Wednesday Notebook: May 23, 2018

It is another beautiful Wednesday night for racing at the Southern Iowa Speedway and I am looking forward to being on the microphone again filling in for Tony Paris who will be busy guiding a talented group of phenoms in a baseball game in Ottumwa. While I do enjoy the chance to do some announcing I must say that on Wednesdays I might prefer to sit up in the stands with all of my racing friends that gather mid-week in Oskaloosa, especially when the number of opportunities to do so are fewer in 2018. Either way I do hope that if you are within driving distance that you make your way out to the track tonight!

So let's get to some notes that I have compiled as I was going through the results from this past weekend and I will admit that I still have several states to get through so if you know of something noteworthy that I missed, feel free to comment on the Facebook post where I have shared the link.

I loved seeing a couple of names in victory lane this past weekend. Steve Holthaus a former NKF Tour Hobby Stock champion is still winning races twenty years later as he took the Hobby Stock victory in Decorah Saturday night and central Iowa transplant Jeff Mueller was the Stock Car feature winner at Boone Saturday night. I have literally watched Jeff grow up and fans of Marshalltown and Boone, if you haven't figured it out yet, if there is any traction to be found on the bottom line you can bet that Mueller will be challenging for the win.

There were a couple of nice paying IMCA Modified shows in eastern Iowa last weekend. On Friday night Cayden Carter took the $2,000 top prize at the Davenport Speedway relegating Justin Kay to second. Two nights earlier Carter took a drive in his brother Brayton's Sport Mod to end Curtis Van Der Wal's eleven race winning streak at Oskaloosa so the young redhead was something of a giant slayer last week. On Saturday night it was Bryce Garnhart picking up $1,000 for the win at the Maquoketa Speedway and in case you didn't notice, the driver from Shannon, Illinois, is the early leader in the Modified All Iowa Points. Now granted two of these drivers list Arizona as their home state and are basing themselves out of Iowa, but only two drivers from the current top ten are from Iowa. The Modified division has been tabulated since 1979 and only one driver with an out of state address has ever won the All Iowa Points, that being Rick Wages from Moline, Illinois, in 1993 and 1994.

Another driver that I noted in the results from Maquoketa was Todd Reitzler who towed his IMCA Stock Car over to finish fourth in a division that combined Stock Cars and the Quad City area Street Stocks that some folks refer to as "Voodoo Wagons". The Darkside promotional team called them Outlaw Super Bombers, but I like Voodoo Wagons better.

Kyle Peterson won his first career Sprint Car feature at 34 Raceway Saturday night while a couple of other southeast Iowa Sprint Car drivers made the trip north for the weekend. John Schulz and Brayden Gaylord ran with the UMSS series in Princeton, Minnesota, on Friday night and at Cedar Lake Speedway in Wisconsin on Saturday.  Both drivers will race much closer to home this coming weekend as the Sprint Invaders return to action on Friday night at the Pepsi Lee County Speedway in Donnellson and then at 34 Raceway west of Burlington on Sunday night. That's right, the oval track racing will take place on Sunday this weekend at 34 Raceway because on Saturday night they will be hosting the Freedom Figure 8 event with some wild action right in front of the grandstand.

Wyatt Block of Tigerton, Wisconsin, was the best of a thirty car field of IMCA Modifieds at the Shawano Speedway Saturday night. I love it when a driver moves out of the Sport Mods and into the Modifieds and finds success.

Kile Motorsports has announced that they will be promoting a race on Saturday night July 14th at the West Liberty Raceway. Good to see that the legendary track will not sit completely idle in 2018.

The storm is rolling in from the west last Saturday at Lucas Oil Speedway

In this week's "Yes, Social Media Actually Helps Racing" update we salute Landon Little who used Facebook to post the following after the Lucas Oil Speedway in Missouri had to cancel after being hit by a heavy thunderstorm just before race time. "Should pay for are gas for wasted trip". Thanks Landon! You our a true race fan and you have are complete support, keep up the great work with the constructive criticism as it truly can only make racing better!

Hopefully the weather will be nice for three full nights action as the Show Me 100 kicks off this Thursday night at the Lucas Oil Speedway.

It took me a minute or two to figure out what the Park Jefferson Speedway meant to say when they posted the following to Facebook on Saturday:

"Due to amount of rain and antiseptic rain we have cancel races for this week"

Did spell check really change the word "anticipated" to "antiseptic"???

Now I know that spell check was not to blame when somebody had a post on a race forum last week that used the phrase "any buddy" rather than the word "anybody". My mistake.....spell check was not to blame when sum buddy had a post on a race forum last week......

Okay that's enough from me for now. Hope to see you tonight at Osky, Friday in Donnellson and Sunday at 34. I am lobbying to get the wife to go drink beer and watch the Figure 8's on Saturday and then on Monday I hope to slip away in time to make it to Vinton for the Dirt Knights event at the Benton County Speedway.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend and be sure to take some time to recognize the true meaning of the Holiday. See you on the Back Stretch!

Oh yes, and in case I forget to say it tonight Happy Anniversary to Deb and Ron Haines!