In an interesting schedule twist, Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa returned after a three week layoff to host their Season Championship races on Wednesday night, Sept. 23rd.
As I have noticed at tracks closer to my home area, tracks have basically two ways that they wrap up their racing seasons. Some tracks cut off track point one week before the end of the season, crown point champions and then run what they call their “Season Championship” night, with the heat races lined straight up off track points and the starting order for the features determined by the finish of the heats. So in essence, they crown a point champion and a season champion.
Other tracks run their last race as just another race, lining up the cars as they normally would, depending on the sanctioning bodies' way of doing this. Then they tally up the points after the final night and crown “track champions.”
Oskaloosa does it the latter way, and going into the final race night Wednesday, there were two very close point battles to be decided. In the Stock Cars, Cayden Carter and Mike Hughes were locked in a flat out tie while in the Mods, Carter had a five point lead with three other drivers within six points of his total. In the other three classes, things were pretty well wrapped up already going into the final night's race.
I thought that perhaps there might be a few drivers chasing points or perhaps just looking to get in another race given that many Iowa tracks are by now shut down for the season. That wasn't the case however, as it was mostly a night when just the regulars showed up one last time. In fact, the Hobby Stock and Stock Car numbers seemed a bit down from some of the other visits to the track I have made this year. Osky, by the way, is probably the track in Iowa that I have been to most often this summer, probably primarily due to the fact that they race on a weeknight and they also get their season started pretty early compared to many of the Hawkeye State tracks. The Sport Compacts, on the other hand, did have the highest car count of any time I have seen them run at Osky this year though. It also remains a mystery why the Modified car count is always so low at Osky, as I think their pay compares well to other tracks in the area, and the half mile is no bigger than the other half miles that have many more cars in the class. Perhaps someone can explain to me what the issue is.
In talking to promoter Mike VanGenderen before the show, he told me that he had some options and offers to run some other tracks next year, some even on nights that he has been running his two tracks on this year. However, he said that in all likelihood, he would probably stay with what he has been doing in 2015 and that is running Osky and Donnellson. He has a busy five weeks coming up with Fall specials at Osky, Memphis and Donnellson that will take him away from the driver's seat the rest of the year and he doesn't think that he will be doing any more racing this year, although there remains an outside chance he might haul a new car out for a driver while taking along his own car to race at the Duel in the Desert. Mike has already sold one of his cars from this year and has a new Harris chassis for 2016.
As usual, racing started right on the dot of the advertised time, with a decent sized crowd on hand. One must remember that by this time of the year, not only does work get in the way of some drivers and fans but school activities are going full bore and that certainly must keep some people away from the track for the midweek events. However, Mike ran this same kind of schedule last year and he wouldn't put it on the schedule again unless he was confident that it would break out OK for him.
Several of the open motor late models were on hand getting some practice laps in before starting their big event at Knoxville on Thursday night, including both Moyers, Ryan Gustin and Paul Glendenning and they helped turn the track into a black, slick surface with a narrow cushion right up against the guard rail for the main events.
Shaun Slaughter and Brandon Potts scored easy wins in the Sport Compact and Hobby Stock features respectively. The Sport Mod feature was killed by a lap two wreck that took out most of the fast cars and saw Brayton Carter run away with the win, lapping up to the sixth place finisher.
Then it was down to the two features that held the most meaning, the Mods and Stock Cars.
However, there was such a small field of Modifieds and with the point system dropping only one point per position, some quick math would prove that really all Carter had to do was keep him car on the track and perhaps pass a car or two, just to be safe. And he did that, finishing second to a strong running Scott Dickey who ran away with the win.
It then boiled down to the Stock Cars, where the night's real only drama was played out. Zack VanderBeek stayed away from practice at Deer Creek with his modified and instead ran the Stock Car at Osky and he took the early lead. Carter was the only one real able to make the low groove work, and he was able to advance from a fourth row starting spot up to second, where he tried lap after lap to get by VanderBeek but was unable to do so.
Hughes had a tougher time moving forward and he couldn't pass Jerry Pilcher for third, trying the same move as Carter to dive low in the corners but he couldn't beat the Bloomfield veteran back up the track and had to repeatedly tuck in behind him.
It appeared that near the end, Carter realized the situation and he settled in behind VanderBeek, satisfied with second as long as he was receiving no challenges from anyone else. On the last lap, Hughes finally secured third but he was too far behind to make a difference and Carter became a double point champion, with the margin razor thin at one point in the Stock Cars.
It was a smooth night of racing with the final checkered flag waving just after 10 pm, even with out of car driver introductions.
It is possible that I might return for one of Mike V's Fall specials. One can never predict what the weather will bring or what circumstances will take place. However, if I don't, I want to thank Mike and his whole staff for their help and consideration this year. More often than not, I pop up at one of Mike's tracks unannounced and I get a warm welcome and plenty of assistance if needed. It is most appreciated by me.
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