Back Stretch Archives: Hav-A-Tampa at Joplin and The Hawkeyeland Championships at Tipton from October 1999

I actually benefited from a rainout this past week. When the Hav-A-Tampa Route 66 Showdown was scheduled to run on Tuesday night, a volleyball match and a middle school football game took precedence, but when the race was rained out and pushed back a day, it was begging for a road trip.

I had not been to the Joplin 66 Speedway since its second year of operation back in the early 1990’s. This is a fantastic facility located on the west edge of Joplin, a city boasting a population of over forty thousand. When the track originally opened it was an instant success with large car counts and huge crowds filling the stands that resemble grandstands at a small college football field on both sides of the track. Joplin 66 enjoyed a couple of years of great success before things started to go downhill, and fast. I don’t know all the details of the collapse, but the bottom line is that this superb dirt-track facility sat idle for the 1998 racing season.

A weekly program featuring IMCA Late Models along with Modifieds, Super Stocks and Factory Stocks returned in 1999 and when we arrived on Wednesday night I was pleased to see that the facility was still in fine shape. The mid-week, late-September show was a big risk, but with the front-stretch grandstand nearly full and the back-stretch seats nearly half-full the event had to be considered a success. The HAT Late Models provided the fans with plenty of action during the heat races and the two B-Mains with plenty of side-by-side and event three-wide action. The first twenty laps of the 66-lap main event also saw some passing, but after that the track “locked down” and it was a high-speed parade.

Wendell Wallace snared the lead from pole-sitter Steve Francis on lap three and would have been a sure bet to end up in victory lane, but during a lap thirty-two caution for Brian Birkhofer who had coasted to a stop, Wallace was forced to pit with a cut-down tire. Francis assumed the lead on the restart and cruised to the $10,000 victory.

Scott Bloomquist from the early 90's

Joplin Notes….The southwest Missouri fans applauded the heat wins of Francis, Freddy Smith and Wendell Wallace, but they really seemed to enjoy the results of heat three with former MLRA champion Al Purkey taking the win….Shane Harris of Sheridan, Arkansas, raised some eyebrows by qualifying his Mopar powered late model in the fourth heat….Jeff Taylor used the very top of the track to catch and pass Dennis Erb Jr. on the final lap of the second B-Main for the final transfer spot….Brian Birkhofer, Rick Aukland, Alan Vaughn and Scott Bloomquist all found themselves starting a little farther back than they planned when they did not put their cars on the frontstretch in time for introductions….The lapped cars of Harris and Edwin Wells were sixth and seventh in the running order on the lap thirty-two restart and that is where they were at the checkers as well….Twenty-four Factory Stocks were also on the program with Brian Brown of Rocky Comfort (I love the name of that town) taking the win….The large crowd saw the program start exactly on time at 6:00 p.m. The feature took the green at 9:25 and the checkers flew at 10:00. Now that is how you put on a mid-week program….The Joplin 66 Speedway is back, and we look forward to returning in the near future…..Great to see that Brian Birkhofer picked up the $20,000 top prize at Muskogee last weekend.

The “special guest” at the Talladega Short Track that I referred to in last week’s column has now been officially announced. Tony Stewart will be in action both nights behind the wheel of his JD Byrider late model.

Wow, seventy Modifieds and forty-two Hobby Stocks at the Tipton Speedway’s Hawkeyeland Championships on Saturday night. Tim Folkerts and Blaire Benzing both came into the night ranked second in their NKF Tour divisions and both picked up feature wins. For Folkerts it was good enough to put him six points up now on Bruce Hanford while Benzing has trimmed Rod Miller’s lead to twenty-six points. Unfortunately, the Gary Reinhart Memorial race at Blue Grass was rained out on Sunday. It has been re-scheduled for October 17^th, however, due to a prior commitment for yours truly this will no longer be a point race for the NKF Tour. All of the Tour drivers were aware in August that if this scenario developed, that was the way that it would be handled.

The final point race for the 1999 NKF Tour is scheduled for Saturday, October 23^rd, at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. The Millennium Grand Finale is the final regularly scheduled event in the state of Iowa and promoters Terry and Jenni Hoenig are making this one fun for the entire family. All kids ages six to twelve in costume will be admitted for one dollar and there will be trick-or-treating for the kids in the pit area after the races. Five divisions will be in actions with Late Models $600-to-win, NKF Tour Modifieds $500-to-win, Stock Cars $300-to-win, NKF Tour Hobby Stocks $250-to-win, and two driver “Buddy Cars” $150-to-win. It will be a late afternoon start with hot laps at 4:00 p.m.

I was watching the Oklahoma and Notre Dame game before leaving for Tipton Saturday and noticed that one of offensive lineman on the Sooners is named Stockcar McDougle.  See you at the track!