For the third year in a row the Sprint Invaders and the Quincy Raceways combined to give race fans a night to remember with great racing from the drop of the green in heat one all the way to the final checkers. Two years ago it was Chris Martin charging through the field like he was someone's avatar in a video game coming from the ninth starting spot to take the lead and then walk away with a convincing victory. And last year, on a racing surface that was about as perfect that you will ever see for a Sprint Car race, Jon Agan came from the sixth starting spot to take the win.
Just like the last two years it was unseasonably hot for mid-September on Sunday with a bright sun beating down on a racing surface that I have to admit looked way too dry as it sat there already packed in and waiting for hot laps to start at 5:30. I guess that just shows that I know less about track prep than I'd like to think as the quarter-mile was not only wide, but also had a nice cushion once racing was set to get under way at 6:30 for the twenty-two Sprint Cars and the other four divisions that were scheduled for action.
Sprint Car fans know that you sometimes sacrifice passing during the heat races so that the cushion can build and be pushed up the track as the night goes on in order to provide a great track for the feature. Nice and wide where drivers can catfish around the bottom, sail around the top, or use any of the space in between. For the second year in row though Jason Goble and his track crew somehow found a way to provide that "feature type" of track surface for the heat races as well and the fans were treated to plenty of passing in the three Sprint Car heats. In fact the seventh starter in each of the three heats were able to race their way forward with Joe B. Miller getting to fourth in the first heat, Brayden Gaylord moving to fourth in the second heat and Dustin Adams, making his first appearance with the Sprint Invaders since two years ago here at Quincy, was able to work his way up to third in the final heat earning him enough passing points to go from the pole position of the Budweiser Shake Up Dash. Adams would then fight off the challenges of Paul Nienheiser to take the win in the Dash, but when he drew the #6 that would put Nienheiser, the night's guest driver of the Midland Performance car #50 on the pole position for the 25-lap main event.
Fresh off of his victory the night before at the Spoon River Speedway driving his own 410 car in the Tom Knowles Memorial, Nienheiser would be a tough catch starting up front but the current Sprint Invaders point leader Cody Wehrle kept him in sight once the race found a groove after a couple of early cautions. Wehrle who himself captured his first career feature win with the series at the last event at 34 Raceway on August 18th even made a run at the lead with just a handful of laps remaining as Nienheiser had to leave his preferred top groove to work traffic. The man on the move though was Joe B. Miller who, just like Chris Martin two years ago, had started ninth and was steadily making his way to the front with a variety of moves depending upon where the car ahead of him was running and how the lapped traffic was involved. Let's just say that he was able to make his #51B work pretty much anywhere!
Just after Wehrle's missed attempt at the lead, Miller would drop him to third and with just three laps remaining the new challenger would pull even with Nieheiser in turns one and two. Paul would use the momentum off the top side to retain the lead though and Miller would regroup to make another run at him a lap later. Coming to the white flag Miller would again pull even with Nienheiser in turn three and four and they would be side-by-side across the start-finish line with just one lap remaining.
Diving low into turn one for the final time Miller would slide up in front of Nienheiser to hold the lead going down the back stretch only to have Nienhesier charge right back to the bottom in turn three with a slider to re-take the lead. As Nienhesier slid up the track in turn four though, Miller executed the crossover to perfection and powered ahead down the front stretch to take the win by no more than a car length over Nienheiser. The crowd was absolutely buzzing as I made my way down to the front stretch to interview the happy winner and you can bet that they will be talking about this one for some time to come! Wehrle solidified his point lead with just two events remaining with another impressive run in third, and the Schneiderman brothers Josh and Jarrod filled out the top five. Justin Bucholz had one of his best nights in a Sprint Car as he captured a heat race win and then was solid in the feature finishing in sixth. Nick Breuer had a 360 back under the hood of his #78 and Kaley Gharst drove it to a seventh place finish. John Schulz who ran sixth at the UMSS show at the Deer Creek Speedway in Minnesota the night before finished eighth here at Quincy as Dustin Barks and Brayden Gaylord completed the top ten.
The Sprint Invaders will close out the 2018 campaign on Friday and Saturday September 28th and 29th at 34 Raceway west of Burlington with the first ever Fall Haul. The Sprints will run a complete show each night with $2,000 going to the winner on Friday and a stout $3,400 up for grabs in victory lane on Saturday night!
The racing was solid in the other divisions at Quincy Sunday night as well as they too found the track conditions to their liking. I was especially impressed with the Sport Mod division where the sixteen drivers only had a few incidents through the night, much different than what has been the norm here the past several seasons where this class has been a caution festival just waiting to happen. You can always count on Austen Becerra to put on a show and he did just that again on this night racing high and low, wherever he needed to go to get to the front and take the win.
Getting the races over earlier on a Sunday night has been a point of emphasis as well for Jason Goble and his staff and proof of just how seriously they are taking that came with tonight's Sport Mod feature. They were second on the schedule following the Midgets and when the Midgets ran their twelve lap feature in green to checker fashion only two of the Sport Mods were in staging and ready to go. Therefore those two drivers were moved to the front row of the main event with the rest of the field starting behind them in the order that they were to originally line up.
Sometimes it takes hard actions like this to change a culture that has been in place for a long time. Is it working? Our Sprint Car feature, the fourth of six feature races on the schedule took the checkered flag just before nine o'clock and I was home at 10:30. Now that I like!!
Bill and I absolutely love working with Quincy's track announcer Doug Mealy who does a fantastic job of informing and entertaining the fans and who always gives us a chuckle or two along the way. One of the smoothest voices in motorsports I have referred to him in the past as the "Velvet Fog" in reference to singer Mel Torme, somebody that Warren Busse will have heard of but for those of you who are big into Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, etc. click here to get the reference.
There might a few things to discuss as the week goes on and if so I will be back with a Notebook entry before the weekend. Otherwise family fun and college football will keep me away from the track this week until Sunday night when we make the road trip to the LaSalle Speedway where the IRA Sprints and the Super Late Models will be action. Check out the schedule at Positively Racing and get out to the race, or races of your choice this week!
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