After a one week delay the four night swing for the IMCA Frostbusters kicked off on a nice Wednesday night at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, Iowa. Actually the weather was really nice compared to what the area has experienced recently as on Monday morning nearly an inch of snow covered the southeast Iowa facility. On this night though the temperatures stayed in the sixties with the sun even making one dazzling appearance emerging from the overcast skies just before setting on the horizon.
One hundred and twenty-three cars signed in for the five division show, perhaps down a bit due to the rescheduling and the less than desirable forecast for this Friday and Saturday, but solid nonetheless and there was a nice mix of locals and travelers on hand including a couple of Sport Mod drivers all the way from Sidney, Montana, in Kyle and Phillip Keller. Californian Ethan Dotson was here with his Modified, but we have seen him setup shop here in the Midwest before as the Mod field also had drivers from Kansas, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
At the end of the night though they would all be chasing the northern Iowa veteran Kelly Shryock who took the lead during a wild sequence on lap five of the Modified main event. Pole-sitter Shawn Ritter had set the pace for the opening laps before Chad Holladay charged underneath him going into turn one. As Holladay completed the slider in turn two, both he and Ritter lost momentum and that allowed Shryock to drive under both of them to take the lead just before the first caution of the race waved for a Joel Rust spin. A caution for debris one lap later only delayed the inevitable as on the next restart Shryock pulled away and cruised to a comfortable victory. Hunter Marriott made a nice run up to second after starting in the sixth row, but he could never get close enough to challenge the leader. Cayden Carter started seventh and finished third, Jeff Aikey was fourth and Holladay completed the top five.
The twenty lap IMCA Stock Car feature was a dandy, but it sure didn't start out that way. As the twenty-three car field was coming to green the outside second row car of Abe Huls got turned sideways at the flag stand and the scramble was on. When all was said and done nine cars were strewn across the front stretch with one of them, driven by Canadian Kody Scholpp, turned over onto its side with a brief fire breaking out in the engine area. All drivers were okay and while most of the cars involved were able to restart it was a disappointing end of the night for Scholpp who was impressive in winning his heat race on his first visit to LCS.
Damon Murty would secure the lead from his front row starting position while behind him the battle was fierce for the remaining top five positions. Following a lap thirteen caution for a track tire that had been punted onto the speedway in turn two, Murty now faced a challenge from Todd Reitzler. Finding a grip on the bottom of turns three and four Reitzler was able to take the lead by a nose at the line for lap fourteen, but Murty was not about to give in. With three laps remaining Murty was able to use that same line to squeeze under Reitzler as the two crossed the stripe in a virtual dead heat, but Todd was able to use the high side in turns one and two to regain the lead. Damon gave it one last shot on the final lap coming up a few car-lengths short as Reitzler scored the victory. John Oliver Jr. was close behind in third followed by Tom Bowling Jr. and pole starter Jason See.
Young Austin Howes is already having a memorable season after towing his Sport Mod to Arizona for some winter racing action where he came away the point champion and now he has kicked off his Midwest season in style as well with a Frostbuster victory. One of the drivers that he raced against in Arizona, Arie Schouten would lead the opening laps until caution waved for a three car spin in turn two on lap five. Following the restart Howes would go to work on Schouten and on lap eight Austin was able to sweep around the outside of turn four to take the lead. Schouten would battle back though to take the lead back on lap ten only to have Howes return the favor a lap later. From there the driver from Memphis, Missouri, would pull away for the victory. Jake McBirnie started tenth and had himself within striking distance over the final laps before finishing second, Austen Becerra came from twelfth to third, Tyler Soppe had an amazing run coming from fourteenth to fourth and what made it "amazing" was that he ran the second half of the race with his left front wheel flopping in the wind. If the race would have had another caution, Soppe would have had to head for the pits. In his first ever appearance at Donnellson Schouten who is from Blair, Nebraska, finished fifth.
It only took three laps for Shannon Anderson to come from the sixth starting spot to take the lead from Eric Knutson in the Hobby Stock feature and he would go unchallenged from there to take the win. The race was stopped only once when the right front wheel came off of Nathan Ballard's car and, as far as I can recall, this might have been Anderson's first ever appearance at Donnellson. Eric Stanton started from the fifth row and raced his way up to second, Leah Wroten took third, Knutson would finish fourth and David Rieks was fifth.
The fourteen lap Sport Compact feature had some interesting twists and turns to it with Barry Taft leading the opening laps. When Oliver Monson slowed on the back stretch that sent Jason Ash for a spin and the caution would wave on lap three. On the restart Josh Barnes would put the challenge on Taft and he would take that lead away on lap five. Barnes seemed to be on his way to victory when with just four laps remaining his right front wheel broke off exiting turn four. This would put Taft back out front for the restart with Ryan Havel now to challenge from second, but Havel's car lost power two laps later to bring out one last caution. Jake Benischek would drive under Taft on the restart and he would lead the field to the white flag, but Taft went elbows up in turns one and two to pull off a nifty high to low move to take back the lead down the back stretch and secure the win. Benischek was the runner-up, Darin Weisinger Jr. had a nice run up from eleventh to third, William Michel came from the fifth row to take fourth and Brandon Reu completed the top five.
The field was stout tonight with the defending All Iowa Points champion present in all five divisions with three of them, Shryock, Anderson and Taft taking feature wins. Nathan Wood and Tyler Soppe were the other two.
After having new dirt added to turns one and two about four weeks ago, and then with a couple of snowfalls since then the track rutted out pretty good in the middle of those turns much to the chagrin of promoter Mike Van Genderen who had spent most of the night after Tuesday's practice trying to get it packed in. Those who are familiar with the Lee County Speedway know that a rough track is the exception rather than the rule and you can bet that many hours of work will go in to getting it smoothed out as soon as possible.
The show started close to 7:30 as advertised and wrapped up just before eleven o'clock allowing me to get plenty of sleep so that I can make the trip to Vinton tonight for round two of the Frostbusters at the Benton County Speedway. Hope to see you there!
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