Before I pack up and get ready to make the trip to the East Moline Speedway where tonight the Sprint Invaders return to the high-banked quarter-mile oval during the annual Rock Island County Fair, I wanted to share a few thoughts on a couple of entertaining nights of racing that I recently attended, but did not do a write up on.
Last night was the Third Annual Caleb Hammond Memorial at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa and there was definitely some thrilling finishes. For the full story you will want to read the 4dFan Report from my good friends and colleagues Dick and Joyce Eisele. I had a business function to attend earlier in the evening, so I arrived at the track shortly after the first heat race was completed around 7:45.
With plenty of extra money on the line, as well as the pride of racing in memory of young Caleb Hammond, more than 90 cars in five divisions were in the pits and the cool thing to me was that it wasn't a bunch of long distance travelers coming in to take a shot at the big check, but instead there were cars and drivers here tonight who are based relatively close by and for whatever reason do not compete here on a weekly Wednesday night basis. Perhaps it was the fact that this show was on a Tuesday, during the county fair which always seems to attract a few extra cars that just don't race often, the lure of the extra cash or a combination of all three, but to me it was proof that the Southern Iowa Speedway does still have that mid-week magic where sixty or seventy cars a week is a good possibility.
They definitely had a crowd on this night and it was an enthusiastic one with a buzz of conversation going on to a point where it was hard to hear announcer Jerry Mackey even when there was nothing on the track. And that crowd was treated to some great finishes in both the heat races and the features. It was great to see the Sprint Car count swell to a season high of nine including some names that I have not seen before. After struggling much of the season even to finish a heat race, hometown driver A.J. Johnson put it all together tonight making a nifty move going from third to first on the outside of turn three on the opening lap. He then drove away to a convincing and popular victory with the Southern Iowa Fair crowd.
Billy Cain went the distance to win the Sport Compact feature, but he was getting a stiff challenge from another hometown favorite Tyler Haring who had pulled even with Cain with just two laps remaining only to have a caution wipe out his challenge. Nathan Moody would drop Haring to third on the green, white, checkers restart.
The Hobby Stock feature tried the patience of the crowd with several cautions, but all was forgiven after a thrilling finish on the third try at "overtime". Rick Van Dusseldorp had snatched the lead from Dustin Griffiths on the second try at overtime and since the white flag lap had been scored before three cars piled up in turn one, it would be Van Dusseldorp that would bring the field back to green. Racing into turn two it looked like Clint Nelson got into the left rear of the leader just a bit, so Griffiths dove to the inside while Craig Brown went to the outside. They would exit turn two four-wide for the lead and with the momentum off the top side Brown would take the lead and, a lap later, the unlikely victory. Why unlikely? Brown was one of those numerous cautions when he spun exiting turn four mid-race, so his win came after restarting from the rear of the twenty-one car field.
Dylan Van Wyk appeared to have things well in hand in the Sport Mod feature until a lap ten caution brought the field back to him. Curtis Van Der Wal would power to the lead on lap eleven only to have Van Wyk come right back and muscle his way to the front a lap later. Van Der Wal then started to fade as Maguire DeJong moved to second and as the white flag waved Van Wyk had at least five car lengths on DeJong. That gap didn't close much, if any through turns one and two and then down the back stretch, but when DeJong went to the top in turn three he found something there that no other driver had.
Like a rocket ship the #30m shot out of turn four and it was now a drag race to the checkers with DeJong taking he win by no more than a foot at the checkers. Nothing better to fire up a crowd that likely had a lot of their friends and classmates in attendance as the two rising star teenagers gave them a photo finish!
The Stock Car feature would close out the evening with Nathan Ballard taking the win over a field of cars that had started out the evening at twenty-six. Ballard, who just established himself as the all-time winningest Hobby Stock racer at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton this past Sunday night, brought out the Stock Car that he ran at Bristol in March for the second time this season at Osky and he now has a third-place finish and a big Caleb Hammond Memorial victory.
Hard to believe, but the Season Championship races will be held at Osky next Wednesday July 28th, but you can still catch Terry McCarl's Front Row Challenge event on Monday August 9th and the annual Fall Challenge is scheduled for October 15th and 16th.
I have always wanted to make the trip over to the Spoon River Speedway south of Canton, Illinois, for one of their weekly shows, so with 34 Raceway canceled due to wet grounds last week, I made the trip east. My Waze app took me on a route that I had never taken before on the many times that I have visited the Spoon for one of their special events and while it was a gorgeous drive my fuel tank was wondering if I was going to see a gas station soon. After passing through tree burgs with populations of less than 200 I finally arrived in Lewistown where a Casey's General Store saved the day.
As it turned out this was Fan Appreciation Night at the speedway and there was a large crowd on hand that were admitted for free and I settled into my seat as the last of five divisions completed their qualifying laps. Yes, this is UMP country, although I'm not sure what if any classes are actually sanctioned here, but the heat races were lined up with the fast guys in front and I figured that the first heat race winner would then start from the pole in each feature.
Come feature time, the Pro Late Models were up first and I was surprised to see that Austin McCarty, who had qualified seventh and finished second in the first heat, was somehow on the pole for the feature. Apparently they have some kind of redraw for the features on weekly shows at Spoon and that made for some good racing in the two features that I stuck around for. Billy Knippenberg made a late pass of McCarty to take the win in that one and Josh Allen won the Modified main event after starting third. The track was fast and racy though as Ray Bollinger came from ninth to second, Evan Fink from fourteenth to third, sixth starting Richie Biswell finished fourth, A.J. May came from seventeenth to fifth and Cole Queatham finished sixth after starting from row eleven.
They have added some new lighting to the track and the announcer did a nice job of keeping fans informed throughout the night. Since I have so many other great options closer to home, a return for another Saturday night of weekly racing there is unlikely, but what they are doing this week at Spoon River would have been tempting. In the "Quick Draw" races for the Pro Late Models, the Modifieds and the B-Mods the entire field will run three 15-lap segments. The first segment will be lined up by the luck of the draw, the second segment will be lined up by a full invert of the finish of the first segment, and segment three will lineup as a full invert of segment two. The purse will then be paid out based upon the points earned in all three segments. I have seen pavement tracks do something like this before, but never a dirt track. Sounds like fun!
I live in small community. a community that I was raised in and have lived my whole adult life in and it is a community that I hope to be a part of until my dying day. A few months ago a new store opened up in this community, so I thought that I would go in and check it out. It looked like a nice place that would have a lot of things to offer, things that had not been available to our community all in one place now for quite some time. So I went out and told my friends and neighbors that they should check the place out.
Over the following months I started seeing the store owner ridicule other members of the community in a public fashion. The owner would also make a habit of "stirring the pot" when community members had issues with each other, and at times he would seem to want to have community members choose up sides against one another. He wasn't doing this at the store, if you were only a customer there you would have had no idea what else was going on around it and I can't tell if the owner thinks that he is helping the store or not with his personal behavior.
From my standpoint, it is the owner's store and he can handle his business in an anyway that he wants. All I know is that the next time something new comes to the community, I am going to have to give it some more time and sample the products and services more before I put any reputation that I might have been able to build in this community over the past forty-three years at risk by recommending it to my friends and family.
Perhaps I will se you tonight at East Moline and, if not, I do hope that you are headed for one of the other many great race nights on the schedule for tonight and the days to come! I love our racing community!
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