Turkey Bowl Continues To Be A Must See Event; MLRA Series Has Come To A Close

As we have been doing for the past fifteen years or so, the annual Turkey Bowl at the Springfield Raceway in southwest Missouri would be the final event on our racing schedule for 2024 and once again it provided plenty of action to carry us through the offseason. If you have never been to the Turkey Bowl, I highly recommend that you add it to your "to do" list as it is definitely a great way to round out your season. 

Why? The biggest draw to me is the variety of the driver list in all of the divisions. It doesn't matter what sanction a driver races within during the season, UMP, IMCA, USRA, WISSOTA, POWRi, etc., the rules are setup so that all can come and compete here at Springfield and they come from far and wide. And while the purse is solid, it is not one of those shows that draws in the marquee names while the regional and local heroes stay home and that is why Turkey Bowl XVIII established a new car count record of 404 entries across all divisions. Promoter Jerry Hoffman has a reputation of treating all of the drivers right, perhaps even going a bit too far in that direction when it comes to the crowd experience (I will touch on that more in a bit) and he definitely knows what to do to his quarter-mile race track throughout the evening to provide a multi-grooved racing surface.

My colleagues Ed Reichert and Danny Rosencrans will be providing Positively Racing coverage from the Turkey Bowl as well, so I will not be going into as much detail as usual here on the Back Stretch, but instead summarize what turned out to be a very long day of racing. I have said this before and I will say it again, when I was a younger soul I used to love these kind of "mega-events" with an overflowing pit area and it didn't bother me a bit if the feature races extended beyond midnight, but as I get into those years of getting the Senior discount at the ticket booth I would like to see the final checkered flag wave on the same date that I bought that ticket! 

As we were planning our itinerary for the trip we were looking at hot laps, for the Late Models only, scheduled for 4 p.m. with racing then to follow. So after checking into our hotel we arrived at the track shortly after three o'clock and we were not surprised to see a long line at the ticket gate as even with a steady wind, it was a beautiful November day for racing and yes, this event is no longer a secret outside of the Ozarks. Once we settled into our seats a check of MyRacePass now showed hot laps at 5:15 with racing set to begin at 5:45 p.m. and just to make sure that I wasn't losing it I went back to a Springfield Raceway Facebook post on November 12th to pull the attached flyer. So that was an extra two hours of sitting in the stands that wasn't necessarily planned, and my guess is that with the wind Hoffman wanted to push the start time back to when the sun was setting to provide a better racing surface. Okay, so I am good with that, but may I suggest a couple of changes that his drivers might not like, but that his fans would love? 

The number of laps in the B-Mains seemed a bit excessive. In both the Legends and the Midwest Mods, where the feature was scheduled for twenty laps, the B-Mains were twelve in each while the A-Mods, B-Mods and Late Models all ran multiple fifteen lap B-Mains. While some of them ran off without a hitch, even those seemed to be just a bit too long and for those that had multiple cautions, well that is what made this program run so late. On the first lap of the first race of the night, the first of four B-Mains for the Midwest Mods, a driver went too high entering turn three, went over the ridge at the top of the track and then just slowed to a stop because he knew that he would be in a better position starting at the back of the original restart rather than staying on the throttle and getting back on the track having lost that much ground on the field.

This incident is the perfect reason why the "one and done rule" should be implemented. Thankfully most of the events that we attend through the year uses this rule during the heat races and the B-Mains and we do not see these multiple cautions for drivers who make a mistake and then would rather selfishly stop the show instead of racing on in a sportsman-like manner. The "one and done" rule at Turkey Bowl XIX would likely trim a full hour off of the Saturday show alone, not to mention the Thursday and Friday night programs which then might allow the Stock Cars to be added to the card, likely drawing another fifty or more cars to the party. But right now, with the finishing times of each night, I don't think that would be a great idea.

Then again, if I was the promoter of such a successful event, why would I care to even read some constructive criticism from a fan, let alone act upon it, and believe me Jerry Hoffman has earned the right to do it his way because the Turkey Bowl has proven to be very successful. And either way I will have the Saturday finale of the Turkey Bowl on my schedule once again in 2025.

Now to the racing, the Legend Car feature would lead off the night and the first thing that we noticed was that Hoffman had moved the infield tires out onto the track at least two car widths up from the inside berm where they had been for the entire evening. My guess is that he noticed that during the four B-Mains for the Legend Cars, nearly all of the drivers were running down along the flatter lower line of the speedway making for some boring racing, so by putting the feature field back up on the banking it might create some more two, three and four-wide action. 

Did I say earlier that Jerry Hoffman knows his track? Despite two caution periods, all twenty laps were fun to watch as Jackson Lewis charged from the eleventh starting spot to take the lead on lap eight and then go on to victory. Lewis who is from Lakeville, Minnesota, and who was running the colors of the Cedar Rapids based Legends Direct Team headed up by Griffin McGrath and Kevin Korsmo, held off McGrath to win one of the B-Mains earlier in the night and then fought off the late challenges from Joplin's Trenton Simon to take the feature win. North Dakota driver Sean Johnson finished in third, Aussie Glenn Mitchell who was an early race leader slipped to fourth while another North Dakota traveler Ty Johnson took fifth. 

After the infield tires were returned to their original positions, Mike Streigel, who we more typically see driving a USRA Modified, started on the pole of the Midwest Mod "A" Class main event and went the distance for the win. Pete Richardson came from ninth to finish second in a race that was slowed by just one caution. Daniel Anders who raced most of this season in a B-Mod finished third, while the Newells, Ben and J.C. filled out the top five.

The Modifieds were up next with an absolutely stellar roster of twenty drivers who had made the grade from the fifty-six car field. Kyle Steffens would race out to the early lead before caution waved on lap six when Iowa's Darin Duffy spun in turn two. Duffy, who had started ninth after winning the first B-Main would now restart at the rear of the field.

Single car cautions on laps twelve and fourteen would delay the action and once back to racing veteran driver Terry Phillips would go to work on Steffens finally making the pass for the lead on lap twenty-four of this thirty lap event. The final caution for Jason Pursely's spin one lap later would setup a five lap sprint to the checkers and nobody had anything for the Hall of Famer Phillips who scored the win. Steffens would settle for the runner-up pay, pole-sitter Zack VanderBeek slipped to third, Duffy battled his way back toward the front to place fourth while Kenny Wallace completed the top five.

The Super Late Models were up next as a wide variety of forty-nine drivers signed in for their full one day show. Iowa's Daniel Hilsabeck would set the pace with a caution on lap three for a multi-car incident and another on lap nine when Ryan Gustin slowed with a flat tire while running third, slowing the field. Once back to racing Hilsabeck remained in control until the caution waved with ten laps remaining for a slowing Kayden Clatt. It was during this caution that the leader would also go the pits as the right rear tire on Hilsabeck's #22 had gone flat as well.

Dillon McCowan would assume the lead on the restart and just one more lap would go into the books before the fourth place car of Sawyer Crigler spun in turn four sending the rest of the field scrambling. One final caution would wave on lap twenty-three when Rusty Griffaw spun in turn four and then McCowan would drive away from runner-up Logan Martin over the final seven circuits to score the win. Louisiana native Jarrett Stuckey would take the third spot, Justin Zeitner finished fourth ahead of Dustin Hodges and Hilsabeck roared back up to sixth wondering what might have been if not for his misfortune.

The twenty-five lap B-Mod feature would close out the show well after the midnight hour and while we would have normally called it a night after the Late Models, the fact that two of my Iowa favorites were in the show I had to stick around. After all, if Brayton Carter, Logan Anderson and the other six high point drivers from Friday's heat races could patiently wait until Sunday morning to finally hit the track, the least that we could do was to be there to cheer them on.

To say that the B-Mod field was stacked would be an understatement as not only were the two multi-time All Iowa Points champions in the lineup, so too was the big winner at the Brownstown, Illinois, B-Mod special Logan Hickerson from Linden, Tennessee, and other former state champions including Cody King, Ryan Gillmore, Kris Jackson, and J.C. Morton. It would be Gillmore that would lead the first two laps before Canadian Sprint Car veteran and track owner Glenn Styres took the point just before a multi-car pileup on the back stretch ended the night for both Jackson and King.

Styyes who was racing as a teammate to NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader, who was also in this field, would lead lap four following the restart before Colson Kirk stormed to the front. A caution would again fly on lap eight for Matt Brucato's spin in turn three and then the second place car of Louisiana's Talan Willis would jump the cushion and spin in turn four on lap thirteen.

Anderson and Carter would be side-by-side behind Kirk for the restart and it would be "Speedy Bray" that would take the point on lap sixteen and then drive on to victory to bag a turkey in his first ever visit to Springfield. Kirk would hold off Anderson to finish second as Gillmore and Hickerson would close out the top five.

The final checkered flag waved at 1:12 a.m. and as we made our way to the hotel we were already making plans to be back at Springfield on February 28th and March 1st for the MLRA Founders Tribute weekend that was just announced on November 12th.

But wait! Just as I was getting ready to write today's blog I see the press release announcing that Lucas Oil will be dropping the MLRA Late Model Series after having operated the regional series for Super Late Models since 2012. So after announcing the earliest opener ever and stating that the full schedule will be released soon just six days earlier, the MLRA is now history and while this sequence of events made this a shocker, I honestly can't say that this comes as a surprise to this writer. 

If you dive into the numbers the MLRA has kind of struggled over the past several years as this "regional" series had a hard time keeping drivers on the tour from beginning to end. A few years back only four drivers were on hand at every event and that included two who had signed on as Rookie-of-the-Year contenders. This past year only the two Simpson brothers, Chad and Chris, made all nineteen feature races and while some race fans might have considered it to be a good thing that the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events at the Lucas Oil Speedway, the Show Me 100 and the Diamond Nationals, also had a co-sanction with the MLRA, I often wondered how much the drivers who were chasing the MLRA points appreciated being forced to compete against the national touring teams even if it was just for show up points.

The demise of the MLRA leaves several questions in regard to how events will be scheduled in 2025, the first of which is the status of that Founders Tribute weekend at Springfield. Next would be what 34 Raceway will now do with their Slocum 50 weekend that for the past several years has been an early season gem on the MLRA schedule. I also went to MLRA races at both Tipton and Davenport in 2024, so will those races just fall off the schedule, run as a stand-alone event, or welcome in a different series such as MARS or SLMR in 2025? Or is there now an opening for somebody else to pick up the reigns of the MLRA, or call it something new if Lucas will not let go of the initials, for a "new" regional series. If Trenton Berry wasn't so busy starting new regional Modified tours, I would say that he would be the best man for the job!

Either way it will be very interesting to see how this all plays out in the weeks and the months to come! Have a great week and we will be back soon with more state point standings stories here on the Back Stretch.