Justin Kay showed his versatility on Thursday night competing in four of the six divisions as the 2018 Darkside Fall Bash kicked off a three day run with more than 200 race cars in the pits at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton. In two of those the well-liked driver from Wheatland would celebrate in victory lane on a night that two days earlier you would have given up on if you had watched the weather forecast.
Bright sunny skies and a cool easterly breeze greeted a solid crowd for the Thursday night opener with twenty-five heat races and eleven B-Mains needed to set the feature fields for the night with the first main event being the Two Man Cruisers. Corey Rupp and Brandon Erishman were lined up at the back of the eleven car field for the original start, but after a skirmish in turn one on the opening lap they ended up on the outside of row two for the restart. The Rupp/Erishman duo would soon make their way to the lead with the team of Wayne Hora and Keith Keltner in hot pursuit before they spun in turn two mid-race to bring out the caution. On the restart Hora and Keltner quickly made their way back up to second and did everything they could to try to get to the leaders, but as the checkers waved for Rupp and Erishman, Hora and Keltner spun again in turn four dropping them to sixth at the pay window. Mike Hansmeier and Wade Schultz would take second while Chad Rigby and Carson Carpenter were third.
The American Iron Racing Series (AIRS) cars were up next and if you are over the age of fifty this division will definitely bring back a lot memories as you watch them in action. And these are not just beautiful old show cars, these are full out race cars with drivers racing hard, yet very respectfully for each and every position. Justin Kay was driving the Dave Meyer owned car #70 tonight and he would draw the pole position for the twelve-lap main event. Retired Modified star Ron Barker was driving the Keith Simmons Freeport Auto Supply #38 and he quickly moved into second to chase Kay. Barker had one shot as the leader encountered lapped traffic, but when Kay displayed his skills even in this unfamiliar car he cleared the traffic and pulled away to the flag-to-flag victory. Barker was second followed by Dan Kessler, Scott Moffitt and Jacob Arp.
Twenty- four of the forty-two Four Cylinders on hand qualified for their twelve lap feature with Joe Zrostlik starting from the pole position. The two-time All Iowa Points Champion (2005-2006) in this division, Zrostlik pushed up the track on the opening lap losing several positions, but when the caution waved for a spin at the back of the field he made the most of the second chance and would lead the opening lap. Jake Benischek who ranks second in the current All Iowa Points would squeeze under Zrostlik to lead laps two and three before the caution waved for a Rob Harding Jr. spin in turn two. On the restart Zrostlik would power past Benischek for the lead and he would open it up from there on his way to victory. Dustin Forbes would get past Benischek for second with four laps to go, but Jake would come back to take second at the checkers ahead of Forbes while Alex Hayes put on a show by riding the rim around the top of the well-prepared quarter-mile to come from nineteenth to fourth. Luke Benischek who started ninth would fill out the top five. Justin Kay who started his brilliant racing career in this division would drive Ryan Havel's #0 on the night, but after an early scuffle would find him restarting at the rear he made little progress.
Both Kay and Zrostlik would then have to scramble to their Late Models as that feature was next on the docket with thirty laps being the distance. Andy Nezworski would go from the pole to the lead at the drop of the green with Luke Goedert and Kay in hot pursuit. Those top three were running in tight formation as they scored lap seven and entering turn one Goedert might have gotten a little loose as he looked one groove wider than the leader. Kay's left front might have made contact with Goedert as he went for a spin and it wasn't so much that you could see it from the stands as the fact that Luke's right rear quarter panel was now flared out a bit after the incident. As you can see by using the word "might" twice I am not assigning blame and the corner worker who would have had the best perspective obviously did not fault Kay as only Goedert would go to the rear for the restart.
Once back to green it only took one lap for Kay to slip under Nezworski for the lead and a lap later Tyler Bruening would follow him into second. The remaining twenty circuits would then be an entertaining chase as the two leaders used every line on the race track to negotiate traffic and in the closing laps with the leader Kay married to the bottom, Bruening looked like he was getting quite a run off the top line. On the final lap exiting turn four Kay came off the bottom a bit sideways and Bruening had the momentum only to come up a car length short at the checkers. Matt Ryan finished in the third position, soon to be a first time All Iowa Points Champion Jeremiah Hurst was fourth and Nezworski held down the fifth spot.
As Kay celebrated in victory lane I checked my watch and with it being eleven o'clock and another early day ahead at work the next morning I decided to make my way out in hope of staying well rested for three more race events this weekend. This should in no way be taken that this was a poorly run show and in fact I was amazed at the efficiency of the event. It simply takes more than four hours to present a racing program when more than 200 cars are involved!
Checking the results this morning I see that Gage Neal and his white wall tires were victorious in the Sport Mod feature followed by Tony Olson, Dustin Schram, Scott Busch and Waupun, Wisconsin's Colten Van Hierden. And in the Modified's Jeff Aikey continued his mastery of mega events by taking the win ahead of Kyle Brown, Bruce Garnhart, Justin Kay and Jeff Larson.
Announcers Jerry Mackey and Jason "Big Boy" Frommelt did a great job of keeping the crowd entertained and informed with all of the drivers names and hometowns and every once in awhile you would catch some of flagman Doug Haack's humorous musings over an open mic. The "Dirt Doctor" Al Dlouhy delivered a great racing surface as always and now promoters Timmy Current and Ryan Duhme hope that Mother Nature cooperates again so that they can get both Friday and Saturday's shows in as well. You never know, I might just be back!
Weather and some personal business to attend to will dictate my schedule over the next three days, but I hope that you will be like me and instead of just throwing in the towel based upon a forecast, actually watch the weather as it develops each day and if there is a race that can be run in your area, go to it! After all, it is the first weekend of October and there is not much left in the season.
See you on the Back Stretch!
1 comment:
Like Jeff said, they did an excellent job of moving the show along, given the amount of cars that they had. That being said, not everyone in the world had Friday off, and knowing that they were going to have a big field of cars, no more than four classes should have raced on Thursday night. Save the other stuff for Friday and Saturday when the time lines aren't so tight. Otherwise, it was a fine program.
Ed Reichert
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