The
third generation has arrived! Robert “Bobby” Toland, son of 2004 Deery Brother
Summer Series champion Rob Toland, and grandson of former driver and promoter
Bob Toland, won his first career Late Model feature in grand fashion Saturday
night at 34 Raceway Park near Burlington. And this “arrival” was not some win
from the pole position in some weekly show over a field of fifteen. In fact it
was by virtue of late race pass of a solid veteran to top a stellar field of
fifty-seven for a $2,000 Deery Brothers IMCA Late Model Summer Series winners
check and the kid’s biggest fan happened to be about a hundred feet behind him.
“I
caught myself watching him race for the lead and had to remind myself to keep
pushing”, said the proud father after the race. Rob Toland finished fourth in
the event and couldn’t have been happier with the outcome. After all, he was
ahead of all of the other point contenders and he was in a great position to
watch his son capture his first victory from a unique perspective.
Kevin
Blum started outside of the younger Toland on the front row for the forty-lap
finale and snared the lead at the drop of the green. Bobby kept pace with Blum,
himself a rising second-generation star, and put the pressure on him several
times slipping his nose to the inside of the leader. One of Toland’s attempts
on Blum for the lead left him a bit out of the groove and allowed Dean Wagner
in the Wallybilt house car to move into second. Wagner then picked up where Toland
left off keeping the heat on Blum, and when the leader entered turn three just
a bit too high on the thirty-third circuit, Wagner shot to the inside and took
over the lead down the frontstretch. Bobby Toland stayed right on Wagner’s tail
and also worked past Blum into second. The youngster then spent the next three
laps measuring up the new leader and with just three laps remaining on the
scoreboard he made his move coming off of turn four with the driver in fourth
likely pumping his fist in encouragement. Toland pulled away over the final
laps to win in convincing fashion with Wagner taking second, Blum third, Rob
Toland in fourth and Darren Ackerman an impressive fifth.
 |
| Tom Goble from his Pro Stock days |
Twenty-four
Modifieds were on hand and the drivers who finished first through sixth were
about as solid of a group as you will find anywhere. Defending 34 Raceway track
champion Dennis LaVeine passed leader John Bull at the mid-race mark and then
held off a late challenge from Darin Thye to take the victory. Bull held off
Tom Goble and Michael Long to take third and Bob Dominacki was right there in
sixth. Finishing seventh may not usually be that notable of an accomplishment,
but behind this bunch it is and I was very impressed with Kyle Kaestner,
perhaps a driver to keep your eye on in 2005. The Hobby Stock feature went
right down to the wire as Chris Wibbell slipped by John Oliver Jr. with two
laps to go to take the win. Oliver was second in the #41 that I believe will be
wheeled regularly this year by Jim Oliver Sr., as John Jr. was also putting his
#05 Modified through its paces on opening night. He will be one of the drivers
to beat this year as the B-Modified division makes its debut at 34 Raceway on a
weekly basis.
34
Raceway Notes….Just when it looked like the 3/8-mile oval might be real
difficult to pass on, Rob Toland proved that notion wrong coming from eleventh
to finish second in the fourth Late Model qualifying heat. At that point I
anticipated that it would be this Toland in victory lane later in the night and
that this heat race performance had earned the potential victory…..To heck with
the price of gas! Long distance travelers Lorin Johnson of Miller, South
Dakota, and John Bridges of Columbus, Nebraska, were on hand to compete in the
Summer Series event. Johnson, who came into the night tied for ninth in the
series’ points, used a provisional to start the feature and finished deep in
the pack. Bridges was in a transfer spot early in the second B-Main but got
sideways in turn two and brought out the yellow effectively ending his
chances…..Mark Burgtorf, who is always strong at 34, dropped out of the first
B-Main mid-race while running third…..Jay Johnson was impressive in the second
B-Main racing his way from tenth to second…..Wagner started eighth in the
feature while the elder Toland started tenth…..Mike Karhoff started sixteenth
and finished ninth despite running the last several laps with a broken left tie
rod….LaVeine came from the sixth starting spot for the Modified win while
runner-up Darin Thye started eighth. It was a long day for Thye who drove one
of Adam Mitchell’s cars the night before at Davenport. While prepping his own
car for Saturday’s action the wiring burnt up on them and the crew had to do
some fast work just to get him to the track on time for heat race action. While
Thye is usually one of the last to arrive on any race night, he was even later
than usual on this occasion…..Sprint Car fans recognized a couple of names in
the field on Saturday night. Donnie Steward has one of Brent Slocum’s Late
Models adorned with a #16 this year and will be getting used to having fenders,
while Billy Dusenbery has returned to racing after taking a few years off in a
sharp looking #20 Modified…..Kudos to track announcers Jake Croxton and Rich
Adams for a job well done. They knew that their job started just before, and
during hot laps, identifying drivers and their hometowns to those in the crowd
who were eager for that information. If you wanted to know who was driving each
and every car, and where that driver was from, you had all of that information
by the completion of the heat race action…..Thanks to Terry Hoenig and the
fantastic 34 Raceway crew for a great night of racing. Don’t forget that the
Ideal Ready Mix Sprint Invaders open their 2005 campaign at the track this
Saturday night.
What
happens when you have forty-five Midgets, thirty-three non-wing Sprint Cars,
thirty-seven Modifieds, eighteen Hornets, four push trucks, one wrecker, two
ambulance transfers, a 3:00 p.m. start-time, bright sunshine, above normal temperatures,
a sustained twenty-five-mile-per-hour wind out of the south, grandstands facing
the south and an uncooperative bank of backstretch track lights? The answer is
a very long and somewhat frustrating day, and night, of racing during the DQ
Clash at the Spoon River Speedway.
With
this event scheduled for early April in central Illinois, I’m sure that
promoter Brian Thompson never envisioned almost a summer-like day when he set
the starting time for three o’clock and the resulting weather/start-time mismatch
played havoc with the event throughout. Have you ever heard of having too good
of weather for a race? Well, except for the wind, that was the strange set of
circumstances for this one.
The
racing was actually pretty entertaining on the hard slick track as, despite its
condition, the drivers in all four divisions were able to find two or more
grooves to utilize. The Midget feature was the first of four to be contested
and took to the track shortly after eight o’clock. Brandon Waelti paced the first
four laps before California driver Danny Stratton, in Hans Lein’s car #2,
zipped by. During a caution on lap eighteen the backstretch lights blinked off
making it too dark to resume. In order to get the lights back up to snuff, all
of the track lights had to be shutdown and allowed to sit for about twenty
minutes before turning them back on. During this break four drivers, including
Davey Ray who was running in the top five, elected to change right rear tires
sending them to the rear for the restart. The leader Stratton knew that his
right rear was already badly worn down, but elected to stay out front with what
he had for the remaining twenty-two laps. After no sign of light in twenty-five
minutes we were twenty feet from the car in the parking lot when the track
lights returned to life in full force. We were back in our seats for the
restart and it did not take long for Donnie Lehman to show his strength taking
the lead from the now-slowing Stratton on lap twenty-one.
Steve
Knepper took over the second spot as Stratton continued to fade and tried to
track down the leader to no avail. Lehman would survive a few more restarts to
take the victory with Knepper the runner-up. Mike Hess drove the Dairy Queen
sponsored #51 from the twenty-third starting spot to finish third with Shane
Hollingsworth, who got upside down during hot laps, taking fourth. Dave Ray
used his new tire to get back into the fifth spot at the checkers.
It
was now just shy of ten o’clock as the MSCS Sprint car feature pushed off for
their twenty-lap feature and front row starter Hollingsworth, doing double-duty
on the night, grabbed the early lead. On the fourth go around the fourth and
fifth place cars of Josh Slone and Chris Urish tangled on the backstretch with
both cars going for a tumble. The remaining crowd waited patiently as the
wrecker returned one car and then the other to the pits and the field was
pushed off once again by the hard working push truck crew. Just as the field
was set to take the green once again, the same set of track lights blinked off,
immediately sending many of the fans, including our weary threesome, out the
gate. As we drove off I thought I heard the rumble of the field returning to
green flag action, but it was 10:15 and we had been there since 2:00. That was enough
for us.
Checking
the results the next day I saw that A.J. Bruns, who started eighth on the grid,
had picked up the victory followed by fourteenth-starter Alex Shanks. Chase
Stockton, who used a provisional and started twenty-first, finished in the third
spot with Bill Waite and sixteenth starting Ryan Jamison completing the top
five. In the UMP Modified division it was Floyd Jordan Jr. taking the victory
with 2004 track champion Gary Cook Jr. finishing second. Late Model star Kevin
Weaver drove Bobby Allen’s #292 to a third place finish.
A big
thanks to announcers Brian Gapinski and Dewain Hulett whose knowledge of the
drivers and their previous accomplishments helped to fill in some of the voids
and added interest to fans like myself who just are not that familiar with many
of these Midget and non-wing Sprint Car drivers, or some of the central
Illinois Modified shoes. Many of the issues that dragged this show out were
beyond the control of this crew, but some were, and I am sure that they have
learned from this experience making for better shows in the future. The
different approach taken in the second watering of the track just after the “B”
features is proof of that.
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