Eighth Super Nationals Title For Hall of Famer Aikey

Thirty-three Late Models somehow found a place to park pitside as the 41st Annual IMCA Super Nationals ramped up on a hot, but breezy Monday at the Boone Speedway where hot laps started at 1 p.m. and racing at 2:00 and nine hours later a champion was crowned as Jeff Aikey held off the defending race winner Cory Dumpert. The full show for the Late Models was squeezed in between qualifying races for 169 Northern Sport Mods and an event record count of 159 Hobby Stocks.

Knowing that I would have the opportunity to spend the day with my Positively Racing colleagues Barry Johnson and Dick and Joyce Eisele, as well as good friends Paul Vetter and David Schlise, I made the three hour trip for a full day of racing and, as always, the Super Nationals delivered with plenty of action and excitement. The schedule for the day was not posted until after we arrived and when I saw how deep the Late Model feature was in the lineup I knew that my hopes of being back home by midnight were dashed.

It was an interesting roster of Late Model drivers including several from Nebraska where the number of sanctioned tracks are now about equal to, or greater than what we have in eastern Iowa, plus there were several drivers that were likely making their one and only appearance at an IMCA Late Model show for 2023. These included longtime Modified and Stock Car competitor Mike Petersilie from central Kansas, versatile Texas driver Dean Abbey, southeast Missouri's Adam Parmeley and Cooper Tilley who lists Omaha as his hometown, but is usually found in the results from the Big O Speedway in Ennis, Texas.

Four heat races provided plenty of three-wide racing and the one B-Main saw a great battle for the four final transfer positions into the fifty-lap feature. In a throw back to the former long running Summer Series, the redraw was done with Casey's Pizza boxes and it would be Nebraska's Alex Banks and National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member Jeff Aikey starting from the front row. 

Jeff Aikey - Barry Johnson photo

Those two would race side-by-side in the early laps with Aikey's high side momentum getting him to the scoring loop first each time before he started to put some distance on Banks by lap four. Drivers were racing four-wide mid-pack on the freshly groomed surface and the first caution of the race waved on lap thirteen when Tilley and Evan Miller tangled in turn two. It had been an interesting day for Miller as during his qualifying heat, while challenging for the lead mid-race, he spun in turn four and after scrambling to avoid the caution he would still finish last putting him near the back of the B-Main. From there he would race from eleventh to take the fourth and final transfer spot from Kale Kosiski on the final lap to make the feature.

Two laps after the restart Abbey would move to second and set his sights on Aikey who was still cruising the cushion. While he could stay close, the Texan could not find enough grip in the lower lines to mount a challenge for the lead and the caution would wave again on lap twenty-two when Tilley and this time Chance Huston would get together in turn two. When back to green Abbey would find the middle to his liking and he would lead the next three laps before Huston's now ill-handling car spun again in turn two.

Following this restart Abbey would make a self-professed driver's error as he went too low in turns three and four making contact with the buried infield tires and he would then pull to the infield with mechanical issues as Aikey sailed back into the lead. The caution would fly again one lap later when Miller spun in calamity corner, turn two and as the field was realigned we noted that Cory Dumpert was now up to sixth. 

Cory Dumpert (77) works to the outside of Darrel DeFrance and Bobby Hansen - Barry Johnson photo

The soon to be five-time IMCA Late Model National Champion had started fifteenth and did not advance much in the early laps, but he had found his speed now and just five laps after going back to green Dumpert had charged to second and was closing ground on Aikey. The final caution would wave with twelve laps remining when Greg Krohn got into the front stretch wall and after the restart Dumpert was banging the cushion as hard as he could to try to get a run on the leader. Aikey was smooth on the high line that was now obviously dominant and with no lapped traffic to have to deal with in the closing laps the sixty-one year-old driver from Cedar Falls would put his Late Model into victory lane for the seventh time here at the Super Nationals with this one being his first victory since going four straight from 2013 through 2016. Add in his 2018 title in the Modified and this is Jeff's eighth win in a "big Dance" here at Boone and unless cracker jack announcer and historian Ryan Clark tells me otherwise, I am going to proclaim that this is more than any other driver.

Dumpert would settle for second with Joel Callahan taking third after starting from the sixth row. Quad Cities area drivers Andy Nezworski and Joe Beal were next in line while veteran Mike Fryer made the most of just his fourth start of the season finishing in sixth after starting thirteenth. Banks slipped to seventh, J.D. Auringer was the Hard Charger advancing fourteen spots to eighth, Darrel DeFrance maintained his "Ironman" status and finished ninth while Bobby Hansen came from nineteenth to tenth. 

Bobby Hansen again in the middle of three-wide racing, this time with J.D. Auringer (62) and Mike Fryer (5M) - Barry Johnson photo

The race was delayed by another twenty to thirty minutes when, during the track prep session preceding the set of events that included the Late Model feature, one of the track packers had an axle break and then it overturned with about a four foot high pile of sand being left on the high side of turn three. It would take some time to scoop all of that off the black dirt track and then after one set of Stock Car hot laps, the track prep crew came back to the speedway for another farming session. Take that quirk out of the mix and the Late Model portion of the show would have concluded around 10:30 and far be it from me to be critical of how anything is done at this amazing event, but it sure would have been nice if the Late Model feature could have been slotted in before the Race of Champions heat races for the Sport Mods and the Hobby Stocks rather than afterwards. 

We did get to see one of the two twenty-five lap qualifying races held for the Sport Mods on this day and what looked like an impressive victory for Logan Anderson who charged from ninth to first was later wiped out by a disqualification in the tech area for a serpentine belt violation. That would hand the win over to young California speedster Tyler Bannister who, as Paul Vetter stated, would have a "toss off" later with the second Sport Mod winner of the night Jake Sachau to determine who will be the pole-sitter for Saturday's Big Dance. I'm assuming that would be a round of Corn Hole, or a toss of the dice?

It was a long, but enjoyable day and evening of racing enhanced by the conversation and laughter with good friends, but I can tell you that I functioned much better on just four hours of sleep when I was forty than I do now that I am sixty!

I look forward to following along with the results from Boone on MyRacePass for the remainder of the week with my next racing to be another long road trip to the Clay County Fair in Spencer next Tuesday night for the ASCS National Series and Malvern Bank SLMR double header. Look for me perusing the amazing selection of fair food pre-race before we see what transpires on the Back Stretch.