As the snowflakes began to fall, we left southeast Iowa Saturday morning and made the five hour trip to Springfield, Missouri, where we were greeted by glorious sunny skies and a temperature of 67 degrees. This was well above the 44 that had been predicted five days ago and even the 55 that was forecast the day before proving once again that you should never change your plans until the last minute when it comes to anything that is dependent upon weather. A lot of people want to ridicule "the weatherman" saying that it is the one profession where you can be wrong more than half the time and still keep your job, but I prefer to look at it like this; Isn't it nice to know that we have yet to pin down Mother Nature?
At least that's how I felt on this day as things worked out better than planned with around 170 cars in five divisions signed in to do battle on the quick Springfield Raceway quarter-mile in this traditional event. My Positively Racing colleague Danny Rosencrans noted that only three of the twenty Late Models were here last year and the car count may have been effected by a rule this year that allowed only one shock and spring on the left rear suspension and that it had to be mounted on the birdcage in front of the rear end housing. Those of you who know me know that I am not a "rules guy", but from some of the complaining by Late Model drivers about this requirement prior to the event I am guessing that kept a few cars away.
The twenty Late Models who were here though put on a good show with Chase Parmeley bringing the field to green from the pole position for their twenty-five lap A-Main. Parmeley would lead the opening circuit before Shawn Strong spun in turn one and on the restart Scott Crigler powered to the front of the pack. Sixth-starting Joe Gorby would follow Crigler into second before the caution waved again on lap five for Mike Bitner's spin.
Once back to racing Crigler was sailing around the top side with Gorby challenging down low and after nearly losing the lead to him coming off turn four, Crigler dropped down the next lap to take away the line of his challenger. After doing that, the southern Missouri based driver Crigler would then drive away as the race stayed green to win his second Late Model Turkey Trophy by more than a straightaway over the Oklahoman Gorby. Jake Davis started second and finished third ahead of Kaden Cornell who came from eighth to fourth. Sam Halstead who lives about ten miles down the road from me in New London, Iowa, made the long tow down and had an impressive run taking fifth in the final laps after starting from the inside of the sixth row.
Josh Payton and Mickey Burrell would bring the field to green in the twenty-lap Modified headliner with Burrell driving out to a solid lead early on. The driver to watch though was Ryan Gustin who had lined up twelfth on the grid, but was picking off positions in each corner. By lap five Gustin was in the top five and he then seemed to gain a spot on the score sheet with each trip around the quarter-mile. Once into second Gustin had to make up some ground on the leader, but that didn't take long and on lap ten he powered under Burrell in turn four to take the lead.
It was all over but the shouting now as Gustin handled lapped traffic to perfection and drove away in the non-stop event to win by half a lap over Burrell. St. Louis area driver Steve Picou came from sixth to finish third, north central Missouri's Robbie Reed raced from ninth to to fourth and Kansas City area veteran Chad Lyle completed the top five after starting from eleventh.
Those two events followed the Midwest Modifieds and the B-Modifieds that definitely had their fair share of cautions and drama.
In the Midwest Modified feature, the first main event of the night, the pole-sitter spun in front of the field in turn two on the opening lap and the ensuing pileup eliminated himself and four others. Mark Simon then assumed the pole for the restart and he would lead the field through the scored laps that came after four other cautions on laps two, three, eight and nine. Following a sixth caution flag on lap eleven Simon was no longer able to ward off the challenges of two-time track champion Scott Campbell who took the lead on lap twelve and then held it the final eight laps as the race stayed green. Campbell would have to park strategically in victory lane for his Turkey Trophy photo shoot as the right side of his car was badly damaged from the first lap melee as he had originally started fifth on the grid. John Lankton gradually made his way to the front after starting fifteenth to finish second, Matt Dorsson came from tenth to third while Andy Aust and Danny Aust filled out the top five with Danny coming from the back of the field. Simon faded to sixth at the checkers.
The twenty lap B-Modified main event got off to a sloppy start when one of the pre-race favorites Taylor Moore spun in turn one on the first green flag attempt. On the second try the two front row starters Dillon McCowan and Aaron Scroggins made contact entering turn one sending McCowan for a spin in front of the field. Fortunately everybody was able to avoid and the field was reset with those two now starting at the rear and moving Wesley Smith and Jackie Dalton to the front row.
Dalton would take advantage of this and grab the lead with Smith in hot pursuit until lap eight when the yellow was needed again as Jimmy Cummins spun in turn two with McCowan also sliding to a halt. As the field lined up for the restart you couldn't help but to notice that J.C. Morton was now running fourth. Earlier in the night Morton, who was the All Missouri Points Limited Modified champion four years straight from 2012 to 2015, had started at the back of his heat race and was sailing around the field on the outside during the opening lap when a car pushed up the track and hit him hard in turn four. Morton would come back to win one of the B-Mains to start him sixteenth on the field in the feature and he was now poised to challenge for the win on the coming restart.
Running that same high line Morton would move to third, but on the tenth lap when he dove low going into turn one it caught Shawn Duncan by surprise sending him for a spin that then collected five more cars.
Once back to green Morton would shuffle Smith out of second and set his sights on the leader Dalton as Jackie worked the middle line in the turns and J.C. drove the top. As they came off turn two on the eighteenth lap Morton had a run, but when Dalton came up the track to shut the door he took a square shot in the rear end from his challenger. And, on the following lap Morton again had a run and this time stayed a bit higher down the back stretch trying to pull alongside the leader. When Dalton stayed up high entering turn three though Morton had to pitch his car sideways to keep from going off the top of the banking and when he couldn't make the save the flagman had no choice but to throw the caution with Morton sideways in the middle of turn three and the rest of the field closing in.
After completing a slow 360, Morton made one more quick lap under caution to make his feelings known to Dalton before exiting the track prior to the green-white-checkers restart. From there Dalton, who himself has won the All Missouri Modified Points each of the last two years, but moved to the B-Mods in 2018 after one of his weekly tracks Monett dropped the division, would go the final two laps unchallenged to take the win ahead of Kameron Grindstaff and Dustin Leatherman with Scroggins and Jeremy Price filling out the top five. Grindtsaff originally started the race from the outside of row ten and Scroggins took his place at the back for the second start after his opening lap snafu. Leatherman and Price had started seventh and eleventh respectively.
The Legend Cars were also in action with drivers coming from as far away as southeast Wisconsin to compete, but when the first caution flag waved in their feature we decided to head for the car completely satisfied with the show that had already been presented. Caleb McDougle would take the win over Grayson Cox and Justin Comer.
The racing action was very entertaining throughout the night with several slide jobs and cross overs tossed in to determine final qualifying positions in the heats and the B-Mains and it would be hard to find fault with either Dalton or Morton as they raced hard for the win in the B-Modifieds. The program started just a few minutes past the advertised time of 3 p.m. and was presented with great efficiency as we were on our way out of the parking lot not far after eight o'clock. My only wish for next year would be that Ronnie Williams and his co-announcer be given a lineup sheet with names and hometowns so that they could get started before the cars were on the speedway rather than trying to call out the field once they were assembled on the track and taking the green flag.
The five of us had a great time and you can bet that Turkey Bowl XIII will be on our calendar for 2019. We suggest that you add it to yours as well.
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