My 2023 tour of county fair races continued on Wednesday night with a trip to West Liberty and the Muscatine County Fair. This is the track that I remember most from my youth, ages 4 to 10, and it is always great to return and bring up all of those old memories of my heroes Mel Morris, Johnny Moss, Pokey West, Ron Prymek, Mike Niffeneggar and so many more. When you start your obsession with racing at West Liberty you find it odd that other tracks do not have trees growing in the infield.
With some unexpected late afternoon cloud cover the track was juiced tonight, lightning fast but much more narrow than usual and there was a large crowd on hand to witness the action Surprisingly the bleachers that sit just outside the entrance to turn one were completely full and stayed that way despite the fact that they were pelted with mud crumbs from drivers hitting the throttle after setting their cars for the turn all the way until the final checkered flag. There were still plenty of seats to be found under the covered grandstand and I was amused watching an entire section of the bleachers "take cover" as they were showered with the crumbs of mud.
The car count was nothing to crow about, but there was enough in each of the five classes to put on a decent show and the Kile Motorports crew did a nice job of presenting an efficient program that wrapped up at 9:23 p.m. giving race fans the opportunity to enjoy the busy midway if they chose to do so.
The Sport Mod fifteen lap main event would be the first to the track with Colton Livezy leading the way for the first three circuits. Tony Olson provided the challenge for the first two laps before the sixth-starting Tim Plummer went flying by and he would pass Livezy on lap four. Livezy was able to ward off Olson for four more circuits and by the time that Tony moved to second, Plummer had a full straightaway advantage. And that would grow even further over the final seven laps as Plummer dominated for the victory. Olson and Livezy were more than half the track behind at the checkers with Charlie Weber and Justin Schroeder completing the top five.
Eight Stock Cars would line up next for fifteen laps, but from the heat race we knew that this would be another classic duel between David Brandies and Johnny Spaw. Stan O'Brien would chase Brandies through the opening lap before Spaw took over the second spot and it wasn't long until he was riding the back bumper of the leader. Brandies was lightning fast riding the cushion that was barely even halfway up the track and when Spaw looked to the inside on a couple of occasions he could not match the momentum off the corner. That is when the veteran driver from Cedar Rapids decided to try something different.
They call it going "four in the fluff" meaning that you enter the corner with all four wheels above the cushion, up in the crumbs that did not get tossed into the turn one bleacher section. Rarely have I seen this done at feature time, and more often it is used by the fastest qualifiers at the Knoxville Nationals where the Sprint Cars will go up top on the opening lap of a heat race to try to make up some quick ground after starting eighth in the invert.
Spaw would give it a look on lap six to see if he could get enough of a bite, and then on lap seven he entered turn one "four in the fluff" and then diamonded the corner off turn two to pull even with Brandies on the inside down the back straightaway. The pass would then be completed in turn three and we would have a new leader as lap seven was scored. Brandies drove hard to the inside of Spaw into turn one trying to battle back, but now with the momentum off the cushion in his favor Spaw would fight him off and start to pull away down the back stretch.
Brandies would stay within fifteen car lengths over the closing laps hoping for a mistake that would never come as Johnny Spaw scored the victory. Tom Cannon was impressive driving from eighth to third at the checkers while O'Brien and native Iowan Pat Rachels who returns from North Carolina each summer to race his Stock Car on the county fair circuit filled out the top five.
The Sport Compacts were up next for twelve laps with Joe Zrostlik setting a quick early pace. Sixth-starting Jake Benischek was more than able to match it though as he drove around the outside of Zrostlik in turn two to take the lead on lap four. Joe would try to keep up with the new leader, but a lap later his car would belch out a big puff of smoke on the front stretch and he would have to back out of the throttle allowing Benischek to drive away to a convincing victory. Zrostlik was able to nurse his ailing ride in for second ahead of Dustin Begyn, Darin Smith rallied from a fifth row start to finish fourth and Cyle Hawkins would fill out the top five.
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| Modified winner Denny Eckrich |
The track was still narrow and lightning fast as the final event of the night rolled out with ten Late Models set to go for twenty laps with the Eckrich brothers, Andy and Dave starting in the front row. At the drop of the green Dave would be the first to get to turn one, but with his deep drive into the bottom line Andy would have the advantage at the apex of the corner. The cushion was fast though and Dave would pull back even with his brother exiting turn two and it is not know whether or not they made contact, but Andy would suddenly slow and then push up the track in turns three and four with a broken right tie rod. One more lap would be scored before the caution waved for Chad Holladay on the back stretch and both he and Andy would head for the pit area, their night ended.
On the restart Dave would set a blistering pace with the ageless Ron Boyse for the most part maintaining it while running second. It looked like this would be how it would finish until lap eleven when Luke Pestka spun in turn two. On the restart Jonathan Brauns who had lined up fourth slowed suddenly on the back stretch and with no time to react Jonathan Huston would plow into the back of him sidelining both cars for the rest of the race.
Derrick Stewart would move to second on this restart and he would stay within striking distance of the leader over the next seven laps, but when he jumped the cushion in turn four coming to the white flag that would end his bid as Dave Eckrich would score the flag-to-flag victory. Stewart would settle for second, Jeff Tharp was third followed by Nick Marolf, Pestka and Boyse.
I had a great time chatting with long-time racer Bob Dominacki and my good friend Bob Litton dropped off some amazing statistics of the tracks and events that he and his late wife Reta have attended over the years. It will be one of my offseason projects to summarize for you here on the Back Stretch.
We'll take a break tonight before going to 34 Raceway on Friday night for the All Stars Sprint Car show. Then on Tuesday it will be off to the Davenport Speedway for the MARS Late Model special and then two more fair races after that with the Dubuque County Fair on Wednesday night for the annual visit by the Sprint Invaders, then on Thursday night we will head for the CJ Raceway and the Louisa County Fair race dubbed the "Battle On The Levee".
My final fair race of 2023 will be in September at the Clay County Fair in Spencer, but there is a bunch of other races to attend before then and I hope that you will continue to look for me here on the Back Stretch.
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