With last week's postponement of what would have been the season championship races for the six weekly divisions at the Benton County Speedway moved to August 27th, that would make for a busy night as now the champion for the inaugural season of the PRO Late Model Tour would also be decided. Now mix that in with Vinton's annual Boomtown events where the the track prep team for promoters Rick and Corey Dripps were unable to put water on the surface for the two days leading up to race night, and that made for a full and challenging evening. But as usual here at the Bullring, the grandstands were packed and ready for action and the 109 drivers on hand, for the most part, delivered with an eventful evening of racing where seven champions were crowned.
First off, let me state that there is no better announcer for a night like this than Ryan Clark. Not only did he keep us all updated on the point championship scenarios and who needed to finish where in order to clinch, or overtake their competition to win the track title for 2023, but he was also able to give us a list of all previous track champions and even the winners of the season championship features throughout the history of the Benton County Speedway. Now, to some of the younger fans, that might not have meant much, but for all of those longtime BCS regulars it had to be a treat to hear some of those great names of the past! Not only does Ryan do an exceptional job of calling the races, his historical statistics are second to none and it just adds so much to the enjoyment of an evening such as this one.
Great job my friend!
It would be features only for the six weekly divisions with the lineups set as follows. If you were in the top twelve in the current point standings, and you were in attendance here tonight, you would be included in the invert. For example, in the Sport Compacts, nine of the top twelve ranked drivers were on hand and therefore point leader, and now 2023 track champion Lukas Rick lined up ninth on the seventeen car starting grid.
The PRO Late Model Tour would line up their heats straight up by points staggered across the three of them using a passing point system that would then have the high point man, Curt Martin, draw a card from Ace to eight to determine the invert for the thirty lap feature. He would draw the four.
From a fan's standpoint I thought that both lineup procedures were pretty cool for use on a Season Championship night, much better than starting the features straight up by current points.
The Legend Cars would be first and with it only being about 5:50 p.m. the sun was still high, the breeze was blowing and the track that did not get its normal drink of water over the past two days was a bit dry and dusty. Soon the entire sixteen car field was rooting for the bottom and passing only happened when someone slipped up out of the groove in the turns. Pole-sitter Griffin McGrath, who also pilots a pavement Late Model around the upper Midwest and who heads up the Legends Direct dealership in Cedar Rapids grabbed the lead early and never made a mistake in taking his first win here in Vinton. Kacey Korsmo kept the heat on in second, Danny Lehmkuhl did make his way up from twelfth to third, Michael Weber sealed the track title by finishing fourth and Cole O'Brien filled out the top five. Legends Direct will be putting some big money on the line for the Legend Cars this coming Sunday, September 3rd, as they will be part of a four class program here that we will tell you about later.
The Sport Mod feature would be up next for fifteen laps with championship contenders Sam Wieben and Tony Olson lining up eleventh and tenth respectively. Now you know that you might be in for a case of yellow fever when the first caution waves for a Modified driver that had asked to be able to take a couple of hot laps behind the field. He didn't even make it out of turn four before spinning. Once back to green, front row starters Robert Patava and Aaron Waller left the door open for Josh Banes to take the point and he would lead through lap eight when Bradley Ivy spun in turn three.
On the restart Brady Hilmer would go to work on Banes for the lead and as the lead duo raced side-by-side into turn one on lap eleven, my eyes were on the slowing car of Tony Olson who had been running fourth at the time. As he coasted over the top of turn one heading to the pit area it was Hilmer who was now crossing the start/finish line with the lead, but where was Banes? His #28 was in the infield near the end of the back stretch and when the caution waved for a car that had spun in turn three after lap twelve was scored, he would climb out and show Hilmer "that he was number one.....twice" as described my Mr. Clark.
The race would go back to green with just three laps remaining and four drivers from Dysart leading the way and just as Hilmer was exiting turn four to take the checkers, the caution waved instead for Hunter Wimer who was sitting sideways in turn one. Now I know that this has to be a snap decision, but in our new world of Raceceiver technology it would seem that we could go ahead and throw the checkers with the green light still on while saying "there's a car sideways in turn one so be careful". Not only that, but we have to go back to a two lap restart, so thankfully nothing changed up front over those extra two laps and Hilmer scored the win with Wieben earning the track championship in second. Joe Docekal came from seventh to third making it an all Dysart podium while Kyle Olson finished fourth. Will Wolf had come all the up from sixteenth to fifth, but he was nipped at the line for the position by Patava at the end of overtime.
We talked about Lukas Rick earlier, he was the only driver to come into the night assured of a track championship without even having to show up, but he did so anyway. First a few side comments, congratulations to the Sports Compact drivers here at Vinton for coming out seventeen strong on championship night and for having a solid car count all season. While other tracks in the state struggle to get to double digits and others continue to run the class when they only get three or four cars each week, it is nice to see that Vinton can still pull them in. Perhaps somebody needs to share the secret?
I have heard some of the reasons why the car counts are down at some tracks and it seems that the fault would lie within the competitors and their fans in those cases. One All Iowa Points track that averaged more than twenty a week dropped them from the roster a couple of years ago "because of all the drama" that they generate and I know that one track this year finally told the drivers that they can tech themselves because the promoters were tired of the whining and bitching. Another track, the CJ Speedway has already said that the class has been cut for 2024, so when you see a track like Mason City that had two cars show up last night, you have to wonder just how much longer will this division continue.
But I digress.
This race showed how entertaining the class can be as pole-sitter Stephen Randall would set the pace for the first five laps with drivers going three and four wide while jockeying for position. A caution for debris would give Nolan Tuttle the chance to get up to speed quicker on the restart as he would now take the lead and Lukas Rick would have to do his track championship interview later as his car was being towed back to the pits after dropping a transmission while running fifth with six laps remaining.
Cristian Grady had started outside of the invert in twelfth, but he would be riding the back bumper of Tuttle in the closing laps. As the white flag waved, Grady was able to squeeze under Tuttle exiting turn two and they raced wheel to wheel down the back stretch with Grady earning the Christe Door Company $100 last lap pass bonus by taking the win by less than a car length over Tuttle. Randall would hold on for third, Colton Stewart finished fourth with Robert Rundle fifth.
Ten Stock Cars lined up next for fifteen laps with Leah Wroten needing a top three finish to wrap up her second track championship here at Vinton. I knew this because she was among the former Hobby Stock track champions mentioned a little later in the night. Kaden Reynolds was her challenger and he wasted no time blasting from sixth to first on the opening lap. With Norman Chesmore and Jeff Wollam battling for second, and for determining who would be third in the final point standings, Leah was looking like fourth might be the best that she could do until Wollam dropped out with mechanical problems during a lap seven caution.
Two laps after the restart Wroten made the pass on Chesmore and then rode out one more late race caution to seal the deal as Kaden won the battle, while Leah won the war. Chesmore finished third, Kyle Olson in the #49 formerly driven by Ian Huff was fourth and Sport Compact graduate Logan Clausen was fifth.
The Hobby Stocks rolled out next for fifteen laps and while both Cory VanderWilt and Justin Wacha were still within reach, it would have taken a poor showing from point leader Joren Fisher to see any change at the top of the standings. Pole-sitter Bradly Graham would get all the way sideways in turns three and four on the opening lap, but somehow make the save without collecting the field, but he did lose several positions. This would allow Dalton Weepie to take the lead and through two more restarts he was unbeatable driving away to take the win. It was the kind of performance that would have made you doubt the fact that this was just his second career feature win and Weepie's first victory at Vinton. Matt Brown came from eighth to second, Fisher closed out his second title in three years by running third, Graham battled back to fourth and Michael Kimm closed out the top five.
The thirty lap PRO Late Model Tour finale would close out the evening and, after eighteen feature race cautions thus far, our hope would be that this one would go flag-to-flag so that we could go raid Bobby Hansen's cooler full of retro beer for one cold one before making the 101 mile drive home.
Nope.
It would take four tries to get the twenty-two car field to finally score a lap, but now that we were racing this would be a good one. And I mean a REALLY good one that featured eight official lead changes among three drivers. Bryan Klein and Corey Dripps had started from the front row and basically they would race side-by-side for the first seventeen laps. Klein down low and Dripps up high. Who would lead each lap would be determined by who had best hit their marks during that trip around the quarter-mile oval and thankfully due to the scoreboard, new to the track here in 2023, and the electronic scoring I can tell you that the leader was:
Laps 1-7: Klein
Lap 8: Dripps (he actually took the lead when he had to squeeze under the lapped car of Michael Trulson forcing him to the middle line in turns three and four)
Laps 9-10: Klein (Dripps went back to the top in three and four allowing Klein to get back to the lead)
Lap 11: Dripps
Lap 12: Klein
Lap 13: Dripps (the leaders now each had a lapped car just ahead racing in their line)
Laps 14 -17: Klein
The caution would wave at this point for Chase Brunscheen who had spun in turn four and we would now notice that J.D. Auringer, who had started the Brandon Davis owned #62 from twelfth, had worked his way up to third for the restart. Once back to green this would now become a three car battle with Auringer trying to find some racing room and when he would give the middle a try, the crowd would buzz with the three-wide action for the lead.
Dripps would regain the lead on lap twenty and, once he dropped Klein to third, Auringer would go to work on the leader. Corey would fight him off for a couple of laps, but with five remaining Auringer would take the lead and then go on to score the entertaining victory. Nick Marolf would slip by Dripps late to finish second and with his third place finish Dripps would become the PRO Late Model Tour points champion in its first season. Corey achieved the same thing 25 years ago when he was the first ever NKF Tour Modified Champion back in 1998.
Klein would have to settle for fourth while C.J. Horn rounded out the top five. It was an impressive finish to the first PRO Late Model Tour season that also debuted here at Vinton back in June with just ten cars signing in for that first show. With twenty-two on hand tonight, organizer Brandon Davis has to be excited to build upon that over the offseason as he prepares for the sophomore edition.
It is always good to see both Rick and Corey Dripps as we developed a great friendship back in those NKF Tour days and they, along with their fine staff here at the Bullring are always very welcoming to all of our Positively Racing writers. Since we often sit in the same area it is also good to say hi to the friendly people in the stands and I even made a few new friends on this night since I broke out the vintage Roger Dolan race shirt that we printed back in 1992.
There is one more night of racing on the schedule in Vinton, and that will be this Sunday September 3rd, when the Sprint Invaders make their second appearance of the season joined by the Sport Compacts, the American Iron Racing Series and the aforementioned Legends Direct Midwest Shootout. Pack those stands again!
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