I love going to races on Wednesday nights. For whatever reason that is usually the one work day where I can escape early if needed and it is seldom that there is anything on the social calendar for hump day that I might need to yield to, other than a trip to the Mt. Hamil Tap where to get a better piece of chicken you would have to be a rooster. (Their tag line, not mine!) And the great thing about being a race fan in Iowa is that I usually have two, three or more Wednesday night options within a three hour driving distance to choose from so I generally pick the show based upon a combination of what I will see and when I will be back home.
Last night, there was just one option on what will likely be my last Wednesday night race of 2020 and by starting a few minutes before the scheduled start time of 7 p.m. and having the final checkered flag waving at 9:10 over a four division program where the drivers were able to race all over the wide racing surface until the final eight laps of the night, more on that later, let's just say that the 300 Raceway in Farley bolstered its level of consideration for mid-week visits in 2021.
The IMCA Stock Cars would be first up for feature racing action as the smoky sunset added a nice back drop. Fifteen laps would be the distance for the fifteen car field and it would be Jason Brimeyer leading the way early after starting from the outside of row one. In typical Stock Car fashion we saw some four-wide action as drivers tried to work their way to the front as Leah Wroten would take the lead on lap three only to yield to Johnny Spaw on lap five.
Spaw had started eighth and he wasn't the only driver on the move, but bad luck wiped out the hopes of Phil Holtz, who retired to the infield with a flat tire, and to the ninth starting Tom Schmitt who let out a big plume of smoke to bring out the first caution of the race on lap twelve while he was running third. One more hard charger was eliminated on the restart when Timmy Current spun in turn two and then pulled to the pit area under caution. Current had started thirteenth and had restarted in third before the incident.
Once back to green there was no stopping Spaw who would go on to take the win ahead of Wroten who prevailed in a battle for second with Jarod Weepie. Brimeyer would finish in the fourth spot and when Duayne Herb lost a motor in the final set of turns, Tony Schimmels was there to pick up the fifth-place paycheck.
A stout field of twenty-two IMCA Modifieds including a couple of California visitors and two Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, area travelers were up next for twenty laps with one of those west coast drivers Dylan Thornton taking the lead from his pole position. Thornton made the trek from Santa Maria to the Midwest back in late May and has steadily improved given the opportunity to race with and around some of the best Modified drivers in the nation right here in Iowa and on this night it looked like a victory was a good possibility if not for the presence of former Super Nationals champion Jeff Aikey.
Aikey had started eighth and by mid-race was up to second and challenging for the lead. Thornton was steady on the high line and did not flinch when Aikey showed his nose a couple of times, but on lap fourteen the veteran out of Cedar Falls put the slider on Thornton entering turn one and then slammed the door on the cushion in turn two to take the lead. Thornton tried to battle back on the inside in turns three and four, but he could not find enough bite as Aikey pulled away to take the win. Looking for his second win here in the Midwest, Thornton instead had to be happy with his third runner-up finish as Wisconsin's Brandon Schmitt filled out the podium after starting from tenth. Troy Cordes came from the fourth row to finish in fourth and Jeff Larson wheeling the #33K on this night completed the top five. Mark Schulte was sixth and Jed Freiburger was seventh after they started sixteenth and fourteenth respectively.
The fifteen lap Sport Mod main event had a bit of a deja vu feel to it from when I was last here two weeks ago. The leaders, Troy Bauer, Justin Becker and Jerry Miles, were three wide coming to score lap one with Becker emerging from the middle to take the lead by a nose. Bauer would stay in hot pursuit though and he would sail around the outside of Becker in turn two to take the lead on lap eight, but Jason Roth was hot on Bauer's heels as well and he would drive under the new leader in turn three just one lap later.
There would be no catching Roth from there as he and Bauer would go one-two, the same order that they were here two weeks ago and a promoter has to love to see the number of Roth Racing shirts who were in victory lane ready to join Jason in celebration. Cam Reimers made the long trip over from Ogden to finish in the third spot, Becker dropped to fourth ahead of Tyler Soppe and Nic Coates recovered from a mid-race spin to take sixth.
Sixteen IMCA Late Models for twenty-five laps would close out the evening with pole-sitter Mitch Manternach leading the way on lap one. Joel Callahan would power by him on the second lap and the caution would wave on lap four when Manternach, Greg Kastli and Logan Duffy were all involved in a turn four tangle. For Duffy it was the second time on the night that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he stopped on the front stretch to perhaps vent his frustration before heading to the back of the field for the restart.
Jeff Aikey had actually squeezed past Callahan for the lead just before the caution, and he would do so again after the restart driving around the outside of Callahan exiting turn four as lap five went in the books. Aikey started to pull away and some of the fans would head for the exits as it looked like he would get his second win of the night going away, but on lap sixteen Justin Kay drove under Callahan to take the second spot. Kay had started eighth and was using a low line around the speedway that kept getting lower as the nose of his Late Model continually nudged the tires marking the infield a little further in each lap.
Once into second it took just one lap to cut Aikey's near straightaway lead in half and when the caution waved on lap seventeen for Ben Seeman's spin with help exiting turn four, Kay was lined up right on the back bumper of Aikey. During the caution track workers bumped the infield tires back into their original positions, but as the field came to green Kay expertly nudged the tire at the exit of turn four in a bit and then did the same to the tire marking the infield at the exit of turn one.
I say "expertly" because if somebody challenged him to move the tires at speed without doing any damage whatsoever to his nose piece, he couldn't have done it any better and when Tanner Allen and Jill George spun in turn two the tires were not moved back into place for the restart.
Justin hit them both again as the field came back to green and I am guessing that he was moving the other ones as well as he was now running a line that was at least a half car width down into the dry dirt of the infield. Kay would pass Aikey to take the lead on lap nineteen and with the dry dirt now being thrown up on the racing surface, what once was a three wide race track quickly went away and the final five laps were run in a swirling cloud of dust as the rest of the field went the infield route as well in single file formation.
Kay would take the win with Aikey in second. Scott Fitzpatrick drove Joel Callahan's second car to a third place finish just ahead of the car owner while Eric Pollard finished fifth. Matt Ryan had cracked the top four early, but faded to sixth and kudos to Duffy for battling back to finish seventh.
This is no knock on Justin as a great racer will always take advantage of anything that they can and once again his ability to nudge those tires in a bit lap after lap was impressive. With the track's marquee event coming up next weekend, the Yankee Dirt Classic, they will need to figure out how to keep drivers from shortening up the racing surface by moving those infield tire markers.
One night several years ago while announcing a race at Donnellson and having suffered through several cautions where the infield tires had been punted out onto the racing surface I quipped that the promoter should have said during the drivers' meeting that one of the infield tires had been filled with cement. This was immediately met with criticism from the other announcer who said, "well obviously Jeff you have never worked on one of these cars before", to which I replied. "No, I haven't. And none of the infield tires would actually be filled with cement, but if the drivers thought that one of them was, you can bet that they wouldn't hit any of them!"
Oh well, guess I just eliminated that possibility for next week!
I was back at home by 11:30 and ready for bed with dreams of where I might go racing in the days ahead. Friday night is a possibility if the weather cooperates and on Sunday I look forward to returning to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton for the IMCA Modified Dirt Knights Tour event. Look for me on the Back Stretch!
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