Darrel DeFrance has been at each and every Summer Series event since the first one held in 1987 and even he will probably admit that for a few years recently he was going just to keep the streak alive. This year is different though as he showed from the opener in Burlington on April 1st that he has a car that is capable of running up front and on Sunday night at the Quad City Speedway in East Moline "The Ironman" stayed in front throughout the entire forty laps holding off a late charge from series rookie Jesse Sobbing to take a popular Deery Brothers Summer Series victory.
DeFrance and Sobbing would start from the front row for the Late Model main event and they would choose two distinct lines as soon as the green flag waved. DeFrance would hug the bottom, the short way around the quarter-mile bullring, while Sobbing would climb the banking and pound the cushion up top looking to launch off of the corners and down the straightaways. The short way around would have the advantage with DeFrance leading the way and, as those low groove running drivers continued to move the track markers further into the infield, that short way around got even shorter rendering the top side useless as Sobbing faded out of the top five.
The track at East Moline is essentially a bowl of dirt that is flat in the middle and then rises up some on the straights and even more on both ends. The track itself is marked out by white painted tires with four larger utility tires marking the entrance and the exit to each set of corners while there are two smaller tires in each set of turns that set the apex of the corners and the track is prepared (watered and packed) based upon these markings. The problem though is with the nose pieces of these Late Models as they are, a driver who is trying to run the lowest line possible will hit these smaller corner markers and move them around like the pucks on a table shuffleboard game so during the green flag segment from lap twelve to thirty-one the once quarter-mile distance was reduced significantly as drivers were now racing through the unprepared infield on both ends creating a dust bowl like you wouldn't believe.
The caution waved on lap thirty-one when Curt Martin tangled with the lapped car of Paul Conrad as they worked through the infield near what was once turn four and during the caution track officials moved the shuffleboard pucks, er track tires, back into their original positions for the restart. So now the situation was this. Having raced through the infield for the past several laps, the actual low groove of the racing surface now had a lot of dry dirt that had been thrown on top of the hard packed surface making that bottom groove quite slick, while the top line that was quite treacherous with a heavy cushion especially in one and two, was still relatively clean.
On the restart DeFrance and his primary challenger Jeremiah Hurst stayed with the low line while Sobbing and Rob Toland used the top to race their way up from outside of the top five. A caution with five laps to go when Luke Goedert spun in turn one and was clobbered by Joe Zrostlik slowed the high side assault, but now Sobbing was back to third and was more than pleased when Hurst chose the inside line for the Delaware style restart. Whether he knew it or not, the move of the night by DeFrance came when he mashed the throttle early in turn three for the restart as this did not allow Sobbing to get a good start and it then took him a lap before he drove around Hurst for second. It was obvious that the top was now better and Sobbing nearly pulled alongside the leader going down the back stretch on lap thirty-seven, but when the challenger bobbled a bit on the cushion with two to go Sobbing lost some ground coming to the white flag.
On the final lap though Sobbing nailed the cushion perfectly in one and two and then drove it deep into turn three to give himself a chance for victory, but the veteran driver did not flinch and the cushion was not as fast in three and four leaving Sobbing just a car-length short as DeFrance secured the win. Hurst was not far behind in third, Toland started tenth and finished fourth while Ray Guss Jr. drove the Brad Coin owned #28c from the ninth row up to fifth. Luke Merfeld finished sixth, current series point leader Jake Neal started twelfth and finished seventh, southwest Iowa driver Josh Most got an unexpected Late Model ride and finished eighth, more on that in a moment, while Chad Holladay and Matt Ryan both came from deep in the pack to complete the top ten.
After competing at Farley's big Modified event on Friday and Saturday Josh Most decided to drop in at East Moline before heading back to Red Oak and was pitted next to local driver Phil Anderson who is in his rookie season of driving an IMCA Late Model. When Anderson was called away for a work obligation Most was given the opportunity to drive Anderson #35 Late Model as well for the evening and, I guess you could say that he made the "most" of that opportunity by finishing second in his heat and eighth in the feature.
Most was also a part of the twenty car field of IMCA Modifieds that had a devil of a time getting their twenty lap feature underway as on the first try the fifth-starting Milo Veloz slid sideways in turn one collecting both Eric Barnes and Jason Pershy. Top contenders Veloz and Pershy were done for the night while Barnes would start at the rear after going pit side to make some repairs. Just before the second try at a start Craig Crawford had a right front tire go down so he had to give up his third starting position to duck into the pits and make the change. Track officials waited on Crawford and when he returned the green flag waved, but only briefly as Jacob Copley got sideways in turn one causing Chris Lawrence to spin and he was then hit hard by Crawford.
The third try at a start did see one lap scored with Brandon Durbin leading the way before Josh Most spun in turn one. One more lap was put in the books following the restart before Rob Toland made a rare mistake and spun the Doug Curless owned #99 in turn two causing Jeff Claussen and Brian Bushong to pile up behind him. The field was put in single file formation for the next restart and finally some consecutive green flag laps were run with Bryce Garnhart stalking Durbin for the lead. As they closed in on a lapped car that was working the bottom on lap eight, Durbin tried to squeeze to the bottom while Garnhart charged to the outside and that would allow Garnhart to take the lead just before John Ahlers and Crawford tangled in turn three.
Once back to green the remaining cars were able to complete the final twelve laps without incident as Garnhart cruised to victory ahead of Durbin and T.J. Patz. Toland was able to make his way back up to fourth while Matt Werner completed the top five.
The IMCA Sport Mod feature was the first of four to be run and it too started off on the wrong foot when Rick Schriner spun off of turn two on the opening lap collecting Dan Hahn. The field was reassembled and Casey Wages would lead the way for four laps before the second place car of Jared Coppejans spun exiting turn four. When back to racing Wages would protect the bottom as Andrew Burk, Rick Wages and Dustin Schram applied the pressure with Schram, who had started tenth moving up to second. On lap seven the leader pushed a bit exiting turn two and Schram worked his way underneath him to complete the pass of Wages exiting turn four.
Coppejans would spin again on lap eleven and Justin Veloz would loop his car on lap twelve and again in the same place on the ensuing restart. The race would then close out with a green-white-checkers with Schram the winner ahead of Rick Wages, Brandon Jewell, Casey Wages and Andrew Burk.
With two drivers needing to jump out of their Modifieds and into their Late Models, the Four Cylinder feature that is normally run last here on weekly shows was sent to the track before the Late Models with twenty-four cars taking the green for twelve laps. Josh Werkmeister would lead the way from the pole position for the first four laps before a fire under the hood of Dan Dillon's car stopped the race. On the restart Brett Marshall would takeover just before Ken Stogdell spun in turn four and one more caution would wave on lap ten when Thomas Adams stopped on the front stretch with a flat tire. Dustin Begyn would try to mount a challenge in the final two laps, but there would be no catching Marshall who came from the tenth starting spot to take the win. Begyn was followed by Rob Harding Jr., Josh Stanley and Josh Sample.
While it made for an interesting scenario in the closing laps of the Late Model feature I do hope that the Quad City Speedway can come up with a better way of keeping the cars on the race track that was prepared because, when it is done right, this place offers up two distinct racing lines that are typically very equal come feature time. And, at the very least, they need to soak the dirt on the infield in the corners to both discourage drivers from racing through there and to keep the dust storm from happening as my eyes are still burning on this Monday morning.
Plans for plenty of competition on a track for me in the week ahead as on Tuesday night the CJ Speedway in Columbus Junction will host their first of four Tuesday night specials, this one featuring the Sport Compacts racing for $500-to-win with the Stock Cars and Sport Mods also in action. On Wednesday the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders will try it again at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, an event that was postponed from last Wednesday due to rain and hopefully the forecast for this Wednesday brightens over the next two days. We will then make our annual trip to the Iowa high school state track meet on Friday and Saturday with the traditional stop at the Knoxville Raceway on the home. Whether it is at a dirt track or on the blue oval at Drake Stadium we will be enjoying the action on the Back Stretch.
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