This was supposed to be the night that the IMCA Frostbusters kicked off 22 miles from my front door!
With the dismal weather forecast for mid-week a shuffle of the schedule was announced on Monday that moved the Frostbuster at Vinton from Thursday to Sunday while Donnellson switched from Wednesday, when they were predicting an inch of rain or even an inch or two of wet snow, to Thursday when it is supposed to be fifty degrees with a thirty mile per hour north wind. But hey, at least the sun is supposed to be out! Well even those of us with poor judgment like me who would have been there sitting in the stands with four layers on and huddled up in my sleeping bag will not have that opportunity now as the Lee County Speedway has cancelled their Frostbuster event for Thursday night.
My sinuses are thankful.
Have to hand it to Benton County Speedway promoter Mick Trier though as he traded in a chilly Thursday for a warm Sunday and that will be where I will try to see my one Frostbuster event for 2017.
In last week's Notebook, written on Tuesday, I tried to preview the first somewhat busy weekend of racing only to have the events start dropping like flies over the next two days. Hopefully, by waiting until Wednesday we have a better feel for what will, or will not take place this weekend as even though it is cold and rainy right now the forecast clears off on Thursday and then looks nice and progressively warmer through the weekend. Remember that you can always check out the upcoming special events in the area on the Calendar at Positively Racing. We always remind you to confirm each event though as the Webmistress does not update it in real time (she has a life to lead after all) and one race that is still on the list, but that is already canceled for this weekend is Saturday's show at the Bloomfield Speedway. The grounds have been too wet to work the track so they are going to wait until a later date and, despite the favorable weekend forecast, other tracks may have to do the same.
It was simply amazing what 34 Raceway pulled off last weekend and I say that as I was there to witness it, but I am guessing that the effort required to pull off the Darkside Spring Fling in Tipton was just as huge so hats off to both. Hopefully 34 won't have to work quite as hard to get the place in shape for this Saturday night's IRA 410 Sprint show as it should be a good one bringing several drivers into the area that we don't often see as the Wisconsin based Bumper to Bumper sponsored series opens its schedule in southeast Iowa. Many time IRA champion Bill Balog has been at 34 in a 410 before and last year's IRA runner-up Scotty Thiel has joined the Sprint Invaders there a few times, but for the rest of the top ten including defending champion Jeremy Schultz it will be a trip that at most they might have made one other time. Not only will the drivers intending to chase the IRA points title in 2017 be on hand, but with the Neal Tire MOWA series running the night before in Jacksonville look for several of those drivers to pull on up to Burlington on Saturday. Then, to top it all off, with Knoxville not opening until next weekend you can look for some of their regulars to be on hand as well perhaps raising the car count to well over thirty. IMCA sanctioned Modifieds, Sport Mods and Stock Cars will also see their first action of the season at 34 Raceway this Saturday.
We were thrilled to have 33 drivers sign in for the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders opener at 34 on Saturday night and as I mentioned last week we are seeing a serious youth movement in the roster. So much so that I was teasing 19-year-old Brayden Gaylord that he was considered to be "old" with Bailey Goldesberry, Tanner Gebhardt, Hunter Lane and defending Invaders champion Chris Martin all being younger than him. Martin had a night that he would like to forget, Gebhardt qualified for the Budweiser Shake Up Dash and then ran a solid ninth in the main event, Goldesberry led much of a B-Main then finished 18th in the "A" and Gaylord made the most of an opportunity to run the main event finishing 14th. Brayden had actually missed a transfer from the first B-Main by one position, but when John Schulz was forced to scratch with mechanical issues Gaylord was added to the field.
I was also impressed with 17-year-old Hunter Lane who was running away with the second B-Main before pulling to the infield with mechanical issues. And of course I also need to mention that the winner on the night, Carson McCarl, is just in his early twenties. Hopefully all of the young guns will continue to follow the Invaders schedule for most if not all of the 2017 campaign.
It was also great to see the Deery Brothers Summer Series IMCA Late Models return to 34 Raceway for the first time since 2013 with a solid field of 31 cars signing in. This is impressive in that none of these drivers were competing at their "home track" so I am optimistic about how the series will go in 2017. It was awesome to see "The Ironman" Darrel DeFrance have such a solid opener as it seems like he has been playing from behind when it comes to the Deery series the past several years. With his runner-up finish to Nick Marolf at 34, Darrel has to be looking forward to this Saturday's show at West Liberty not just so that he can continue the streak, but that he is in contention for what would be his first series title in thirty-one attempts. I hope to catch up with the Deery series again on April 14th in Farley and, if not there, perhaps Sunday April 23rd in Dubuque.
Will I be able to pull off a "double" that day by also attending the Spring Classic at Rockford that afternoon??
Several of the Late Models had some "new looks" that were very sharp. Both Jonathan Brauns and the Roberts Motorsports Team and their new driver Jeremiah Hurst were using a teal green and blue combo that looked great and Matt Ryan's #07 made me do a double take as the blue, red and white colors are definitely a departure from his traditional black and gold. I also had to chuckle because painted on the hood it said "Trying Not To Suck Since....." and I'm sorry that I can't recall the year! I was quite busy Saturday night :)
Jordan Grabouski pulled the big money out of Tipton and carted it back with him to Beatrice, Nebraska, along with his Modified. Stock Car winner Elijah Zevenbergen made the long pull down from his northwest Iowa home of Ocheydan while Tyler Soppe kept the Sport Mod cash close by with his second win of the young season during the Darkside Spring Fling. Nearly the full feature results were provided on Facebook, they were missing a couple of names, but if anybody has the full roster of the more than 200 cars that signed in I would love to see who all was there.
I am concerned that it will be difficult to get results, at least early in the season, from tracks that have been using SpeedNet in the past as a change in ownership now has some of those tracks using MyRacePass while others have switched to SpeedScoreOne. Three examples for you early on. The Springfield Raceway in Missouri has not skipped a beat as their results have popped up on SpeedNet within hours after their races are completed as if nothing has changed. The Farmer City Raceway, another track that used to always have its results up on SpeedNet shortly after races ended thought that their results from last weekend were there, but when it was pointed out that they were not they discovered that they now have to link up through MyRacePass in order to have the results on the net. They hope to have that resolved soon. I will bet you that other tracks will also assume that their results are out there only to find that they have to do something new with MRP to make that happen. 34 Raceway is the first that I have seen to switch to SpeedScoreOne and I don't like a couple of things about it. One is that it takes a lot more clicking to get the results for each race from each class and the other is that the drivers' hometowns are not listed. Boo!
Of course this is all better than a couple of tracks in the thirteen state region that I follow who make no effort at all to post their results in any manner. The fact that they don't just boggles my mind, so promoters or publicists make sure that whatever software you are now using is actually putting the results out there where someone like me, and the many other interested fans can find them without feeling like we are on some kind of a scavenger hunt!
From checking some results over the past weekend I noted that Kelly Shryock went south to win the IMCA Modified feature at the Tri-State Speedway Keggar in Pocola, Oklahoma Saturday night. Stanton, Iowa's Jeff James finished second with former NASCAR star Ken Schrader in third. Schrader was also the winner of the USRA Modified portion of that program and then made the trip over to Terre Haute, Indiana where he finished fourth in the UMP Modified feature that was won by his buddy Kenny Wallace on Sunday afternoon. I believe that Schrader is slated to run a couple of the IMCA Frostbusters this weekend.
It was a sad night at the newly named Red Dirt Raceway as veteran Sprint Car driver Steve Smith from Edmond, Oklahoma passed away from an apparent heart attack while at the track. It was the season opener at the track in Meeker Friday and Smith had won the non-wing Sprint Car heat race earlier in the evening.
Get on out to a race of your choice this weekend and thank you for checking in on the Back Stretch!
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