Friday, April 10, 2020

Backstretch Archives: Kentucky Lake and Clarksville from March of 2005

I am one of the fortunate Midwesterners who is usually able to sneak in at least one race each year before the snow is off the ground at home. Lately it has been the January Ice Bowl in Alabama and, before that I was usually able to get away for at least a couple of Speedweek shows in Florida. Neither of these trips fit into my schedule for 2005 though and so as the first weekend of March approached I frenetically watched the weather forecasts in hope that I would get to open this season with something different. One thing is for sure, especially at this time of the year, the weather experts should just keep their forecasts for more than twenty-four hours out in their pocket to avoid the embarrassment of having to dramatically change them constantly!

Despite snow on the radar in central Kentucky and one weather forecast calling for a 60% chance of thunderstorms with possible hail (something the weather guys decided to throw in at the last minute) editor Barry made the decision on Friday morning to make the trip and picked up my son Morgan and I and we headed south for the Northern All Star Late Model twinbill at Kentucky Lake and Clarksville. More than just because it would be my first race of the season, I was really looking forward to this trip due to the contrast in the two tracks that we would be visiting. Kentucky Lake is a very wide and high banked three-eighths mile that allows for throttle-to-the-floor high-speed action. This would be my fourth visit to the fairly new facility and, while I enjoyed the racing at the first three, the manner in which the program was presented left a lot to be desired. In fact the last time that I left KLMS, both Mo and I swore that we would never come back. After all the heat races had just ended at 12:30 a.m. and I later heard that, had we stayed, we would have seen the Late Model checkers after 3:00 a.m. It was no surprise to me that the track went up for auction last summer and I was pleasantly surprised that Sherri Heckenast wanted to get into the race promotion business. Being a racer herself, and growing up in a racing family that has also been very successful in business, I figured that she would be able to turn the place around. The NALMS opener at KLMS on March 4th proved me right.

The weather was pretty darn nice with temperatures in the mid-sixties, about fifteen degrees warmer than forecasted just the day before, when we pulled into the speedway. Qualifying for the Late Models was in progress making it obvious that it had started pretty close to 5:00 p.m. as scheduled, a very good sign given my past experience here. The sixty-three Late Models, and a lighter than expected field of twenty-one Modifieds, tripped the clock and qualifying was concluded shortly after six. Racing wasn’t supposed to start until seven, but with lightning flashing in the night sky both to the east and the west the first Late Model heat race rolled out about fifteen minutes early. Local driver Phil Walker snared the first checkered flag of the year with Ray Cook and Randy Korte taking heats two and three. The first incident of the night occurred in turn one on the first lap of heat four. Local driver Tim Brown charged to the inside of Steve Francis and when Francis drifted high he collected another local star Randy Sellars. Sellars’ night was through after contact with the wall and somehow Francis was able to muscle his damaged mount to a second place finish behind Scott James. Dennis Erb Jr., who started tenth due to being light at the scales during qualifying, showed signs of things to come by finishing fourth. Rodney Melvin and Dale McDowell completed the list of heat winners.

The three B-Mains transferred the winner only and the racing was exciting with Timmy Yeager, Dennis Erb Jr. and Jeremy Williams making the show. Defending NALMS champion Brian Shirley finished second to Williams and had a provisional for the feature, but he was unable to start and Steve Barnett quickly unloaded his car to take the young Illinois driver’s place. Shirley was a no-show the following night at Clarksville perhaps quickly ending any chance that he would have of repeating his title.

Ray Cook jumped to the early lead in the fifty-lap main event and looked very strong until his right rear tire exploded in turn two on the ninth circuit. Cook pulled to the pits outside of the track to change the tire and, by track rule, would not be able to restart the event. Just before the field was set to go back to action, Cook reappeared on the speedway and went from official to official to plead his case. After a lengthy delay it was announced that, by a promoter’s decision, Cook would be allowed to restart at the rear of the field. The large crowd seemed to take all of this in stride likely due to Cook’s reputation as one of the sport’s nice guys, but I can only imagine what kind of reaction this would have drawn had someone more flamboyant such as Don O’Neal or Scott Bloomquist been the point of discussion. Cook pulled to the infield four laps later.

Randy Korte assumed the lead on the restart with the “Silver Shark” Scott James hot in pursuit. Morgan had predicted a James victory early in the evening and so it seemed like I had the young Indiana driver’s biggest fan sitting next to me as he made several attempts on Korte for the point. On lap thirty-one it appeared that Korte suffered an ignition problem as he slowed momentarily allowing James to fly by down the back straightaway. Korte quickly recovered and kept pace with the leader for the next ten laps before the problem reappeared and he retired to the pits. Dale McDowell was now the challenger for the lead, but he soon had his hands full with Don O’Neal. The two nationally known drivers swapped the second spot a couple of times and you could sense that the crowd expected one of them to muscle by James late in the race for the win. It was not to be however as James, who emerged from Florida with a share of the World of Outlaws Late Model point lead, held strong for the biggest payday of his career with the $10,000 victory. Perhaps James’ biggest challenge came at the scales where he reportedly weighed in right at the 2300 pound minimum. Three of the four drivers who finished behind him, O’Neal, Brad Neat and Wendell Wallace were not as fortunate as they were disqualified for being light. The official top five would be James, McDowell, Whitney McQueary, Steve Barnett and Michael England.

KLMS Notes….O’Neal and Billy Moyer made contact coming off of turn two mid-race with Moyer ending up hard in the backstretch wall…..Two top contenders, Rodney Melvin and Terry English both pulled to the infield with flat tires on lap thirty-seven….One lap later Dennis Erb Jr., who had advanced to fifth from twentieth, had his left front tie-rod break and seconds later the sixth place car of Steve Francis coasted to a halt….A look at the radar at the motel later that night revealed that we lucked out on this night as small storms passed from north to south on either side of the track…..Central Illinois drivers Aaron Ricketts and Nick Neville finished one-two in the UMP Modified feature. Very impressive for two drivers who are more accustomed to the quarter-mile bullrings…..Tim Walker, who started outside row one, finished third despite spinning in turn one on the first lap and collecting five cars. With the “free restart” rule in effect he restarted the race from the front once again. For thoughts on the “free restart” rule, see my column in the December 2004 issue of HRN….Lucas Lee and Jared Wagster, one of the first-lap-wreck victims, completed the top five….The entire show was completed by 10:30 p.m. and we left very pleased with what we had witnessed. Never say “never”, as with the new promoter at the helm I will be back to Kentucky Lake, and often.
Random pic of the day, one of my favorites from the early 90's John Gill


I talked about the contrast in the two tracks for the weekend earlier and, while KLMS is a brand new high-dollar modern facility, my first visit to Clarksville was just what I had hoped for. This north Tennessee track is a tight and racy quarter-mile that has been providing fans with great fender-rubbing action for thirty years. The facilities can be described as “rustic” yet comfortable with a good speaker system and a promoter in William Scogin who is full of personality and enthusiasm. Shortly after the pit gates opened on this cool, cloudy and breezy Saturday, he told us that he must be crazy for putting this show on. But with fifty Late Models eventually filling the pits and a large crowd bundled up and ready for action, I hope that he is crazy enough to do it again next year.

Barnett, Moyer, McDowell and east Tennessee driver Randy Weaver picked up heat race wins on a track that looked like it might lock down, but stayed multi-grooved for the remainder of the event. Tim Hamburg and Kevin Cole transferred from the first B-Main with seventeen-year-old Kyle Roderick just missing the show. Jeep VanWormer cruised to the win in the second “B”, but things heated up on the final lap for the other transfer position. Patrick Duggan, driving as a teammate to Weaver, and Tripp City, Ohio driver Wayne Chinn tried to get to the same spot in turn one at the same time with Chinn losing out and spinning to a halt. Matt Taylor passed two cars and nearly beat Duggan after the restart but came up just short.

The fifty-lap feature at Clarksville didn’t include near the drama that KY Lake did, but the racing through the field was still good and kept the fans as warm as they could be with temperatures dipping into the low forties. Weaver, who is known more for showing the way around high-speed showplaces such as Atomic Speedway, was impressive leading the field for the first seventeen laps before yielding to Moyer. Billy began to pull away, but Weaver gained ground in traffic and may have been able to mount a charge to regain the lead had he not had to deal with the challenges of Dale McDowell. There were plenty of challenges in the top five over the final laps but no position changes as Moyer cashed in on a $10,000 payday. Weaver was the runner-up ahead of McDowell, Barnett and Steve Francis who had started the race from the sixth row in the Mooring machine.

Clarksville Notes…..Scott James had another decent run going until late in the race when he ran into the back of Don O’Neal under the caution. It appeared that O’Neal had decided to exit the track on the top side of turn two and had stopped to make the hard right turn and James, who was trying to return to his running position, couldn’t avoid him and punched a hole in the radiator…..The event was dubbed the Tuckassee Toilet Bowl Classic in honor of the event sponsor Lester Ellis Plumbing. Their motto is a classic that I must share with you as painted on the side of the truck was “Our Plumbers Show Up On Time And They Smell Good”. The trophy was a toilet bowl fixture with the name of the event decaled on the lid and I’m sure that Mr. Moyer will have fun finding a place to put it in his ever-growing trophy room!…..Oskaloosa Iowa’s John VanDenBerg made the show and finished a respectable 14th, one spot ahead of multi-time Clarksville track champion Tony Albright…..The UMP Modified feature was a thriller as former track champ David Flowers stumbled on a late restart falling from first to fourth. He quickly fought back though and as the field negotiated the final two turns he dove low and swept past leader Rob Fuqua. Not to be denied, Fuqua made a nifty move back to the inside and was able to nip Flowers by inches in the drag race to the checkers making it a weekend sweep for Modified drivers from Illinois. Flowers, who was very personable earlier in the day when Barry and I talked to him, had to settle for second followed by defending track champion Clayton Martin. Trent Young and another Illini, Todd Kirkland, completed the top five…..If not for the Pro Street drivers bringing back grudges from the previous season in a very long and very frustrating preliminary feature, this show would have been completed in a very timely fashion on the chilly evening…..With some interesting mid-week shows on the 2005 schedule, don’t be surprised if you see me reporting from Clarksville again this year. Check the place out if you get the chance!

We thought about road-tripping again the following weekend either to Mississippi or Nebraska, but by the time we returned home we were content to wait until the first weekend of April to get back to the tracks. As of this writing I’m looking at the Friday night Deery Show, along with the WDRA Late Models at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska. Then on Sunday, April 3rd, I’m hoping to take in Kevin Gundaker’s promotional debut at the Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, Illinois. There are a lot of other great opportunities that weekend so those plans could change very easily, especially if some weatherman decides to run amok. Here’s hoping that you get your 2005 season underway at your favorite track soon!

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