With both of our employers making Independence Day a five-day weekend, Christine and I took advantage and made the trip up to southwest Michigan to spend some time with our daughter Ashley and her husband Stephen. With a cold front passing through on Thursday the weather was absolutely perfect for sitting out on the beaches of Lake Michigan each day in St. Joseph, South Haven and Muskegon and if you have never considered a "beach vacation" here in the Midwest before, I would highly recommend it.
On Thursday and Friday night we returned to Kalamazoo to dine at Cosmo's Cucina where Stephen is the chef and believe me when I say that I am not being biased, this is a place that you must check out if you are in the neighborhood. You can have a spectacular burger or a pizza downstairs at O'Duffy's Pub or go upstairs to experience the next amazing dish that Stephen has whipped up on the ever changing menu at Cosmo's. You won't be disappointed! My choices were a gorgonzola burger one night follow by sea scallops and shrimp on a green papaya slaw with an oriental flavored dressing on the other. Yum!
Ashley joined us on Saturday's day long adventure and after doing some shopping in Saugatuck we headed up the coast to Muskegon for some strategically scheduled beach time as my plan for the evening was to have the girls drop me off at the nearby Thunderbird Raceway while they returned to town for dinner and some more exploring.
Each year I have a goal of visiting at least one track that is new to me and, as I review the rest of my projected 2018 schedule, Thunderbird just might be the only one that I make it to this season. It is a rustic ol' quarter-mile with big sweeping turns and I would imagine that a bird's eye view of the track would reveal that it is nearly a circle with little or no "straight" in the straightaways. With a clear blue sky and the sun beating down, the track surface was already dry and dirty come race time which made me wonder if Michigan dirt tracks just don't believe in watering as my previous experience was much the same, or actually worse as you will see starting at paragraph six. Even with the dry, slick conditions the heat race action was good, especially in the Late Models where a nice field of eighteen cars were on hand.
Once the heat races were completed the track took a lengthy intermission where they also gave the racing surface a good soaking and during that thirty minute break I had the pleasure of speaking with the fan next to me named Rod who gave me some good insight to not only Thunderbird and its history, but also racing in general around the state of Michigan. He told me that I need to come back up in September when they put the dirt down on the pavement at the Berlin Raceway as that is some of the best action all year and it is at a very nice facility.
Our conversation made the break go fast and I had told him that my wife and daughter would be picking me up at 9:30 regardless of where we were at in the program and he thought that I might still have a chance of catching the Late Model feature. Christine and Ashley already knew that if the Late Models were on the track at pickup time that they would be waiting until the checkers fell.
The two divisions of the kids in the Mini Wedges ran first on the infield track, while the big track was still soaking up the water added during intermission and when the Cyber Stocks (Outlaw Four Cylinders) came to the track several of the cars immediately skated up to the wall in turns three and four on the opening lap. It took some extra time to roll in the grease and that pretty much sealed my fate as the Modifieds had just started their feature as my watch reached 9:30 and when there was a four car pileup to bring out the caution I thanked Rod for his time and headed to the parking lot to meet the girls. After all, if I am going to get to do this again in the future, I needed to keep my word now!
Checking the results I see that Gary Vandermark, the driver who was leading when I left won the Modified feature as top contender Greg Smith was caught up in that four car wreck. In the Late Models defending track champion Kyle Borgman started fourth and took the win ahead of Tom Sprague Jr. and Andy Sprague. If you watch Dirt Late Model racing in Michigan you will notice that the majority of the tracks still run a weekly program and that the car counts are usually solid in the high teens all the way up to near thirty a night. Why? I attribute it to the fact that they only run one set of rules at every track in the state, so you don't have Crates here, 9:1's there, Spec Motors over here and WISSOTA up there. One class of Late Models, that's it, and they perhaps have the best weekly racing for Late Models in the entire country.
The UMP Summer Nationals will be at Thunderbird Raceway tomorrow night, Wednesday, and while the number of Hell Tour regulars is dwindling I will be interested to see how well the Michigan drivers fill in. Check out the highlights at Dirt On Dirt.
A business trip will keep me away from one of my favorite events this year as the Sprint Invaders make their annual visit to the Cedar County Fair in Tipton Thursday night. Surprisingly there has been no mention of it so far on the Iowastockcars forum, but the Sport Mods will also be in action with the Sprints and the past two years a $1,000-to-win purse has been quite a draw. The Sprint Invaders will continue their July county fair circuit on Thursday the 19th at the Davis County Fair in Bloomfield, then on Tuesday July 24th the Invaders return to the Dubuque County Fair where the racing has been fantastic the past couple of years. Hopefully I will be able to make both of those events, but as always my job comes first!
We have a couple of other events on the schedule over the next eight days if work and weather permits, so check back in on the Back Stretch again soon!
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