Feger, Bollinger and Parga Usher In A New Era At Spoon

Over the past ten years or so we have seen some first time promoters try some unique ideas to try to breathe life back into their track's weekly racing program. Down in Oklahoma it was Free Grandstand Admission every race night throughout the season. In northern Iowa a new promoter tried a free will donation for entrance to the grandstand. Now, in 2024, first time promoter Cloyd Barden looks to revive the weekly program at the Spoon River Speedway south of Canton, Illinois, by moving the race night from Saturday to Friday and by offering a purse structure that would exceed many of the special events in the area.

Not only is he paying the UMP Super Late Model feature winner $2,000, but second gets $1,500, third collects $1,200 and even the fourth place finisher almost gets four figures with $950. And this is no "Dolly Parton" purse as tenth gets $350 and it is $250 just to start. The other four divisions are not slighted either with the UMP Modified first place prize at $1,500, the Pro Late Model king for the night takes home $1,000 while the E-Mods and the Hornets collect $600 and $300 respectively. All totaled, with a full field of twenty in each class, that is just shy of $30,000 in purse money for a weekly show, nearly three times the amount that gets paid out at most tracks. And this is not Knoxville where a weekly crowd of 3,000 looks like nobody is there in the spacious front stretch grandstands that seat around 15,000 during the Nationals. At an adult admission price of $15 and pit passes at $35, I would think that a crowd of 1,200 or more would be needed to have a chance of breaking even and while the stands did fill in pretty nicely as the night wore on, I'm not sure if that number was met. Revenue from track sponsorship does not seem high either as I only spotted nine signs in the infield.

I knew that I wanted to get over to Spoon River early in the season to see how this was going to all work and, after last week's races were rained out, that made my targeted date of May 3rd the opener for this newest experiment in weekly race promotion. Twenty cars each in the Super Late Models and Modifieds signed in, about ten fewer than I had expected, while the E-Mods topped the list with twenty-two. The Hornets had seventeen cars on hand while the Pro Late Models pulled just thirteen. While there were some drivers that had made nearly a 100 mile tow, the only one that I spotted on the list that had traveled farther than me was Austin Self, the native Texan and former NASCAR Truck Series competitor, who now lists Statesville, North Carolina, and he has towed his UMP Modified up to the Midwest to do some racing around the Illinois bullrings.

Jason Feger prepares for his record setting lap

While a bit dry and dusty to start with, the race track soon became lightning fast after the top was peeled off and while there was one soft spot at the exit of turn four, the surface was wide and racy despite the rains of the past couple of weeks. Two drivers, Daniel Adam and then a few moments later Jason Feger, lowered the track record previously held by Jonathan Davenport from 12.866 to 12.642 and the racing action was just like I love it here at the Spoon; lightning fast and multi-grooved.

The Pro Late Models would be the first of the five features to take to the track with twenty laps the distance and this one was basically decided on the first circuit. Jose Parga, who in 2023 won in each of his first nineteen starts, had lined up fourth for this one and he was in second exiting turn two and then after driving under pole-sitter Tommy Elston exiting turn four he would take the lead that he would never relinquish. Three cautions would slow the race, including a front stretch skirmish on lap thirteen involving two cars racing in the top five when Brad Denney and Vance Wilson got together.

Even with the late restart, Parga would drive away to win my more than a straightaway over Elston. Denny Woodworth would advance from ninth to third, Denney recovered to finish in fourth while Jason Oenning was fifth.

The twenty-five lap UMP Modified main event would be up next and the action throughout was furious, that is while under green flag conditions. Pole-sitter Mark Anderson would set the pace with the first caution coming on lap three when top-five contenders Austen Becerra and Zac Oedewaldt tangled on the front stretch sending Becerra's #22 nose first into the outside wall. After the lengthy delay to clear the track just one more lap was scored when Degan Dozard ended up stopped on the exit ramp from turn one to the pit area sitting in a precarious position. I'm not sure what the hold up was, but it seemed like forever to finally move his car the rest of the way into the pits and once back to racing only two more laps were logged before Brandon Roberts and Charley Hess both spun in turn four.

On this restart Trevor Neville made a big move to the inside of turn one forcing the leader Anderson up the track, and when Mark recovered he would clip the right rear of Mike Chasteen Jr's car sending Chasteen sliding toward the infield on the back stretch. That would put Anderson back out front for the restart and he would now block that bottom line to hold Neville at bay as Ray Bollinger now joined the battle. Bollinger who had apparent motor issues during qualifying had come from fifth to second in his heat race to earn a second row start in this one, and it was now obvious that those issues had been resolved as he joined Neville in putting pressure on the leader.

A caution for debris on lap thirteen created another restart and now Dave Wietholder would make it an entertaining four car battle at the front. Bollinger would get under Anderson exiting turn four to take the lead on lap seventeen and one lap later Wietholder would suddenly slow exiting turn four before driving to the pits at the top of turn one. One final caution, the sixth of the event, would fly on lap twenty-two as Tim Carpenter Jr. was cruising just over the banking on the back stretch and into turn three setting up a three lap dash to the finish.

Neville would make one last charge, but there would be no stopping Bollinger from taking the win as Anderson came home in third. Austin Self had steadily made his way through the field to finish in fourth after starting eighteenth while Evan Fink filled out the top five coming from a fifth row starting spot.

Surely the "yellow fever" had now been taken care of with that event as the thirty lap headliner for the Super Late Models rolled to the track?

Nope

The action was intense up front featuring Tommy Sheppard Jr., Daniel Adam, Jason Feger, Ryan Unzicker and late in the race Jake Little, and that was the only reason that I stayed in my seat rather than packing up and getting a head start on the two hour and ten minute drive home as, count 'em, ten cautions were needed in the first nineteen laps! I won't detail them all here in order to maintain the theme of our website, but perhaps the most significant one in regard to the outcome of the race came when Ryan Unzicker slowed to a halt on the front stretch while running second on lap thirteen.

Sheppard held the lead for the first two laps before the rim-riding Adam took over and on lap nine Feger charged into the lead exiting turn four. However, when he slid off the top of turn two, Feger would slip to fourth as Adam regained the point. Jason would battle back through the multiple restarts and he would go back to the lead with eleven to go and mercifully those final eleven laps would stay green as the new track record holder would add the feature win to his list of accomplishments for the evening. Daniel Adam showed that he is an up and coming star in this sport with his runner-up effort, Sheppard finished third with Jake Little, who at one time had moved to second, finishing fourth. Rich Bell ran a consistent race to move from twelfth to fifth.

As soon as the checkered flag waved over this one I, as well as many others in the stands, decided to call it a night and perhaps you will understand why as I give you how the time schedule played out for the evening:

Hot laps scheduled for 6:30, started at 7:05

Racing scheduled for 7:30, started at 8:23 with the first of three ten lap heat races for the 13-car field of Pro Late Models

Heats ended at 9:29

Features started at 9:41

Checkered flag for the Late Models waved at 11:15

I'll give the new promoter a pass for getting started late as that can happen to just about anybody on opening night when track registrations are needed and that first Driver's Meeting of the year can take some extra time. I will, however, scold whoever had the bright idea of running three ten lap heat races for the thirteen cars in the Pro Late Model class. Unless your sanctioning body requires you to do something different, there is no reason to run three heat races in any class until you get to twenty-one cars. And, if you are qualifying and then starting straight up by times, there is no reason to run ten laps either. And that goes for any class! Even the World of Outlaws Late Models and the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series only run eight lap heat races at their events.

Beyond that, the rest of the late evening falls on the shoulders of the drivers and again, perhaps the fact that this was opening night and that they had to shake some rust off of their driving skills had something to do with it. But nineteen cautions in the feature races of your top three divisions? Come on guys, you have to do better than that or there won't be this type of money out there for you to compete for much longer. 

Earlier in the day on Facebook, someone had asked why the E-Mod feature would only be fifteen laps instead of twenty and a random responder said, "probably because it would usually be a demo derby and caution after caution. That would be my guess." Here's hoping that both the E-Mods and the Hornets ran their feature races won by Kevin Morrow and Kenny Butterfield relatively caution free to put a little egg on the face of that commenter, otherwise this would have turned out to be a "two day" event to start the season.

Next up on the schedule here at Spoon River is a Wednesday May 8th visit by the Castrol FloRacing Night in America series that will feature the best of the best in Super Late Model racing. Then the next weekly show will be run on Friday May 17th and, just like any other racing program, both the drivers and the fans will need to show their support in order to make it a success. And I hope it is, because I absolutely love to watch the racing here at the Spoon River Speedway.

Next up on my schedule is the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders joining the always exciting weekly program at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton on Sunday night. Then, on Monday May 6th, I plan on being at the Independence Motor Speedway for the debut of the IMCA Modified Summer Challenge Series. Hope to see you soon, somewhere out there on the Back Stretch!