If you are reading this on Memorial Day Monday afternoon I do hope that you are headed out to Boone, Vinton or one of the other special events in the region this evening. I had originally planned on making the trip to the Benton County Speedway tonight for the opener of the Dirt Knights Tour, but after four races over the past five nights it is time to spend an evening with family and friends away from the track.
My adventures started on Wednesday night at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa where I was filling in for track announcer Tony Paris for the second week in a row. Heat races for the four divisions were clicked off in record time and even after a ten minute break we were ready for feature racing at just ten minutes past eight o'clock. The Sport Compact feature went off without a hitch as Brandon Housley scored his third straight victory at Osky and then the Stock Car feature came to the track. Over the first three weeks of the season the Stock Cars have provided a spectacular show with tight pack racing and little or no cautions even though there was still some bumping and banging going on.
The tight pack racing was still there on Wednesday but things got a little rough a few laps in. Scott Dickey who has made the move from Modifieds to Stock Cars this year after the Mods were dropped was on the fly and making his way to the front when he was clipped and spun by Nathan Wood in turn four. I am pretty sure that the two are good friends so nothing intentional and both drivers were sent to the rear. On the restart Mike Harward was sent for a spin midway down the back stretch and we were thankful for two things. One, that he didn't start rolling and two that nobody hit him. Once back to racing Dickey was again on the move and coming to the front when he tagged the winner of last week's feature Mike Hughes and sent him for a spin turn four. Cody McClure had nowhere to go and he plowed into Hughes severely damaging the front end of his car. Hughes on the other had was able to go to the work area and return to the track in time for the next restart.
Leader Cayden Carter was bringing the field back to green and when the two drivers behind him hit the throttle before he did Carter did not join in and when the field stacked up behind them Nathan Wood got sideways and then was plowed by another car sending him into a couple of barrel rolls. Thankfully Nathan was able to climb from his battered race car under his own power and the crowd gave him a big round of applause, primarily as they were reminded that without Nathan's efforts during the off season there likely would not have been any weekly racing at Osky this year.
Once back to green it was back to the normal good clean Stock Car racing as Carter held on for the win while Hughes made a great run back through the field to finish second.
The Sport Mods were up next with Tim Plummer drawing the front row and racing out to nearly a full straightaway lead. Curtis Van Der Wal had started tenth and by mid-race was up to second, but he had his work cut out for him in order to catch Plummer. As the laps clicked away the gap between the two faded away and when the white flag waved Van Der Wal was within five car lengths and Plummer had two lapped cars just ahead of him. Van Der Wal closed the gap to two car lengths through one and two and appeared to have a run on the leader going down the back stretch. As Plummer entered turn three I could not tell if he checked up a bit because of the lapped car or if Van Der Wal just mis-judged his distance, but contact from the challenger sent Plummer for a spin and the crowd reacted with a chorus of boos as Van Der Wal drove under the yellow flag. Now remember that these two raced together on the pavement at Hawkeye Downs for several years and Plummer was parked next to Van Der Wal in the pits, so again I do not believe that this was intentional, just a mistake and by rule both drivers were sent to the rear for the green-white-checkers restart.
Logan Anderson now found himself in front, but it would be Brayton Carter who would make the move at the drop of the green and put the #01 car back in victory lane for the second week in a row as his brother Cayden won with it the week before breaking Van Der Wal's streak of ten straight feature wins dating back to 2017.
The Hobby Stock feature closed out the night in fine fashion as current All Iowa Points leader Eric Stanton chased down Christian Huffman and passed him on the final lap for the win. When I reminded Stanton in victory that he had just robbed the young driver of his first career win he replied that the same thing happened to him several times before he scored his first win and that he expects Huffman to get that first win soon.
It was a fun night to announce at Osky as the good-sized crowd was very vocal throughout the evening and really had a buzz to it on the obvious occasions. I would hope that there will be even more fans in attendance when weekly racing continues this Wednesday night at the Southern Iowa Speedway.
The Sprint Invaders returned to action on Friday night at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson and I found out early in the evening that our series was no longer sponsored by Shottenkirk.com. Earlier in May I totaled my Kia Optima, the second one that I had purchased from Shottenkirk and when I needed to find my new ride fast the first place I went was to Shottenkirk.com to see what they had for both new and used vehicles. I identified a couple that I liked, but my wife suggested that we also take a spin through the Deery Brothers lot to see what they had and we saw it, the car that we wanted five years old and with only 23,000 miles on it. I had felt a bit of guilt for the past four weeks, but no longer and while I am thankful that Shottenkirk sponsored the Invaders for the past three seasons I am glad that I did purchase my vehicle from a dealership that continues to support racing in our region with the Deery Brothers Summer Series.
The Sprint Car car count was down a bit at nineteen in Donnellson due to a big two day show at Lake Ozark as well as at least one driver choosing to go to Jackson, Minnesota, instead due to the weather forecasts at each track. As it turned out though Jackson was rained out while Donnellson raced. The car counts were up in the weekly divisions though and a very nice crowd filed in on a warm and muggy night. The track prep by Dave Sapp and Mike Van Genderen may have appeared to be too wet early in the night, but proved out to be perfect come feature time as not only was it wide and multi-grooved, but there was no dust! That's right, when was the last time that you went to a winged sprint car race and could not find even a hint of dust??
Brandon Lennox fought off a couple of nasty sliders from Austen Becerra and then held off a late charge from Brandon Dale to win the Sport Mod feature. In the Stock Cars current All Iowa Points leader John Oliver grabbed the lead mid-race and then went unchallenged the rest of the way for the victory. That has not been the case here the past two Friday nights as the Stock Cars have seen features where five or six cars were still in contention for the win coming to the checkered flag. Levi Smith has a new Josh Most chassis and was looking good leading early until Bill Roberts Jr. passed him on lap five of the Modified main event. Roberts would go on to win on a night where his family business, Roberts Tire Center in Burlington was sponsoring and I was disappointed when the PA system went on the fritz as I was headed down to interview him in victory lane.
The Sprint Car feature was next and during the four wide parade lap we saw something happen that we had never seen before. The track photographers, D&M Photography, use a drone to get some unique video footage and as the Sprints were coming out of turn four the drone was flying low at them. When Micheil went to toggle up, he pushed the lever down instead and the drone crashed hard into the front wing of the #99 car driven by John Schulz. The drone and its camera were destroyed, a very expensive loss for the young photographer, but thankfully after a quick check over by the officials the car was determined to be okay and I know that Micheil would have been devastated if he would have hurt the race car.
Jamie Ball would lead through a couple of early cautions and on lap eleven Schulz threw a slider at him in turns one and two following a restart to take the lead. Bill Balog had started the Midland Performance #50 from seventeenth and was on the charge moving to second with four laps remaining and when the caution waved a lap later I think that most of the fans thought that he would be able to pass Schulz on the restart. It was not to be though as Schulz drove the Jimmy Davies owned #99 to the inside of turns one and two to block and the caught the cushion perfectly in turn two to drive away and take the win over the eight-time IRA champion. Balog was second, Ball finished third and young California driver Mason Daniel, who is being coached by veteran Danny Lasoski, was impressive in fourth.
The Sport Compacts and Late Models closed out the evening with Kimberly Abbot holding off Barry Taft in a battle of two former All Iowa Points champions to win the Four Cylinder feature and Todd Frank beat Tommy Elston to the checkers in the Late Model division. It was the third time in his career that Frank had won on his wife's birthday.
On Saturday I had my wife convinced that we should go drink beer and watch the figure eight races at 34 Raceway, but with temperatures in the 90's and the stands facing west we instead decided to make a late trip to Knoxville to surprise my son Morgan and his fiance Em. Morgan is doing some press release writing for three or four Sprint Car teams this year and he was planning on introducing himself to some people that he had only been talking to on the phone before, so we knew that they would be there but they did not know that we were coming. It is totally out of character for me to arrive at a race late, but we did just that walking up into the stands as the second heat of the 305's took the checkers and the looks on the kids' faces was well worth the surprise.
I was very impressed with how quickly Knoxville ran off the program even on a hut and sultry night when in the past it seemed like we would sit around and wait for things to cool off a bit and the result was that a large throng of fans, both young and old then made their way into the pits to visit with the drivers after the final checkers flew just past 9:30.
Pole-sitter Eric Bridger was slow to come up to speed as the 305 feature took the green allowing Ryan Leavitt to jump out front and he cruised to an easy win. Brian Brown was doing double duty tonight and after he stormed to the front to win the 360 feature he then strapped into the 410 looking for his fourth straight win here. Austin McCarl raced out to a big advantage only to have Brown reel him in and with just three laps to go Brown tried a slider for the lead in turn one. McCarl did not flinch though and kicked off the cushion in two to maintain the lead. One more near miss with lapped traffic almost gave Brown the break he needed on the final lap, but Austin held on to pick up his third win of the season as well making it six for six now for sponsor Casey's General Stores at Knoxville.
Twenty-four hours later I would again get to visit with Austin in victory lane as he picked up the win in Sprint Invader action at 34 Raceway Sunday night. Car owner and master wrench Scott Bonar had called Austin just before noon to have him come down and drive the Midland Performance #50 and McCarl accepted. He would start from the pole and lead all thirty laps, although it would not come easy as an ever improving Cody Wehrle had two late shots at the lead. In victory lane Austin said that his wife had wanted them to go to a concert that night, so it was good that he at least had a trophy that he was bringing home with him. Plus, 34 Raceway is now the second track along with Knoxville where his grandpa Lenard, his father Terry and his brother Carson have all won feature races.
Wehrle had a career best second place finish and you could tell during the race that he wanted more, but he needed a mistake from McCarl in traffic that just never came. It won't be long until either Bill right or I will be visiting with "Opie" in victory lane. Mason Daniel had another fine showing finishing in third while Chris Martin gave the fans quite a show coming from seventeenth to fourth. Two young Canadians who had the weekend off from the ASCS National Tour were also on hand. Skylar Gee won the Budweiser Shake Up Dash and finished fifth in the feature while Robbie Price had a nice run going in fourth early before spinning. He fought back nicely though taking ninth at the checkers.
In support class action it was great to see Roger "Fireball" Brocket back in action driving a dirt truck. He finished third behind John Helenthal and Drake Fenton while Brandon Housley made the trip over from Ottumwa to win in the Four Cylinders. Mike Morrill knows where victory lane is at 34 and he won another feature in the Mod Lite division.
It was a great week of racing and I will look forward to getting back out to the track soon. Look for me on the Back Stretch.
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