With a stationary front draped across the state of Iowa from east to west you had to go as far south as possible to find some reasonably warm racing Friday night and the Lee County Speedway is the southern most track in the state tucked into southeast corner. Six divisions were in action with five of them sporting double figure car counts topped by the Stock Cars at twenty strong and what a race they had to highlight the evening.
Jeremy Pundt and John Oliver Jr. would bring the field to green and they raced side-by-side to cross the stripe in a virtual dead heat for lap one. With the caution waving after that lap it would be Pundt who would lead the field back to green only to have a second caution wave after lap two. Okay, so now they were ready to race and boy oh boy did it get interesting.
Hugging the bottom Pundt would maintain the lead until lap ten when Oliver was able to get enough of a run off the top of turn four to take the lead. Jason Cook was digging on the inside as well waiting for Pundt to leave an opening and both David Brandies and Todd Reitzler were now in the mix as well. Six cars were racing for the lead with no more than four car-lengths from the front to the back of the six pack with drivers going three and nearly four wide at times. Brandies appeared to have a run at the top of turn three on lap thirteen, but when that four wide pack ran out of room some contact nearly sent him spinning and that allowed Abe Huls to emerge from the bottom take the lead. Reitzler would take the point on the following lap only to have Huls charge back on the bottom with five to go.
Reitzler was searching out lines over those final laps trying to find something that would propel him back to the front, but Huls was too stout and he would take the win in this thriller. Reiztler was right there in second followed closely by Oliver Jr., Pundt, Cook and Brandies.
It looked as if there would be a first time winner in the Steffes Late Model division tonight as Todd Frank shook off the early challenges of his son Gunnar and then opened up a comfortable lead in the twenty lap main event. It would all go by the wayside though with six laps remaining when the motor let go on the leader's car dropping a big oil streak down the front straightaway. After the cleanup Gunnar tried to keep the win in the family, but he could not hold off Sam Halstead who charged by on the restart to take the win. Jay Johnson finished second, Ron Boyse edged out the younger Frank at the line for third and Tommy Elston completed the top five. Three drivers making their first appearance of 2108 Aric Becker, Brandon Queen and Darin Weisinger all looked good in their debut.
After some tough luck during the first two point races Austen Becerra, Brandon Dale and Brandon Lennox lined up one, two and three in the average point format for the feature and they would be the class of the field over the 18 lap distance. Becerra would lead the first four circuits before Dale took over for two laps and then Lennox powered by on the outside of turn to take the lead and eventually the win. Dale would fight off a late slider by Becerra to finish second, Sean Wyett was fourth and point leader Dakota Sapp finished fifth.
Blake Woodruff and Craig Spegal were early leaders in the IMCA Modified feature, but after Jeff Waterman took the lead on lap five he would walk away from the field over the remaining fifteen circuits to win in dominating fashion. Waterman had started seventh on the grid. Spegal had his best run at LCS as the runner-up, Bill Roberts Jr. recovered from mechanical issues in hot laps to finish third, Woodruff was fourth and Dakota Simmons filled out the top five.
Defending All Iowa Points champion Barry Taft took the lead from Mike Reu on lap five and then held off a late challenge from Kimberly Abbott to win the 14-lap Sport Compact headliner. Abbot was half a car length back at the checkers in second, Brandon Reu finished ahead of his father Mike in third while Chuck Fullenkamp was fifth.
Five Hobby Stocks started the feature. One pulled to the infield with handling problems and two of them Broc Hopwood and Nathan Ballard fell out with flat tires, Ballard while leading. Aaron Martin was there to clean up by taking the win while Gene Nicklas was second.
As always there were a bunch of great sponsors supporting the show at Lee County, plus the track's scorekeeper and our colleague here at Positively Racing Brian Neal put up an extra $350 that was collected by four of the night's winners. There was a good crowd on hand and the track was smooth, wide and racy. Back to normal at Donnellson!
After three straight nights at the track it is on to some Mother's Day weekend traditions for me with my next racing action scheduled for Wednesday night at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. Here's hoping that you can get out to a show or two at the track of your choice this weekend!
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