With the new PRO Late Model Tour making its debut at the Benton County Speedway on Sunday night I added to my list of "firsts" that you can find if you click this link to a story from the last series that I watched get started. In that one there was a field of 37 cars for the opener, but then as the season went on it just faded away despite the fact that it was being operated by one of the top organizations in our sport. For the PRO Late Models, I am hoping for the opposite to happen. The car count at the opener, that was originally scheduled for April 30th and then May14th with both dates being lost to the weather, was frankly disappointing with just ten signing in. But the race itself was very entertaining and perhaps the fledgling series just needed to get that first show in before moving on to bigger and better things such as finishing out its full schedule, unlike the Xtreme Outlaw Sprint Series.
On this night though the Tour was more of a side dish to the regular Sunday night feast of weekly racing action that is just the thing to dine on for so many race fans in and around Vinton. With good car counts in five divisions, the IMCA average points invert in play for four of them and a draw/redraw format for the $1,000-to-win Stock Car feature, we were treated to a full evening of thrills and spills at "The Bullring".
Following one of the most prolific Candy Dashes that you will ever see, we were ready for six feature races with the four cylinder Sport Compacts up first in the order. Pole-sitter Steven Schmitz would set the early pace while the tenth starting Lukas Rick was quickly coming to the front. It would take him just four laps to blow by Schmitz for the lead, just a lap before the only caution of the twelve lap distance waved when Stephen Randall spun in turn three.
On the restart Rick was well on his way to his fourth straight win of the season here at Vinton while Schmitz fought of the constant challenges of Spencer Roggentein to finish second. Nolan Tuttle and Robert Rundle would wrap up the top five.
The Sport Mods were up next and after spinning out late in his previous appearance here in 2023, the ten car invert would land the two-time defending All Iowa Points Champion Logan Anderson on the pole position for the 15-lap event. The race would go caution free and while Anderson would go flag-to-flag as expected, sixth-starting Sam Wieben kept him honest even sticking a nose underneath the leader a couple of times mid-race. Thanks to the extensive statistics maintained by Ryan Clark, who in my opinion is one of the best announcers in the business, I was surprised to learn that this would be Anderson's first career victory here at Vinton. Wieben started sixth and finished second, Joe Docekal advanced from seventh to third, Tony Olson came from ninth to fourth and Ben Chapman was fifth after starting eighth.
Even though the track was becoming bottom dominant, the twenty-lap IMCA Modified main event was a thriller that would see another former All Iowa Points Champion in victory lane. While Ryan Maitland would lead the first lap he had plenty of company as they would go four-wide for the point off turn two on the second trip around the quick quarter. Kip Siems would nose ahead at the stripe on lap two only to have Maitland and Troy Cordes race him three-wide down the back stretch on the next lap.
Cordes would take the lead on that third lap and would start to pull away from the hornets nest behind him while hugging the bottom line around the speedway. A caution for debris at the mid-race point would bunch up the field with Joel Rust, who had started the race from eighth, now lined up on the outside of the first double row.
While nearly the entire field had abandoned the cushion before the caution, Rust went back up top to give it a try and did not find immediate success. He even tucked back down to the bottom in one set of turns to protect his position and it looked like we might have a follow the leader scenario to the checkers. But instead the 2019 All Iowa Points Modified champ went back to the top and found the grip that he needed to make a challenge on Cordes. Rust would be ahead by a nose with four laps to go only to have Cordes battle back to lead lap seventeen. Again though Rust got the run that he needed off the top of turn four to leads laps eighteen, nineteen and twenty to score the victory. Maitland would hold on to the third spot ahead of Arkansas visitor Brint Hartwick while Mike Burbridge completed the top five.
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| Joel Rust pre-race at Vinton |
Even though he started from third, Justin Wacha would grab the lead from the start of the fifteen lap Hobby Stock feature with the first caution coming on lap three when Zach McNeese spun off the exit of turn two. On the restart the fifth place car of Michael Kimm got sideways exiting turn two and when he clipped the right rear of David McCalla's #3 car it would turn him hard right off the top of the back stretch. When the left side wheels dug in that would send McCalla's car up and over one time while Kimm took a hard broadside hit from Zeke Wheeler. Thankfully all drivers were okay, but all three cars were towed back to the pits.
Once back to green Wacha would protect that lower line and despite one more caution late in the race, he would return to victory lane in front of his hometown fans for the first time since 2019. Jacob Floyd would finish second while the battle for third was a four car scrum coming to the checkers with Scott Siems coming up the track to protect his position. Officially it would be Siems, Bradly Graham and Corey VanDerWilt placing third through fifth while Joren Fisher, who had charged from sixteenth up to as high as second mid-race, was shuffled back to sixth.
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| Just an idea of how many fans greeted Justin Wacha |
That would bring us to the $1,000-to-win twenty-lap headliner for the IMCA Stock Cars and with just two races remaining and the clock still in front of the nine o'clock hour we were looking forward to starting our trip home in the twilight. Not so fast, my friend! This one would be plagued by seven cautions and one long red flag period so I will spare you with the details of each incident and instead only include those that played a role in the outcome.
With drivers again clamoring for that favored bottom groove it would be Leah Wroten who would lead the first two laps before pole-sitter Brett Vanous would dig his way to the front on lap three after a restart. That restart by the way came after the first caution for a spin and then the red flag where Greg Sweerin's car tipped over onto its top in turn one. Sweerin was not injured, but the car was put back on all fours with extreme care.
Now if anybody was going to make the top work it would be the Murty family and while Dallon had advanced from seventh to second primarily by sneaking under drivers in the turns, Damon was sailing around the top and moving toward the front after starting from tenth. During a few green flag laps mid-race, Dallon was tucked in behind the leader in second while Damon was charging hard in third and it was Dallon who would actually go to the top in turns three and four cutting off his father's momentum. But after a lap twelve restart, Damon was again on the fly and he would take the lead on lap fourteen and then immediately move to the bottom to protect.
When the new leader drifted just a bit off turn two though, Vanous was able to get a nose under him in turns three and four. With the leaders now side-by-side in front of him, Dallon went to the middle to drive past both of them and he would jump back down to the bottom to keep Vanous from getting back to the front. This dropped Damon back to fourth as Gage Neal also slipped by and when he looked to go back to the top, contact with Kaden Reynolds would send Reynolds over the top of turn three. Officials would rule that Damon would be the penalized car so instead of restarting from the rear, he headed to the pit area ending a very adventurous race for the all-time leading feature winner here in Vinton.
On this restart two drivers in the top five, Jacon Ellithorpe and Jeff Wollam would tangle in turn two with Wollam coming to a rest on the apron. Officials ruled that Ellithorpe was already sideways before contact so he too went to the pits rather than restarting from the rear and finally we were able to get the final three laps in the books. Neal was ready to walk through the door if it was to be left open, but Dallon Murty kept it shut to take another four figured win for the three-time defending All Iowa Points Stock Car Champion. Neal was second, division rookie Vanous was an impressive third while Reynolds and Wollam took advantage of their good fortune to fill out the top five.
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| Dallon Murty's 99x |
After that marathon, thank goodness that the twenty-five lap PRO Late Model feature went non-stop with pole-sitter Logan Duffy setting a quick early pace. Track promoter Corey Dripps, making only his second start this season, lined up fourth but quickly moved to second keeping pace with Duffy while working on a middle groove around a surface that had been dried out by a persistent chilly breeze on this June evening.
Lap by lap Dripps would get closer and closer to Duffy pulling even on lap ten before finally taking the lead on lap twelve. With Duffy still working that faster lower line, he would pull back even with Dripps racing down the back stretch on lap sixteen only to have Corey fight off the challenge and get to the checkers for what I believe to be his first career Late Model feature win. It was only fitting that the guy who gave one of the most informative and entertaining Driver's Meeting to start the night, including the "hockey rules" when it comes to physical confrontations, would end up celebrating in victory lane at the end of the evening with the final checkers waving at 9:48 p.m. Duffy would come home second, after losing the third spot to Nick Marolf late in the race, division rookie T.J. Fortmann was impressive in battling back for third with Marolf and Bobby Hansen next in line.
The next stop for the PRO Late Model Tour will be this coming Saturday, June 17th, at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City and here's hoping that the car count will rise from this opener. I always enjoy my Sunday night road trips to Vinton and, since this was my first one for 2023, I was very impressed with all of the improvements at the facility. There is now a retaining wall in turn one, a VIP deck off turn four, a new scoreboard in the infield and the grandstand has been updated with new aluminum bleachers. The one thing that remains the same though is the great Sunday night crowd that is always here to support their favorites. I look forward to my return to the Benton County Speedway on Sunday, July 2nd, when the Sprint Invaders make their first of two scheduled appearances in Vinton.
Never say "never" as my next two race nights just might be at events that I said that I would never go to again. Will they be revealed here in the Back Stretch? Guess you will have to keep checking in to find out!
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