Back Stretch Archives: Osky Opener and NASCAR BAST at Davenport from April of 1999

It was as if there was a roof over the Southern Iowa Speedway last Wednesday night as the National Kidney Foundation Heartland Tour for a Cure was able to squeeze in its show during the season opener at Oskaloosa. The track experienced just a little more than a sprinkle around five o’clock as heavy thunderstorms developed just east and south of the track. In fact as we were driving into town we had to have the wipers on high just to see and what a surprise it was to see that the conditions on the other side of Osky were much better.

A solid field of cars was on hand in all three divisions, but I know of at least five drivers who did not make a long tow due to the ominous forecast and colorful radar. Just goes to show that you can’t always trust a forecast, in fact as I type this on Monday afternoon, the forecast calls for nearly a one hundred percent chance of rain, but it is sunny and the nearest rain is still in Oklahoma. The ”roof” leaked a couple of times during the evening and just when it looked like the track was about to be too wet for any more racing, it would stop and if you looked straight up in the sky you could see the moon.

The racetrack was perfect. Almost too perfect, especially in the IMCA Stock Car feature, where the torrid fast surface pulled the motors so hard that several drivers retired to the pit area in a cloud of smoke. It was the Aaron Brown Classic for the Stock Cars and it turned out to be a roller coaster night for the Brown family. Aaron’s brother Brandon, who had opened the season just three days before with a second place run at Bloomfield, could not get his car to fire for the heat race and was forced to scratch for the night. Father Jim picked things up from there, however as he stormed to victory in his heat race, and then went flag to flag for the feature win including the cutting of a “B” on the frontstretch before going to victory lane.

More recent three-wide Stock Car action at Oskaloosa

The NKF Tour Hobby Stock feature saw five cars battling for the lead over the last three laps. Mike Hughes used a lapped car to his advantage to overtake race-long leader Kris Walker with two to go for the win. The NKF Modified main went non-stop with three early lead changes. Danny Wallace was the first to break from the pack and he opened up a nice advantage before Tim Folkerts broke free who also put some space on the field before Corey Dripps, who started eleventh, sprung free. That’s the way they finished with Folkerts opening up a solid early point lead on the Tour. The next event for the Toyota NKF Heartland Tour will be the Illowa Challenge at Hawkeye Raceway near Blue Grass on Tuesday night, May 18^th. The NKF Modifieds will be looking for a $1,000 top prize while the NKF Hobby Stock feature winner will take home $300.

A big thank you to Joe & Jim Durian for their persistence at Oskaloosa.

Another persistent promoter this past week was Al Frieden. The Davenport Speedway was very wet for Friday’s NASCAR Busch All Star Series opener, but with a great effort by Frieden and his crew, plus a lot of cooperation from the drivers, the show went on as scheduled. Jay Johnson was the quickest of the fifty-one Late Models during qualifying and was consistently fast all night long chalking up a second place finish. Steve Kosiski paced the field for the first nineteen laps of the forty-lap headliner before his brother Ed flew by on the outside. Six laps later Ed’s night came to an end though when his right front tire blew going into turn three sending his #35 climbing the cement retaining wall. Steve was set to re-assume the lead on the restart, but motor problems forced him to pull to the pits before the green flag waved. This gave the lead to Ray Guss Jr. who knew exactly what to do with it on one of the tracks that he began his career on. Johnson was second with Sonny Findling putting on an impressive run to finish third after starting fifteenth. Young Darren Miller came from nineteenth to fourth and Bob Dominacki returned from a late pit stop to finish fifth. Keep your eye on Darren Miller as he continues to run strong early this year after a pair of top five finishes in southwest Missouri two weeks ago.

We’ll either be at Sedalia or Urbana, Missouri, this Friday night, maybe a return visit to Osky next Wednesday and then we’ll check out a UMP Modified special at Spoon River Speedway on Tuesday, May 11^th. Look for us on the Back Stretch!