After spending most of last week out of state for my first business travel since February of 2020, I am finally caught up enough to pull out the Notebook for this entry on the Back Stretch.
With my flight landing at the Quad Cities airport just before 6 p.m. on Friday, I hustled over to the Davenport Speedway for the season opener and the promotional debut of Jeff Struck Jr. It was what I would call an "unofficial" visit since I had set a personal curfew of 9:45 to make sure that I could stay awake for the drive home. Had the whole show been completed, yes I would have written a recap and when the first of six feature races came to the track shortly after eight o'clock I thought that we had a chance. However, that was quickly erased when the Street Stocks had six cautions in the first eight laps.
The car count in that division was bolstered by some long distance travelers that I assume were there in support of Struck who has raced in this division for the past several years and who has even found some success when he towed east to compete in some higher paying specials. Indiana visitors Kyle Anderson and Braiden Keller were involved in two of those early cautions with Keller's coming after he slipped off the back stretch after leading the first three laps.
The final seven laps would run under the green and it would be a slider by Nick Slepak on Nick Hixson on that final restart that would decide the race. Slepak, who had made the 140 mile tow in from Coal City, Illinois, would celebrate the win over Landen Chrestensen while another traveler, Kraig Hughes from Ottawa, Illinois, would finish in third.
After winning Thursday's show at Marshalltown, Nathan Ballard kept his early season hot streak intact here at Davenport passing Daniel Wauters on lap four to win the Hobby Stock main event. This division is new to Davenport for 2024 having replaced the IMCA Stock Cars on the weekly card and the opening night count was solid with sixteen on hand. This would be Ballard's sixth win already in 2024 after taking two each at Memphis and Bloomfield prior to last weekend's success.
Logan Veloz drew the front row for the Sport Mod feature and he would lead a race flag-to-flag that was slowed by just two cautions despite there being twenty-nine cars on the track! North Dakota visitor Robby Rosselli started twelfth and finished in fourth.
Only seven Sport Compacts had signed in so they would run a feature only on this night and I could hear them buzz to life as I climbed into my car just a couple of minutes before my self-imposed curfew. A couple of things that caught my eye as I reviewed the results the next morning was the fact that Mitch Morris had completed a clean sweep winning both his heat race and the main event in his first night racing an IMCA Late Model. And it was good to see that Ben Chapman was able to work his way forward from a ninth row starting spot to finish fifth in the IMCA Modified feature. It is rare today to see drivers who are enjoying a good deal of success in the Sport Mods or B-Mod class that take the step up to the Modifieds or Late Models. It will not surprise me to to see Ben in victory lane in his new division soon!
When I saw Jeff Terhune the following night he told me that additional cautions had pushed the final checkers to nearly an hour after my departure and, given the need for several pieces of bubble gum and some loud music to get me home safely, I am glad that I left when I did. All in all it had to be a good first night for Struck though as a very nice crowd was on hand and the pits were full of more than 120 race cars.
On Saturday night the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders kicked off their 2024 season at 34 Raceway west of Burlington and other than a stiff wind blowing in from over turn three, it was a pretty nice mid-April evening for racing. The car count was phenomenal with 35 drivers in attendance and when there are even names that my announcing partner Bill Wright doesn't even recognize, well then that's a treat! As I usually do with the Invader shows, I left the Notebook in the car in lieu of the clipboard that we keep all of the sponsors for both the series and the drivers on, so for the story and full results of Paul Nienhiser's victory, click here.
The Invaders have made a big change in their lineup procedure as for the first time in more than twenty-years the Dash will no longer be the "Shake Up" where the winner draws one of six pills to determine his or her starting position for the feature. As it has been for the past few seasons, the Dash is still made up of the heat race winners plus the top three in passing points (or four if there were four heats contested as there was this past Saturday) and in the recent past they would then lineup with the highest amount of passing points starting from the pole. That has changed now where the qualified drivers will now draw for the starting lineup in the Dash, so there is still a level of luck involved.
Nienhiser had drawn a seventh starting spot in his heat race where he raced his way up to second and he then drew the #1 pill for the Dash that he easily won to earn the pole for the twenty-five lap A-Main. Defending series champion Ryan Bunton made one good charge to the inside of turns one and two on an early restart, but after that Paul would use that line for the rest of the night to drive Scott Bonar's Midland Performance #50 to victory lane.
Surprise entrant Sterling Cling finished in second. The Arizona native was a two-time winner in 2023 racing without the wing in Indiana, but appears to be focusing on winged racing this season after getting an early start with Speedweeks in Florida. Hopefully we will see him again with the Invaders this season. Miles Paulus finished third in his #98. The Missouri driver has raced with the Invaders before, but as a hired hand, so after this strong start perhaps we will see more of him as well. The name that Bill W didn't recognize was Aaron Rixmann from Coulterville, Illinois. A search on the name shows that the high school senior is also a talented baseball pitcher for nearby Pinckneyville, so hopefully the scheduling conflicts will be few through the remainder of the spring season so that Rixmann can perhaps make a Rookie-of-the-Year run after making the show and finishing 19th.
Other names that this announcer didn't expect included Wisconsin drivers TJ.Haddy and Eric Wilke as well as South Dakota visitors Clint and Cole Garner and Kaleb Johnson. Among the Sprint Invader stalwarts, young Colton Fisher is now driving for veteran car owner Jimmy Davies in the black #99 and while they were disappointed with a 15th-place finish in the opener, look for that combo to be challenging for wins as the season goes on. The next event for the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders will be a May 5th stop at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton.
Other winners at 34 from Saturday included Brian Tipps in the Mini Haulers, Josh Barnes in the Sport Compacts and Spencer Diercks in the IMCA Modifieds.
I watched the High Limit Sprint Car event from the Red Dirt Speedway in Meeker, Oklahoma, last night and the racing was fantastic with young Corey Day taking the victory after passing series point leader Tyler Courtney. This is a small facility just east of Oklahoma City and before the growth of live streaming, this facility would not have had the capacity to host an event of this magnitude. However, with sponsorship and the revenue produced online, it gave the place the opportunity to show just what kind of action that it has to offer each and every race night. There are a lot of tracks out there who, up until this era, just didn't have the seating capacity to host a national event, but would be a great place to shine if given the opportunity. What track would you feel fits that description?
One of the most anticipated debuts in a Sprint Car will come on Wednesday May 1st, when Jake Neuman's team will have a car wrapped with a #B5 for Late Model champion Brandon Sheppard. Talk about going all in, B-Shepp will be racing against the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars in that debut, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Pretty cool that he is doing it, and just remember as you look as his results, remember he is racing against some of the best in the business!
We are having some typical up and down April weather this week here in southeast Iowa with warm air clashing with incoming cooler air on Tuesday to spawn a couple of tornadoes not far from my home in Mount Pleasant. Thankfully no injuries have been reported , but several people are cleaning up from the damages and that was cited as one of the reasons why this weekend's Slocum 50 has been postponed at 34 Raceway. While Friday's Prelude has been canceled, the new date for the Slocum 50 will be announced once the track and the MLRA can find one that works for all. This Thursday's MLRA event at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton has been moved to Thursday September 12th.
I had been planning on being at 34, but with the change hopefully I can make it down to the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson on Friday night for the opener of their Spring Hooray doubleheader and then on Sunday night I will be looking to make the trip up to Vinton for the season opener at the Benton County Speedway.
Hope to see you on the Back Stretch!
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