With every track within a 150 mile radius either rained out, or with the night already scheduled to be idle, drivers from all around converged on the the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis on Friday night. The stationery front that had brought all of the rain to Iowa overnight stayed just far enough to the north that the northern tier of counties in Missouri had not been effected, but that didn't mean that it was an easy task to get the facility ready for racing. All of the recent precipitation had left standing water in the low areas and the track's flagman Kevin Eggleston had spent the past two days pounding the track with the sheeps foot in hope of having a surface that would not tear out. The result was a track that stayed pretty smooth, but it was dirty with a loose powdery top that no matter how many times promoter Mike Van Genderen sprayed it with water in between races, the dust would fly. However, it was still wide and multi-grooved and the racing action was very entertaining from start to finish.
The Sport Compacts would be the first of the five features on the night with fourteen laps the distance and second starting Josh Barnes would set the early pace. The hottest driver in this area so far in 2019, Jacob Houston would come from a third row start to take the lead from Barnes on lap four first looking low into turn three before sweeping around the outside in turn four. Caution would wave the following lap when a bumper was on the track and the restart Barnes would go back in front for two laps. Houston would regain the lead on lap eight and the yellow would wave again on lap nine as Barnes coasted around the top side.
On this restart Brandon Reu would get the jump on Houston and when the two made contact in turn two Houston's right front would go flat ending his race. Reu would lead the rest of the way to take the win ahead of Huntsville's Isaiah Penton who is a regular competitor at the Lake Ozark Speedway. Brandon Allsion who just missed out on a win at Osky on Wednesday night would finish third here followed by Tyler Haring and Barry Taft.
The Stock Cars were up next for eighteen laps with pole-sitter Abe Huls leading the tightly bunched field of sixteen. Cayden Carter started right behind Huls in third and he would stay glued to the leader's bumper through a pair of cautions, the first coming on lap six when Todd Reitzler was spun into the infield in turn four and the other at the mid-race point when both Michael Larsen and Chad Krogmeier slowed on the speedway.
Once back to racing Carter would keep the pressure on Huls looking to the inside two or three times with no success. John Oliver Jr. had made his way up from seventh to third and was looking for a mistake from the leaders that would never come making this a trio of the region's best out front. On the final lap Carter drove extra deep into turn three to get under Huls and the two would race door-to-door off turn four in a sprint to the checkers. With the finish line all the way down near the entrance of turn one it was so close that I had to wait for the announcement from Tony Paris to learn the winner and it would be Carter by a nose over Huls. Oliver would chase them in for third, Derrick Agee came from eleventh to fourth and Reitzler rallied from the back to fifth.
Twenty-five of the twenty-six Sport Mods that had signed in would line up for their sixteen lap feature with Keokuk area hot shoes Daniel Follows and Bobby Six on the front row. With Six leading the way early, my attention was drawn to the back of the pack where Austen Becerra had started twenty-fifth after spinning out in his heat race. Becerra was weaving his way through traffic and putting on a show getting up to twelfth before the caution waved on lap four when Corey Cooper and Kirksville's John Anderson spun in turn two.
Becerra's progress slowed following the restart so meanwhile, back up front, Six would get a challenge from Brandon Dale for the lead. After scoring lap eight Dale would drive under Six into turn one and when the two made contact in turn two Dylan VanWyk took advantage to grab the lead down the back stretch. In my story from Wednesday's show at Osky I had noted how impressive this rookie had looked and the former go kart racer looked like a veteran the remaining seven laps as nobody could even get close enough to challenge VanWyk from taking his first career win in a full sized car. Runner-up Brayton Carter joined Dylan in victory lane to congratulate him, Six would hold on to finish third, Logan Anderson was fourth and Adam Birck came from tenth to take fifth.
An interesting mix of drivers from different areas made up the field of twenty-two in the Modifieds with Andrew Schroeder going to the point at the start of the twenty lap event. Derrick Stewart would apply the pressure though and pull even with the leader on a few occasions only to have Schroeder fight him off. On lap six central Missouri driver Johnny Wyman got too wide exiting turn four and got into the guardrail coming down the front stretch in front of a big pack of cars. Since the speakers were not working on our end of the grandstand I can only assume that a quick caution was called because it looked like this could get ugly, but Wyman did a nice job of recovering and even stayed on the gas without losing more than a position or two.
At any rate nobody appeared to be penalized for the caution and we went back to racing with the eighth starting Cayden Carter now joining Schroeder and Stewart in the battle for the lead. Carter would soon drop Stewart to third and on lap thirteen he would get under Schroeder as well to take the lead. There would be no catching "The Gasman" from there as Carter would go on to win his second main event of the night, something that we have seen a few times over the past couple of years here at Memphis. Second generation drivers Schroeder and Stewart would lock down second and third, Zach VanderBeek would come from the sixth row to finish fourth while Brandon Lennox returned to action with a solid fifth place showing after starting from thirteenth.
Eight of the nine Hobby Stocks on hand would close out the evening for fourteen laps and with Dustin Griffiths and Derek Kirkland drawing the front row this one went pretty much as you would expect with Griffiths winning and Kirkland running second. Des Moines driver John Modde held off Mike Kincaid to take the third position while Eric Knutsen closed out the top five.
The Scotland County Speedway will race once a month through the summer with dates on June 14th, July 12th and August 9th before closing out its season with two traditional two-day specials. The Third Annual Jerry Barrickman Memorial will be on September 27th and 28th followed up by the Fall Nationals on October 18th and 19th. If you have never been to Memphis before make sure that you pencil in at least one of these dates on your calendar for some great racing in an old time county fairgrounds setting.
After somehow getting in three straight nights of racing followed by a full day of the high school State Track meet, despite the wet weather, I was going to resist the temptation of going racing somewhere tonight but I now see that Mother Nature has made that an easy decision for me with all of the Sunday night tracks in my region cancelled.
A Tuesday night trip to Fort Dodge is a possibility, and Wednesday in Oskaloosa before my Memorial Day weekend schedule finds me at the Pepsi Lee County Speedway on Friday night and at 34 Raceway in Burlington on Sunday for what will now be "opening weekend" for the Sprint Invaders. Then on Monday I hope to make the trip up to Vinton for the IMCA Dirt Knights Tour event at the Benton County Speedway.
Here's hoping that you too can get a race or two in at a track of your choice this week and please come back often to check out the Back Stretch!
No comments:
Post a Comment