If you lived anywhere east of Oskaloosa you had to be questioning your sanity as you drove to the Southern Iowa Speedway on Friday night. Cold air aloft and gusty winds produced a persistent line of showers that apparently started to build right around town and then swept to the east so as I left Mount Pleasant at 5:20 it had just started raining. A half hour later as I bypassed Fairfield the rain continued, the temperature had dropped from 56 to 47 and you could see the trees whipping in the wind making me wonder if the three coats, my warmest pair of gloves and a sleeping bag to sit in was going to be enough to get me through my first cold night at the races for 2022.
By the time I had reached Ottumwa the rain had stopped and there was sunlight on the horizon, enough to brighten my outlook and after I parked the car just behind the grandstand the sound of rumbling motors getting warmed up for action did the trick and warmed me up as well for night one of the annual Musco Fall Challenge at the fast half-mile oval. A solid field of 96 cars were on hand in five classes, with 73 of those being in the track's long established divisions of Stock Cars, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks.
Qualifying races went off without a hitch with only one caution flag slowing the action, other than the extra lap to pack the cushion before each race, and after a brief intermission to hand out over $6,000 in point fund money to the Wednesday night regulars we were ready to go feature racing at 9:40. And that's where the wheels fell off, literally, in the two additional divisions.
The Four Cylinders would be up first for ten laps of feature racing and as the field came down the front stretch to score lap one, suddenly the red light came on. With two tall enclosed trailers parked just inside the infield guardrail at the apex of turns three and four, nearly half of those turns were an obstructed view for both the grandstand and the infield announcer's tower as even Jerry Mackey had to get the information relayed to him that the car of Greg Franklin had gotten upside down here on the opening lap. Thankfully the driver was okay, but his entire fuel cell had been emptied on the track so as the track crew burned it off we could see the glow and the smoke rising above the stacker.
Once back to green this was a very entertaining race as local favorite Bob "Gabby" Hayes raced to the lead with drivers going three-wide for second just a car length behind him and a fourth just behind them looking for racing room. Track champion Terry Bickford would sail around the outside of Hayes to take the lead on lap three bringing Kolby Sabin with him into second. For the next three laps it looked as though Sabin would be able to stay with Bickford, but would have a hard time passing him until lap seven when the leader made a rare mistake and slipped a bit too wide in turn two. That was the break that Sabin was looking for and he would swipe the lead and then hold it over the final mile and a half to take the win.
Bickford would chase him in for second while Brandon Allison took third after Matt Moore shelled a motor going down the back stretch on the final lap. Garret Porter finished fourth with Hayes taking fifth and as the Sprint Cars were pushed onto the track during Sabin's victory lane interview, about a ten minute scavenger hunt for motor pieces would begin on the back stretch.
Finally the ten non-winged Sprint Cars would push off for their ten lap feature and this one would also go red on the opening lap as Jim Alexander Jr. clipped the outside guardrail exiting turn two and went into a wild series of twists and flips down the back straightaway. Thankfully Alexander was able to walk away from the wild ride uninjured.
With $350 up for grabs tonight and $375 going to winner on Saturday, both bolstered by an extra $100 from Rock Stursma, Buddy Parker made the long pull in from Wichita Falls, Texas, and he would take the early lead before Doug Sylvester made a nice move around him on the outside during lap three. Ben Woods who was obviously the fastest car in the class would soon after get to second and he was then sizing up the leader looking to make the winning move.
As the two leaders exited turn four coming to score lap eight, Woods tried to squeeze between Sylvester and the fence but as the leader came up the track Woods made contact with the guardrail breaking the right front on his car then slowing to a halt when he could not make the turn in one and two. With caution already out, a few seconds later I heard a gasp from the crowd and suddenly there was a left rear wheel racing past the flagstand without a Sprint Car attached to it. The car that it had once ridden with had just gone two laps down to the leader, but now it was sitting upside down midway down the front stretch. Go figure.
(Mid-day Saturday follow up.....my good friend Jerry Mackey called me to relay the story of his conversation with "Buddy Parker" at the post race party. I had noticed that the hood of of Buddy's car had the names Weld and Parkinson on it so as I wrote the story this morning I checked his MyRacePass profile to see if he was truly from Texas. It showed just one race this year in late August at the Central Missouri Speedway so I was suspicious that this driver was more likely from the Kansas City area rather than from Texas. But with no proof, I just went with the story. As it turns out the real identity of the driver is 72-year-old Ralph Parkinson Jr., better known to race fans in the 1970's and 80's as Junior Parkinson who was having a blast here in Oskaloosa once again behind the wheel of a Sprint Car. Jerry asked him if it was okay that he shared this story, and that is why I received the call. Thanks Mack, and best of luck to Buddy Parker again tonight at the Southern Iowa Speedway!)
Once back to racing Sylvester would close out the final two laps with ease to take the win ahead of Parker, Kelly Graham who was piloting the #17 that had been driven by Steve Pumphrey this season, Tyler Graves and Nathan James.
A solid field of Stock Cars were up next for sixteen laps and even though there were three cautions that extended the cold, they would deliver the race of the night as they so often do here at Oskaloosa. Former track champion Derrick Agee would grab the lead from the pole using the low line around the big half-mile while Jason McDaniel would use the high side to mount a challenge in the opening laps. A caution on lap five for either a slowing Jeff Byers Jr. on the front stretch, or for Dustin Griffiths slipping off the back stretch would slow the show and on the restart Byers would smack the turn one fence and then limp down the track to the apron for a second caution.
On this restart the fifth starting Todd Reitzler would steal second away from McDaniel and he would use that same wide line to put the challenge on Agee. One more caution would wave when Clinton Goff spun in the blind spot and the field was again reassembled for a restart. As lap ten was put in the books Reitzler was able to nose ahead at the stripe only to have Agee drive him up the track in turns one and two to regain the lead heading down the back stretch. This would bring perennial low line driver Nathan Wood into the mix in third and with Agee now convinced that the outside groove was the place to be he was now a sitting duck for Wood,
Nathan would drive under his good friend in turn two to take the lead with three laps remaining and he would hold off both Agee and Reitzler over the closing laps to take an exciting victory. Cayden Carter had raced his way up from ninth and was poised to make it a four car battle for the lead in Michael Peterson's #1X if there had been more laps to run while McDaniel had to settle for fifth after being an early contender.
You would be hard pressed to show me a track that has a faster group of front runners in the Sport Mod division than what they have here at Oskaloosa and one them, Logan Anderson who is on the door step of earning his second straight All Iowa Points championship was missing on this night as he is competing in the three night Iowa Dirt Nationals in Dubuque this weekend. With former All Iowa Points champions Carter VanDenberg and Brayton Carter, last year's Bristol champion Maguire DeJong, perennial track champion Curtis Van Der Wal and young speedsters Colton Livezy and Dylan Van Wyk it will often come down to how the lineup shakes out to determine who will take the win because they are all so fast and on this night with DeJong drawing the outside of row one you could be pretty confident with your bets.
Maguire was off like a rocket at the drop of the green opening up an eight car length lead down the back stretch despite having VanDenberg starting next to him. The sixteen laps clicked off quickly in non-stop fashion and while Van Der Wal was able to keep the leader in sight while working traffic in the closing laps he could never get close enough to mount a challenge as the high school student from Montezuma notched another win. After suffering a flat tire on the final lap of his heat race, Brayton Carter started sixteenth and had raced all the way up to third, but was still a half lap behind the winner at the checkers. VanDenberg yielded to his cousin in the final two laps to take fourth while Tim Plummer, who is always fast as well when he makes the trip to Osky from Norway (the little baseball town just west of Cedar Rapids, not the country) would round out the top five.
Hobby Stocks had come out with thirty-four cars strong on this night and, after four heat races, twenty of them had been qualified for the finale of the evening. Then, just before intermission, not one but two B-Mains were contested with the top two set to tag the feature field. Five cars would start the first one and there would be six that would take the green flag in the second one.
As the full field of twenty-four thundered down the back stretch for the first time in the feature, it looked like the leader Austin Barnes got crossed up and that sent the front half of the field scrambling, especially Craig Brown who had to make a hard right turn to avoid hitting the big white tires that protect the start of the guardrail entering turn three. Disappearing into the night nobody knew Brown's fate and as the safety vehicles scrambled to the rescue Craig was soon driving past them as he returned to the racing surface, although he would now go from the front row to the back row for the restart.
This would move John Watson from third to second and he would lead the way with several contenders lined up right behind him all using the high line around the speedway. While the top four cars raced in nose-to-tail formation on the cushion, the ninth starting Aaron Martin was working the low groove and that was bringing him steadily to the front, finally passing Watson for the lead on lap eight. The caution would wave before lap nine went in the books as one of those top contenders, Dustin Griffiths would spin at the exit of turn four while racing in fourth.
On the restart Luke Ramsey would replace Watson as the leader of the cushion pounders and with six laps remaining he would ease around the outside of Martin in turn four to take the race lead as well. After losing ground over the next few laps, Martin would give up on the bottom and soon he was right back in contention even giving Ramsey "a shot in the shorts" entering turn three for the final time. As the two exited turn four and headed for the checkers Martin dipped to the inside and there was contact between the two just before the checkers with Ramsey taking the win by half a car length, despite having a right rear tire going down. Watson would follow them in for third, Eric Stanton came from tenth to fourth and Clint Nelson was a hard charger taking fifth after starting from the inside of row eight.
The final checkers waved at 11:36 p.m. on a night that was both satisfying and frustrating for this fan that has been coming to the races here since 1979. For those of you who read the Back Stretch on a regular basis you already know how I feel about running two B-Mains with fewer than forty cars and the reason why we now get out of here thirty to forty-five minutes later than what we used to, so no reason to beat either one of those dead horses again. And for those of you who are new visitors here, as always I encourage you to make your way through the archives, especially to kill some time during the off season and find what you agree, or don't agree with from this old fool who still insists on actually telling the story rather than just copying and pasting the results online.
There is still plenty of racing action to be had here in the upper Midwest over the next several weekends so pack up your cold weather gear and get out to the tracks as much as you can. And don't forget to visit the Back Stretch for stories and the rundown of the state point standings from throughout the region.
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