You may have noticed that the Back Stretch was only on hand to cover the first night of the 29th Annual Musco Challenge at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa last weekend. On Saturday Christine and I drove to Chicago where we boarded a plane and flew to Boston where I was to work booth duty for my real job at the Direct Marketing Association's Annual Conference while she had a long list of sightseeing options for the next three days.
I am fortunate to work for a great company, Innovairre, that is the world's leader in helping non profits raise money for each of their causes, plus we produce some very unique packages for commercial clients as well so even though standing at an exhibition hall booth for three days might not sound like too much fun, the time actually flies by while talking to customers and prospective customers about how we can improve their Direct Mail and multi-channel marketing efforts. An added treat this year was a concert for the conference attendees by the Goo Goo Dolls and I was amazed by just how many songs of theirs I have liked over the years. I know that I have at least one of their CD's tucked away downstairs and a trip to the iTunes store is up next so that I can have a full disc of favorites for a couple of racing road trips that I have planned before the season ends.
Sounds like the racing in Osky was good on Saturday night as well with no real surprises in victory lane and promoter Mike Van Genderen's five straight weeks of Fall specials hits the midway point this weekend with the Fall Extravaganza at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson on Friday and Saturday night.
Kudos to the Darkside, Ryan Duhme and Tim Current, for establishing the Fall Bash at the Jackson County Speedway in Maquoketa as a new "must-see" Fall event by using some unique promotional moves. First off there was some big money on the line, but then with wise use of both Facebook and well placed ads on iowastockcars.com the word of that big money was spread far and wide. Plus the "team" concept of having Modified and Sport Mod drivers pair up with some extra bonus money on the line was ingenious and the car counts were huge. Congratulations Darkside!
There was plenty of other racing going on at All Iowa Points paying tracks during the first weekend of October.
Tim Kaeding and Bryan Clauson each scored wins as the FVP National Sprint League closed out its inaugural season with two nights of action at the I-80 Speedway in eastern Nebraska where ironically Wayne Johnson also won the 360 Sprint portion of the show. Recall that Johnson was the winner of the NSL's inaugural race at 34 Raceway back in April.
Soon to be two-time All Iowa Points Modified champion Chris Abelson won the Fall special at the Crawford County Speedway in Denison. Mike Harris scored the Stock Car win while Logan Scott won the Sport Mods, with Kevin Bruck and Corey Stapleton also taking wins on the night in the Hobby Stocks and the Sport Compacts.
More than 30 Late Models converged on the Park Jefferson Speedway where Kyle Berck was the winner ahead of Tad Pospisil and R.C. Whitwell, and in Cresco Brandon Hare and Kyle Falck were the headliners as the USRA Iron Man Series ran on a nice Fall evening at the Howard County Fairgrounds.
And, as we mentioned here a few entries back, the Blackbird Bend Casino in Onawa, Iowa, reopened its speedway this past Friday night with 116 cars in attendance and it was Sioux City's Jimmy Cole taking the win in the headline Modified division. Full results for Blackbird Bend's return to action can be found here.
Down in Missouri the top two drivers in the current Missouri Points as tabulated here on the Back Stretch finished one-two at Valley Speedway's "King of Kansas City" special event Saturday night with Mount Ayr, Iowa's Dennis Elliott edging out Terry Schultz for the top prize. Schultz still leads the state points though with at least five more events in the Show Me state still a possibility before the season ends five days before Thanksgiving in Springfield.
"Racer X" Jon Reynolds Jr. was the Super Late Model winner at the 50th Annual National Short Track Championships at the Rockford Speedway on Sunday while Michael Bilderback was the Big 8 Late Model feature winner on Saturday night. The Back Stretch checking out pavement racing results? You'll see why in a moment.....
So while last weekend was quite busy in this neck of the woods, other than the two-day show in Donnellson the schedule is comparably light for this coming weekend that again looks pretty good for racing from a weather standpoint. I-80 Speedway is back in action with the Cornhusker Classic all weekend, the MLRA Late Models run a doubleheader at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Missouri, the Shaheen Super Weekend featuring Sprints and Midgets will run both Friday and Saturday night at Jacksonville (one of those "schedules subject to change" situations from what is on the Positively Racing calendar), I-35 Speedway in Winston, Missouri, has a big dollar USRA Modified show on Saturday and the Nobles County Speedway in Worthington, Minnesota will run its Fall Classic on Saturday and Sunday.
My plans are to be at Donnellson on Friday night and, since I have another commitment on Saturday, I am planning on getting up early and making the trip north to the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway for Sunday's finale of the Oktoberfest Race Weekend featuring the Big 8 Late Model Series and the ARCA Midwest Tour. It has been several years since I was last at Oktoberfest, an event that I used to take in regularly before our area dirt tracks figured out that racing in October wasn't such a bad idea, and I have been excited to return! Perhaps you will see me on the Back Stretch?
One more Goo Goo Dolls song for the road.....
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