It Was Cold!

It was cold and it was windy, but the show went on as scheduled Saturday night at 34 Raceway. New owners Brad Stevens and Jessi Mynatt were excited to get the new era started at the southeast Iowa facility so despite wind chills dropping down to near 20 degrees they forged ahead with the season opener for the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders.

Despite the chill, and the fact that there was a another 360 show paying $13,000-to-win down in Wichita, Kansas, there was a solid field of twenty-three cars signed in and that is a good sign that the Invaders will have another solid campaign in 2018. There were also eleven of the Lee County rules Late Models on hand which was actually a few more than I expected as four drivers had their IMCA legal cars there to compete with the Crates. Most importantly though was that there were more fans in the stands than I had anticipated given the conditions as I have to admit that even a die-hard like me would have had to think twice about going to a dirt track race on this night, but from the fan's point of view there were three things that made it all worth while.

1. The stiff twenty to thirty mile breeze was a crosswind blowing from turn one toward turn three so at the very least it was keeping any dust that the winged sprints stir up from pelting you.

2. Brad and Jessi vowed to run off the show in an efficient manner and even with a about a ten minute break between the final Sprint Car heat and the Dash the entire program was complete in just under two hours, and

3. On a week where the track prep was interrupted a couple of times by rain, and on a race day that would normally ruin most dirt tracks, the racing surface was fantastic allowing both divisions the opportunity to race high, low and everywhere in between.

Jake Blackhurst was the winner of the Sprint Invader headliner and while the score book will show him leading all twenty-five laps from the pole position, he definitely did not go without challenges. Jon Agan actually passed Blackhurst on a lap nine restart, but with another caution waving before the lap was fully scored that put Blackhurst back out front. On the next restart I'm not sure what happened, perhaps Agan got clipped from behind or he was trying to find some moisture off the bottom of turn four, but he went well below the cone on the front stretch and was penalized a position before another try at going back to green.

This now gave John Schulz an opportunity to take a shot at the lead and the veteran made two big runs, one off turn two and another exiting low out of turn four, but the young driver fought off both tries. Meanwhile, back in the eighth position tonight's driver of the Midland Performance car #50 Joe B. Miller was having a pretty so-so outing, that is until car owner Scott Bonar's late race setup came to life and on a restart with four laps remaining he lined up fifth. Blackhurst would again pull away from the competition while Miller quickly disposed of Chris Martin, Schulz and Cody Wehrle to get to second and perhaps with another lap or two he could have caught the leader as well, but it would be Jake Blackhurst putting the Kitchen Cooked Potato Chip car #25 in victory lane for the first time ever with the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders.

Miller will likely be welcomed back to drive the 50 car at a later date as he came from twelfth to second while Schulz edged out Wehrle, who had started tenth, in the final lap to finish third. The 2016 Invaders champion Martin, who plans to run the ASCS National Series in 2018 was fifth, Josh Schneiderman was sixth and Brayden Gaylord had a nice drive up from sixteenth to seventh. The driver finishing behind him Harold Pohren had to be thrilled with his eighth place run on opening night. With his 360 power plant still not finished, Pohren had his 305 under the hood and still managed to come from the eleventh row up to eighth, a pretty good start to his points chase given the circumstances.

And for those of you who know that the Sprint Invaders usually only start twenty cars in the feature, Brad Stevens told the drivers in the pre-race meeting how much he appreciated their support on this cold and windy night and then showed it by stating that all 23 cars would start the main event.

The next action for the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders will be on the Memorial Day weekend with racing at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson on Friday May 25th and then back to 34 Raceway on Sunday night May 27th. For a story with the full results visit Bill Wright at OpenWheel101 and for more Positively Racing coverage check in with Danny Rosencrans and Brian Neal.

In the Late Model portion of the event Chuck Hanna was dominant with his IMCA car leading from flag-to-flag for the feature win. Iowa City's Tim Simpson was an impressive second place finisher, according to my records his best Late Model finish ever having not even been in the top five before. It was not unusual to see the 45's of Tommy Elston and Denny Woodworth racing each other hard, but on this night it was for third with Elston prevailing while Vance Wilson completed the top five.

With that first race now in the books Stevens and Mynatt look like they will be faced with another tough decision for this coming Saturday night, April 7th, as the Bumper to Bumper IRA Sprints and the Neal Tire MOWA Sprints are on the schedule with another chilly night currently in the forecast. As of now the high temperature is expected to be around 40, but thankfully the winds are only supposed to be at 5 to 10 miles per hour during the day so it will actually feel warmer than it was this past Saturday night. If they do go ahead and run the event I hope that you will join me, and many other fans of the 410 Sprint Cars at 34 Raceway Saturday night!

In some other news of note from around the region this past weekend, Sioux City's Cody Thompson rallied from the twelfth row to finish second to Dustin Daniels in the Sport Mod feature during Friday's opener of the Sunflower Classic at the Rolling Plains Motor Speedway in Hays, Kansas. As of this writing the Saturday night results had not yet been posted on the track's website due to computer issues, something that must have troubled a couple of other facilities that were able to race this weekend but posted no results.

Shannon Babb and Chris Simpson were the Late Model winners at LaSalle while Canadian Ricky Weiss made the podium both nights. IMCA Modifieds and Sport Mods ran in support and while Friday's results are still to be posted it was Hunter Marriott winning in yet another state already in 2018 on Saturday night. I know that the Missouri driver has won in Arizona, Arkansas and Illinois to go with a pair of runner-up finishes in Nebraska. Tyler Soppe was the Sport Mod winner on Saturday night followed by Woodward, Iowa's Hunter Longnecker.

The Old No. 1 Speedway in Harrisburg had a $1,000-to-win Modified special on Friday night with Robert Powers of Campbell, Missouri, taking the win, his third straight at the northeast Arkansas facility. In Late Model action St. Louis area driver Dewayne Kiefer stopped Scott Bell's win streak at two. Bell was the runner-up.

Checking in with Myron Pembleton, the track that he promotes in Kentucky was forced to cancel their racing due to weather this week but he had to let his fans know via Facebook that due to state law he would no longer be able to allow people to bring their own beer into the stands. Not surprisingly there were a couple of people who got on Facebook and racing forums to say that if they could not bring their own beer into the stands anymore then they would no longer attend the races there. Myron tells me that the nice thing about Facebook is that when this happens you know the name of the person making the statement as well as what they look like. He has informed his gate security officer to watch out for these individuals and make sure that they keep their word.

Tracks throughout the region are already making changes to events scheduled for this weekend so make sure that you check in with the track of your choice to see if they are still running. And, if they do, bundle up and let's go racing!