When I was at the Scotland County Speedway back on Friday March 20th, I told a friend that over the past several years we have had better weather to go racing in March than we we have had in April and, unfortunately, that trend has continued here in 2026. In fact there has not been a single race in Iowa east of Interstate 35 yet this season and it is going to take a "look, there is a good weather forecast on a Tuesday" event at Independence tomorrow night to break that goose egg. In the meantime though we made the trip west to the Stuart Speedway on Sunday for the annual visit from the Winged Sprint Cars that is becoming a must-see event.
With this co-sanctioned event now being the season opener for both the Mohrfeld Solar Sprint Invaders and the newly re-titled Malvern Bank ASCS Midwest Region, a stellar field of 41 360 Sprints signed in along with 118 drivers in the five IMCA Sanctioned divisions that race regularly at Stuart bringing the total to a whopping 159 cars for the Sunday night program.
With the co-sanction I had the night off from my announcing duties for the Invaders, giving me the opportunity to write about an evening where the Sprint Invaders were in action. The night got off to a bit of a rough start when it came time to simultaneously hot lap/qualify the cars by the four heat race groups as the ASCS format would prevail on this night with their officials taking the lead. Cars were slow coming to the track and slow pushing off creating a delay that set back the show from the beginning despite the 5:30 p.m. start of hot laps. Then, to make matters worse, it was later determined that some of the qualifying times could not be verified due to transponder issues, so the whole qualifying process was later scrapped and the heats would be lined up by the pill draw with passing points only from the heats determining who would make the show. However, I'm not quite sure how that all shook out either evidenced by the fact that Mason Heimbaugh, the grandson of Mackie Heimbaugh who was making his Winged Sprint Car debut tonight started tenth and finished tenth in the fourth heat and Austin Wood started seventh and finished seventh in that same heat race. Yet Wood, the 2025 Sprint Car Challenge Tour champion from Sacramento who flew to Iowa from California on Sunday after racing the night before at Placerville, later found himself starting sixth in the C-Main while Heimbaugh made his way into the B-Main to start sixteenth. But I digress.....
Once they got to racing the Sprint Cars offered up plenty of speed and action and outside of a couple of minor incidents during the heat races, everybody stayed clean and green on the quick quarter-mile. With signs of the track starting to take rubber in the middle groove during the B-Main, promoter Mike Van Genderen took the time needed to groom the surface prior to the twenty-five lap feature and that gave the bundled up crowd the show that they deserved on this cool April evening.
Colton Fisher would set a quick early pace and just as he was beginning to work lapped traffic he slowed suddenly after leading lap nine to draw the only caution of the race. It was another tough break for the young speedster from Danville who we had hoped had used up his share of bad luck in 2025 when incidents would take him out of the lead on three occasions. Once back to green the defending Malvern Bank series champion Chase Brown would assume the point, but he would soon be stalked by the two-time Sprint Invaders champion Chris Martin. A winner on the ASCS National Tour in Salina, Oklahoma, eight days earlier, Martin and his crew chief Danny Lasoski have the #44 dialed in and he drive by Brown with six laps remaining on his way to victory, his second here at Stuart in just the three times that the winged warriors started racing here in 2023.
Austin McCarl, who started alongside Martin in row two would be the runner-up with Brown holding down the final step on the podium. Seth Bergman would finish in the fourth spot while the winner's younger brother, Cameron Martin would be the hard charger on the night coming from seventeenth to fifth. Next up for the Sprint Invaders will be a long awaited Friday May 1st appearance at the CJ Speedway in Columbus Junction and then on May 8th these two regional series will collaborate for a second time on the Super Half Mile at the Eldon Raceway.
The Sport Compacts would start the evening with fourteen laps of two and three wide action with defending All Iowa Points champion Michael Gardner leading the way until the caution waved for a stalled Joseph Carolus in turn four. On the restart Gardner was swallowed up by both Carson Hayes and Tyler Fiebelkorn with Hayes now setting the pace. Colbin Funke, who had started seventh soon joined the battle and he would use the inside line to grab the lead on lap nine and he would hold off Fiebelkorn over the final six laps to take the win. Hayes would finish third followed by the opening night winner Johnny Thomas while Daniel Clayton filled out the top five.
With Brayton Carter, Jake Sachau and Dylan VanWyk lined up ninth, tenth and eleventh respectively we knew that the twenty lap Sport Mod headliner would be interesting, just not in the manner that we had hoped for. Josalyn Elmquist would lead the first three laps before it was ruled that Brayden Shepherd had turn Kaden Rice in turn three and that is where things would go downhill. Six more cautions would wave over the next eight laps and the drivers were then told that they could either go five more laps under green, or the race would be complete with one more caution flag.
That elite trio had already made their way to the front and when the race was under green flag conditions we were being treated to quite a battle with Sachau doing his best to hold off the duo from Oskaloosa. The final caution would come with two laps still remaining on the scoreboard when it was determined that Dayton Swatek was at fault for turning Elmquist in turn one as they were racing for fourth and the checkers would finally wave over Sachau. VanWyk would take second over Carter while Elmquist was scored fourth and fifth went to Will Wolf.
Twenty-one of the twenty-three IMCA Stock Cars on hand took the green for their twenty lap main event with Miciah Hidelbaugh doing his back to hold off several challengers. A flat tire would sideline Todd VanEaton mid-race and Florida native had his challenge end with six laps remaining when smoke billowed from his exhaust while running second. The third and final caution of the race would fly when Brad Derry sat sideways on the front stretch. During the caution it looked like Hidelbaugh was having some steering issues with the two front wheels seemingly headed in different directions and when the race restarted he was no match for Buck Schafroth who powered by for the victory. The winner had started the race from seventh. Hidelbaugh would hold on for second, Dillon Richards advanced from twelfth to third, Austin Meiners came from tenth to fourth and Mike Albertson closed out the top five.
It was now 10:30 and we made the tough decision to head home as the Hobby Stock feature took to the track. Braden Gifford would take the win in that won and, from watching some highlights online today, we missed an interesting battle between Tyler Inman and Tom Berry Jr. where Berry wound up spinning late in the race. Todd Shute would then make the move on Inman to take the win. For more details on these two races as well as his full report on the evening, check out the report from my Positively Racing colleague Ed Reichert.
Thanks to Mike Van Genderen for the hospitality as I was able to introduce my good friend Bruce Trautman to some good ol' Iowa short track action in style. My current plan is to follow MVG to Independence on Tuesday for that rescheduled event mentioned earlier and then on Sunday I hope to catch the season opener at the Quincy Raceways. Thanks for taking a look at the Back Stretch and I hope to see you at the track soon!
