Welcome to Part Three of our review of the opening season of the National Kidney Foundation Heartland Tour for Cure. I encourage you to go back and read the first two entries prior to delving into this one.
You have noticed that I have been providing pictures of the hard copy Word and Excel documents that I kept on file and I realize that may be annoying. The good news is that I have the remaining three years on my computer so if you decide to continue on with this story that information will be copied and pasted into the blog rather than in photos.
Since the Tour was getting going at about the same time that the internet was really taking off there is very little archived information on it so this process is my way of preserving the history, the memories and the friendships that were made during the four years of the NKF Tour. I hope that you enjoy it!
We have worked our way through June in the first two parts of this story and that brings us to the second half of the season with Corey Dripps and Steve Holthaus holding big leads in the point standings. On July 2nd promoter Larry Kemp welcomed the Tour in to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton. When I sent out the proposals to hold an event in this first year of the Tour I figured that it was a virtual lock that I would be able to book a race at Vinton with Larry.
While Keith Knaack gave me the opportunity to start writing for Hawkeye Racing News when I was just sixteen, Larry Kemp gave me my first job at a race track when he hired me to handle his press releases, do the lineups and maintain the point standings at 34 Raceway in 1982. He and his wife Kathleen became a second set of parents to me and his three sons, Kevin, Dusty and Clay were then of course like brothers to me. And while my day to day contact with them slowly faded away over twenty years ago, I still consider them all to be family.
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| Corey Dripps in NKF Tour action at his home track, the Benton County Speedway - Barry Johnson photo |
I know that I am biased, but I believe that Larry is one of the best promoters in the history of short track racing and I have even lobbied a bit for him to be considered for the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame. The long running IMCA Late Model Summer Series was his concept and it was started at his track, 34 Raceway in April of 1987. Most people can name the first Summer Series feature winner, Jay Johnson, but did you know that the second of what would eventually be 500 events was also run at 34 Raceway on May 19th of 1987 and the feature winner was Bruce Hanford? Just a little foreshadowing here, as Bruce would later become an NKF Tour Modified champion.
Tony Stewart hired Larry and Kathleen to run the Eldora Speedway soon after he purchased it showing just how highly regarded the Kemps were in the world of promoting. I owe a lot to the Kemps, all five of them, for the all of the fun that I have had in this sport that I love.
So back to July 2nd, 1998, and what a thrill it was to see a packed house at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton, and I have to admit that I was always proud when one of the Tour regulars would come to a track that they had rarely, if ever even raced at and have success. This was a spectacular night in that regard and there is nothing better than getting a "Yeeha" from Jeff Larson in victory lane.
When I pitched the Tour to promoters I gave them the option to choose one class or the other on their own in order to get to as many tracks in Iowa as possible. Of course my preference was to have both the Modifieds and the Hobby Stocks booked for the same night and while I thought that some promoters might prefer to host the Mods only, this first season ended up having three races that were the Hobby Stocks only.
Two of them would be up next on the schedule with the first one being the longest road trip for me making the drive up to the Buena Vista Raceway in Alta. This would be my first time ever to this race track and I came away quite impressed with the action. Knowing that his big block motor would not be legal here, NKF Tour point leader Steve Holthaus borrowed a car from Rick Stockman and he held his own with a twelfth place finish in the twenty-eight car field. It was also our first event where an apparent feature winner was disqualified in the tech area.
The next Hobby Stock only event took place at the Greenbelt Speedway in Eldora promoted by our new friend Al Uhrhammer. As you will see in the story below, it was one of those nights where it seemed like everything that could go wrong did, but in the end it was thrilling finish to the NKF Tour feature with a young Jimmy Gustin taking the win.
Honestly, I didn't know much about Corey Dripps before he and his father Rick signed in for that opening night event at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. I had not seen him race much and apparently his name had not jumped out at me as I went through the race results in previous years doing the All Iowa Points even though he had won the track championship at Vinton in 1997. I would have never even thought of him as being a contender for the NKF Tour championship, that is until I got to know him. Corey had that youthful exuberance and "devil may care" attitude, not necessarily cocky, but definitely confident and you could see that level of confidence grow with each new night on the Tour. His ability to go to so many different types of tracks, most that he had never raced at before and to perform so well was quite impressive and it was cool to say that a star was born on the NKF Tour.
Corey was so dominant that he would clinch the Modified title in winning fashion when we were able to get the rescheduled show in at the Nordic Speedway in Decorah. I recall being a bit disappointed that we only pulled in seventeen Modifieds that night, but keep in mind that the division did not race there regularly and frankly seventeen Mods on that short track provided plenty of action. In the Hobby Stocks take note of the driver who finished third as he would join the Tour as a regular the following season. Oh yes, and back to Rick and Corey Dripps, as of this writing they are preparing for their second full season promoting the Benton County Speedway in Vinton and twenty-three years later, Corey still has that same youthful exuberance that I completely admire.
Two nights later we were back on the road for a Thursday night of racing during the Hamilton County Fair in Webster City with $1,000 going to the winner of the Modified feature. At 29 the car count was not as big as I had hoped, but we definitely had some heavy hitters there including some non-Tour drivers who had made a long tow in for the night. The race was a thriller with Mike Sorenson battling back on the final lap to take the win over Kelly Shryock. Jeremy Mills who had started following the Tour early on before missing some events dominated the Hobby Stocks.
One of the most anticipated events on the NKF Tour's first schedule was the 2nd Annual Budweiser Hobby Stock Nationals at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. Terry and Jenni Hoenig were in their first year of promoting the facility in the southeast corner of Iowa and I was so thankful that they would book the Tour for one of the biggest events on their schedule. I had known Terry and Jenni for several years as he was a former track champion in the Hobby Stocks at both 34 Raceway and the short-lived Wapello Speedway while Jenni is the daughter of the late Leonard Carlson who was a very successful car owner in southeast Iowa. I had watched her grow up around the tracks and this is a perfect example of how a young lady can find a good man at the race track!
Yes, I knew the Hoenig's, but just as acquaintances until this two-day event in August of 1998. From there we became fast friends and I will tell you more about that relationship when we get to the final race of the 1999 NKF Tour.
Why was this one of the most anticipated races? The Hobby Stocks would get to take two laps of qualifying and run their heat races on Monday night before coming back on Tuesday for Last Chance races and a $1,000-to-win main event. Fifty-two Hobby Stock drivers would sign in for their time in the spotlight and the NKF Tour Modifieds would run a full program on Tuesday with a solid field of thirty on hand. Just as Jeremy Mills had done the race before in Webster City, Jason Rohde came back after missing some Tour races to take the big prize over the stellar field of Hobby Stocks.
Steve Holthaus knew that he would not be able to race at the Tour finale in Denison due to another engagement so he wanted to make sure that he locked down the title in the next to last event at the Butler County Speedway in Allison on August 19th and he did just that with a feature win at the newly re-opened facility.
The Allison race was held on August 19th and we would have to wait until October to close out the first season of the Tour. During that break I resigned my position as one of the announcers at the Knoxville Raceway after the final race there for 1998. It was an incredible honor to have worked with everybody at Knoxville, but there were two primary reasons why I knew that one year was enough. First, I was so excited about how the first year of the NKF Tour had progressed and I already had promoters asking me for dates, and drivers telling me that they would be following the Tour in 1999, so I did not want to have to avoid race nights at Knoxville as I built the schedule for Tour number two. Second, and more importantly though was that I knew that Knoxville deserved to have an announcer that was devoted to Sprint Car racing. Now don't get me wrong, I was then and I still am a huge fan of Sprint Cars, but as the Director of a Tour for Modifieds and Hobby Stocks I was not paying enough attention to what was going on with Winged World outside of Knoxville. The Sprint Car Capital deserved a better announcer than me and they definitely found one when they added Justin Zoch to the booth with Tony Bokhoven.
Promoter Howard Mellinger had booked us in to the Crawford County Speedway in Denison for the NKF Tour finale scheduled for October 10th and in true Howard fashion he had set the highest winner's purse of the season for the Modifieds at $1,500. Mellinger absolutely loved the sport of dirt track racing and after sponsoring Bob Hill and other drivers with his Jim Dandy Printing company, he became involved with promoting first at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City and later at the fairground facilities in both Denison and Allison.
I have heard several people describe Howard as a man who would give you the shirt off his back, but I think that it would be more accurate to say that he would walk across ten yards of hot coals in his bare feet and then hand you a thousand dollars for being there to watch him do it. He was an enthusiastic and giving promoter, almost to a fault at times, but Howard Mellinger will always be fondly remembered by racers and fans alike here in the Midwest.
With both point championships already decided we did not have that storyline to promote, but remember that this was back in the day where there just wasn't much racing in Iowa during October and this event showed just why. Bad weather postponed the event by one week to October 17th and then when rain came that evening Howard made the bold call to go ahead and run the show the next day on a Sunday afternoon. A diverse field of thirty-eight Modifieds filled the pit area while only eighteen Hobby Stocks signed in and Corey Dripps closed out a memorable season by taking the $1,500 feature win. We also proudly presented him with his $1,500 NKF Tour championship check in victory lane. The 1998 All Iowa Points Hobby Stock champion Don Sanders made the long pull out from Ottumwa to finish second to Denison dominator Tracy Nielsen.
Prior to the Tour finale at Denison we ran this Thank You ad in Hawkeye Racing News
And following is the wrap up story for the Inaugural NKF Tour along with the Summary and final Point Standings with the Point Fund paid for both classes.
So there you have it, the first ever NKF Heartland Tour for a Cure is now fully archived and we had a great deal of momentum heading into 1999. I know that others who run racing series, both in the past and now, will tell you that they actually work harder from the day after that final race until the day of the first race of the next season than any other time of the year, and I can confirm that from this experience. Chasing sponsors, working with promoters to schedule sensible race dates and trying to identify areas that need improvement filled nearly every day of that offseason in order to get ready for our Sophomore Season. Stay tuned to the Back Stretch to see how it all came together!
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