As hoped for the car count jumped up by fifteen to a total of 91 as the Pepsi Lee County Speedway hosted night number two of the annual Spring Extravaganza Saturday night with several of the competitors making a long trip to the track nestled in the far southeast Iowa community of Donnellson. Once again drivers had to navigate some rough spots around the bottom line of both sets of turns, but considering what this facility looked like just two weeks earlier the surface held up quite nicely for the first weekend of racing in this section of the country.
Late Models were again first on the docket for feature racing with Minnesota's Dustin Bluhm starting from the pole position and looking for redemption in the twenty-lap main event. Last night Bluhm was solidly out front when he spun sideways on lap nine and had to restart from the back. Jay Johnson would again pick up the chase of Bluhm while running second, but tonight it would be in his own car #93 instead of Blair Barton's #7 that he drove on opening night.
The caution would wave on lap six when Chris Morefield pounded the turn four guardrail head on and on the restart Friday night's winner Tommy Elston would takeover the second spot. Bluhm was able to keep Elston a few car lengths back as the laps clicked away until Tommy found a faster line just a few car widths higher than the leader in turns three and four. Coming to the white flag Elston was able to pull even with Bluhm on the outside and the two drivers then drag raced into turn one, neither of them wanting to be the first to lift.
Elston was the first to hammer the brakes hoping to turn under Bluhm as he slid up the track, but the leader was able to do the same and then close the door off the bottom of turn two to keep Elston behind him. Tommy would again try that higher line through three and four only to have Bluhm beat him to the line by less than a car length for the win. Johnson was not far behind in third, Denny Woodworth was fourth and Sam Halstead finished fifth with Mike Smith sixth in Barton's #7. My understanding is that Smith will drive the car on the Deery Brothers Summer Series in 2019.
The Stock Car feature was up next for 22 laps and once again it was a tight pack racing up front throughout, but unfortunately a couple of late incidents left several cars with damage to repair before they can go racing again. Todd Reitzler and Damon Murty would bring the field to green with Reitzler holding the advantage on lap one before yielding to Murty on the second trip around the 3/8th-mile D-shaped track.
A caution waved on lap five for a two car incident involving Chad Krogmeier and Michael Bilyeau and on the restart Murty was able to pull away a bit as a three car battle for second between Reitzler, Abe Huls and Jeremy Pundt raged on behind him. Huls finally claimed the second spot mid-race and quickly closed in on the leader challenging Murty on the inside several times before the caution waved for a Pete Stodgel spin in turn one.
With the field tightened up again for the final six laps Cayden Carter was now in the mix for the lead as he worked the low line and Huls tried to find some grip another car width up. Murty held his ground though and took the white flag in the lead, but going into turn one Carter charged in on the bottom looking to take it away. He could not get the car to stick though and when he slid sideways Carter collected the local favorite Pundt who appeared to have another top five finish in the bag. Huls also suffered front end damage to his car even though he kept going and would restart the race again in third.
On this attempt at a green-white-checkers finish the field would race hard for a lap only to see contact between Adam Klocke and Huls in turn two cause a seven car pileup that saw several of them unable to restart for the second "overtime". With most of his primary challengers now eliminated Murty would hold off a stout bid from Derek Green to finally take the win as John Oliver Jr., Jay Schmidt and Kyle Brown survived to complete the top five.
Twenty laps for the Sport Mods would be up next and after going green to checkers last night, they had a few incidents to slow the field tonight. Brandon Jewell would lead lap one by a nose before pole-sitter Brandon Dale would take the point, but the man on the move was Austen Becerra who charged from tenth to second in just four laps.
Debris would bring out the first caution with four laps completed and on the restart Becerra completed his charge to the front powering past Dale. Colton Livezy was running a solid third when he went into turn three a little hot on lap eight and spun. Then, on the restart, Brandon Lambert would loop his car in turn two collecting three other cars including Brandon Tharp. One last caution would be needed on lap nine when Bob Cowman spun in turn two and after that it was all Austen Becerra as he pulled away for a convincing win over last night's winner Tyler Soppe and third-place finisher Brayton Carter. St. Louis area driver Earl Pryor would finish in the fourth spot with Nathan Bringer completing the top five.
Twelve Modifieds would do battle for 22 laps next on the card with pole-sitter Mike Van Genderen setting a swift early pace. Michael Long started fourth and was soon in second giving chase to the leader, but with Van Genderen running a steady line that kept him from jumping around in the holes, Long was unable to mount a challenge. That changed quickly at the mid-race mark though as Long finally imitated the leader's line through three and four giving him a big run down the front stretch and with Van Genderen leaving that inside open Long charged under him in turns one and two to take the lead. Van Genderen was able to keep pace with the new leader for a couple of laps before Long started to pull away for his second victory of the weekend. Van Genderen followed up from a DNF on Friday to take the runner-up honors tonight ahead of Austin Howes, Jeremy Mills and Derrick Stewart. Aaron Johnson who made the 500 mile trip from Brainerd, Minnesota, for the weekend finished sixth tonight after running fifth on Friday.
Johnson wasn't even the long distance traveler of the weekend though as that honor went to Zach Jackson who towed his Sport Compact 587 miles from Bemidji, Minnesota, only to retire early from the Saturday finale that saw twenty-seven cars take the green for fourteen laps. Jacob Houston started third, but had the lead when they completed lap one with two-time defending All Iowa Points champion Barry Taft in hot pursuit. The leaders would run single file until lap eleven when Cody Staley spun out of turn four and with the double file restart things got pretty interesting over the final three laps.
Nobody could touch Houston though as he would race away to his second win of the weekend, this one much less dramatic than his win on Friday night though where he did a Joie Chitwood-like two wheel drive before make a final lap pass for the win. The victim of that last lap pass on Friday, Jason Ash had to charge from a sixth row start tonight to again finish in second while Taft hung on for third. Jeffrey DeLonjay would finish in the fourth position while Chris Vannausdle would make the long pull over from Villisca to complete the top five.
Despite an ominous looking radar only a few sprinkles fell during the Sport Mod feature and the racing action was complete at 9:40 p.m. A big thank you to promoters Brian and Marcie Gaylord for their hospitality for the weekend and to announcers Tony Paris and Dan Workman for mentioning our work at Positively Racing.
With the Spring Extravaganza now in the books, the Pepsi Lee County Speedway will open its regular season on Friday April 12th.
1 comment:
Great to see you Jeff, it was a bit chilly during the night, with the winds out of the north, but the racing action was super hot and keep up the great work on BACK STRETCH my friend.
Photodaddy AKA DK
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