chatting with a couple of drivers as they prepared their Stock Cars for the opening night of the 4th Annual Fall Extravaganza at the Lee County Speedway. "There aren't as many cars here as I thought there would be," said one of the drivers and as I pointed out to him that you already had Matt Richards here all the way from Lincoln, Nebraska, and three Modifieds from northeast Wisconsin my response was, "just wait until the locals arrive." And arrive they did over the next hour as the car count in the five divisions swelled to an impressive total of 151 with the two Modified classes leading the way with 39 cars each!
As you can always count on with a Mike Van Genderen promoted show, the racing started right on time at 7:30 and with darn near perfect track conditions the 19 heat races and six B-Mains ran off in quick fashion and the first of five features, the Sport Mods rolled to the track just past 9:30.
And that's when things got a little dicey.
Well actually the first eight laps of the 20-lap event went pretty well as pole-sitter Curtis Van Der Wal tried to run off and hide from his most recent nemesis Logan Anderson, but when Ethan Baarksma spun in turn four the caution flag that starter Kevin Eggleston had pretty much been able to keep in the bag all evening made its first appearance. Anderson would make a run at the leader on the restart only to see the yellow wave again two laps later when Kip Siems stopped on the Back Stretch. The battle for the lead on this restart really heated up on a chilly evening as Jim Gillenwater joined the mix. Driving the car formerly piloted by Bobby Six, Gillenwater made it three-wide with Van Der Wal and Anderson down the back straightaway and while Van Der Wal was able to ride the cushion back to the front off of turn four it was now Gillenwater running in the second spot.
The caution waved again after just two more laps of action though when Robert Gould spun in turn two and the field was bunched up in double-wide fashion for another restart. This one did not go well.
Anderson slid high off of turn two and as he tried to recover his left front was clipped by the car of Jeremiah Hurst. The contact veered Anderson's car hard right where he then made blunt contact with the back stretch wall bouncing straight back and into the direct path of the on rushing field and in that split second I am sure that I was not the only witness to feel his stomach churn knowing what was soon to happen. Tyler Soppe t-boned Anderson at full speed and as Soppe's car rose up into the air the cars of Colton Livezy, Louis Lynch and Gould also made severe impact leaving a tangled mess of mangled Modifieds right at the pit entrance.
The safety crews and track workers rushed to the scene without hesitation and it was with great relief when we all saw Anderson scramble out of his car under his own power. Livezy, Lynch and Gould also climbed out and while Soppe was put into the ambulance on a stretcher thankfully it was for observation only as he stayed at the track suffering "bumps and bruises" that are likely more painful today than they were during the rush of adrenaline following this frightening incident.
Some tracks only have one or maybe two wreckers ready to work on race night, but the Lee County Speedway has more and even with plenty of help it took at least twenty minutes to clear the track of damaged cars with Soppe's needing two wreckers to be dropped off in the infield.
With everyone now relieved and recovered, the race went back to green and again Gillenwater applied the pressure on the leader challenging Van Der Wal on the inside line. The two ran in close formation for the next four laps before Van Der Wal was able to pull away to take yet another $1,000 victory. Gillenwater was the runner-up with twelfth starting Brandon Dale finishing third. Tony Dunker finished in the fourth spot while Boone's Jake McBirnie was fifth.
The Sport Compacts were up next for 15-laps and for a division that normally runs its features flag-to-flag, this one would have four stoppages as well. Jake Benischeck grabbed the lead from the pole before Renny McCarty and Darin Weisinger Jr. spun in turn four on lap two. Brandon Reu and Josh Barnes would battle for second behind Benischek as the race went green for six more laps before a Bryerson Tharp spin in turn two and then it would be Luke Benischek drawing a caution with just two laps remaining.
On the restart Jerrod Nichols dumped Eric Stogdell coming to the green causing Stogdell's car to roll on its side and the race went red for a moment. Once back to action Reu made one last run at Benischek but he could not keep the driver from Durant out of victory lane on this night. Shaun Slaughter charged up from the seventh row to finish third with Barnes in fourth and Chuck Fullenkamp in fifth.
The first four starters in the Stock Car main event, Nathan Wood, Jeff Mueller, Cayden Carter and David Brandies put on quite a show in the opening laps of their main event with Mueller holding the lead at the stripe. Cautions for Dean Kratzer on lap eight and for Chad Krogmeier on lap twelve slowed the action and while Mueller would go flag-to-flag for the victory he was constantly challenged by David Brandies who would take the checkers in second. Wood would hold down the third spot with Mike Hughes coming from twelfth to fourth and Zack VanderBeek completed the top five. After being penalized for jumping the start of his heat race, VanderBeek made the show out of the B-Main and started the feature from the eleventh row.
It was now past eleven o'clock and knowing that I had a long weekend ahead of me I decided that if the trend continued with the Hobby Stocks I would need to leave before the show was over and with two cautions in the early laps I had to make that tough decision. Checking the results today I see that teammates Dustin Griffiths and Dale Porter finished one-two in that main event with Dane Blozovich, Justin Wacha and Justin Lichty completing the top five and in the Modified finale it was Kyle Brown scorning the win ahead of Cayden Carter, Bruce Hanford, Michael Long and Richie Gustin.
The weather on Saturday is going to be absolutely perfect for racing and you already know that there will be a full field of cars at the Lee County Speedway. So when the six o'clock whistle blows tonight as that first set of hot laps takes the green, make sure that you are there and ready to enjoy some great racing action!
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