The Duel in the Desert

For what I believe is the seventh straight year, we attending the annual IMCA sanctioned Duel in the Desert at the Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on November 12-14.

As usual, the event was a Modified fan's nirvana with open wheel cars coming from near and far to attempt to make the show at what is one of the most prestigious Modified events of the year anywhere. By my count, along with some help from the announcing duel of Toby Kruse and Chet Christner, there were drivers on hand from twenty three different states and four Canadian provinces, which is mighty impressive.

The combination of this being the biggest Modified race West of the Missouri plus the allure of Vegas for reasons both racing and non racing make this a very important race to be a part of as along with the normal top notch field of weekly racers representing the best in IMCA, there are always a number of top drivers from other sanctioning bodies and other racing disciplines to make the racing even more interesting.

Two hundred and six Modifieds signed in for opening night action along with sixty five Sport Mods who were added to the full three night program just last year. One more Modified rolled out of the trailer on Friday night to give a total of two hundred and seven Modifieds in total. While this sounds like a huge number of cars( and truthfully it is without a doubt), the 2015 numbers show nearly a thirty per cent drop in Sport Mod entries and nearly thirty less Modifieds than rolled through the gates for last year's edition of this event.

Whether this entrant drop off is just a natural "leveling off" of  the playing field or for some more specific reason I'm just not sure, and while we as fans always long for bigger and better, quite frankly, two hundred and seventy two race cars running full programs each night is more than enough cars for any track!

While I hate to belabor the point, track conditions for this event are always a point of contention among the drivers. For as long as I've been attending this race, the track conditions have always been "challenging" to say the least. The drivers have learned to understand and accept that when they come to this event, they can expect that the track conditions may not be the best. Quite frankly, the middle of the desert is probably not the ideal place to build a dirt track and finding appropriate material to cover the track is hard to come by. I was told that, surprisingly, a high amount of the dirt covering this track is actually gypsum which is readily available in this area of the desert.

It certainly doesn't help that this track is only used twice a year; for this event and then in March for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car shows. Many tracks that suffer from yearly Spring time issues of bumpy conditions only improve as the surfaces get beat down from repeated races on it, something that just does not happen here.

It was reported that officials at LVMS brought in the track prep crew that does the track at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I would assume that would be the same group of folks that do the track prep at Lernerville Speedway in Pennsylvania but whether the acclaimed "Wizard of Dirt", Gary Risch, was on hand at Vegas, I do not know. They put in some long hours over the three days as they tried to bring around a track that I was told had not been touched since March until this week.

Track conditions for the opening night of racing were to be kind, horrid. The track was as bad as it has even been for the seven times I have seen this event and even many drivers, who had grown accustomed to what to expect here, were very vocal in their complaints by Friday in response to what had been the conditions on Thursday. One very prominent driver told me on Friday that no matter how much they complained, as long as two hundred or more drivers show up to race, there isn't a huge incentive for track officials to make wholesale changes, especially when it could be very costly compared to the few times the track is used.

To be fair, the track prep crew and track officials went into high gear after Thursday's show to try and make things better for Friday. And they were very successful, providing a track that while it still had some bumps, was much wider for racing and allowed much more side by side racing. The hope was that things would be even better on Saturday, but unfortunately, things regressed just a bit as the track didn't "clean off" very well on Saturday, so it was more one groove with the cursed bomb crater entering turn one taking more than its share of race car suspensions to task. However, I did get the feeling that LVMS officials truly put in their best efforts to improve the race conditions and I am hopeful that 2016 will provide a turn around for the drivers.

An incredible forty five races were run on Thursday night between the two classes. The "one and done" rule was used for all races except the main events and this tool was a "God Send." This rule kept so many races under the green that otherwise would have seen yellow flags wave. In fact, of this huge amount of races, only the Sport Mod feature saw more than two yellow flags in any race all night.

On Thursday night, Tyler Frye totally dominated the Sport Mod feature as the soon to be crowned national champion easily controlled the field. Jesse Sobbing led all the way in the non stop Modified feature while Missouri's Scott Drake, driving as a hired gun for a West Coast team, won the second feature over USMTS star Rodney Sanders who was driving a second car for Wisconsin's Mike Wedelstadt.

Friday night saw the much different track allow more racing grooves to open up and many of the drivers were up against the outside wall instead of hugging the inside line as they had on Thursday while trying to dodge the big craters.

As opposed to Thursday when once the first green flag was thrown the track remained untouched, several breaks were taken on Friday to help massage the track. Changes were also made to cut down on the number of races and the start time was moved back an hour in an effort to avoid the direct rays of the sun.

Iowa youngster Chase Rudolph ran a high line to dominate the non stop Sport Mod feature race.
In the Modifieds, Jordan Grabouski came from the third row to win one of the twenty five lappers while another USMTS star, Lucas Schott, won the other feature driving a second car out of the stable of Cody Scholpp from Canada. Schott last drove this car on the Dakota Modified Tour this Summer.

Saturday night the dukes came off as the only preliminary racing was Last Chance Qualifiers and the racing was even more intense that ever the first two nights. In the Modifieds, only the winners moved on and with plenty of top notch drivers still on the outside looking in, no one gave an inch.

Finally the fields were set for the two main events. Again, Tyler Frye dominated the action in the Sport Mods. Only the two yellow flags in the main brought the field back to him, but each time he would again pull away from the field. Frye announced that he will be moving up to the Modifieds in 2016, something that the other sixty four drivers on hand would agree as the best move he might make.

The Modified feature race saw several startling developments take place over the course of the forty lap main, with many of the suspected race favorites on the sidelines by the time the checkered flag flew. Schott's strategy, after he redrew the front row, was to hang on the bottom of the track and if someone was fast enough to get around them, so be it. As it turned out, there were two drivers that fit that mold but neither finished the race. Jordan Grabouski showed his strength as he was able to jump to the second lane and get past Schott and appeared ready to run off and hide.

Unfortunately, he was a victim of the turn one crater and the resulting suspension damage took him out of the race. The other strongest challenger was Sanders, and he attempted to roll past Schott on the outside. However, he also fell through the same crater and broke his front suspension and he was black flagged while running second, which eliminated him. So Schott continued to hug the low line and be as clean on his line as possible and he pulled away at the end for the win. This continues the surprising parade of outsiders that seem to end up in victory lane at this race as Terry Phillips and Jeremy Payne, both non regulars with IMCA, have dominated this race before Schott.

Phillips was eliminated from the contest while in a challenging position as he and Sobbing got together on the back chute and then Sobbing "dumped" Phillips which eliminated both cars. As Phillips tried to scramble away from the wreck, he stopped right in front of Bobby Hogge who slammed into Terry and wrecked his car also. Later, when Grabouski lost control after his suspension issue, he shot straight up the track and pounded Hunter Marriott into the wall which eliminated him.
Sanders appeared to be the victim of a questionable call, as even though he had a broken suspension he seemed to have his car under control and was running second, with the cars behind him not able to catch him, much less pass. Earlier, in the Last Chance races, at least two other drivers in contending positions were allowed to continue racing with the same issues that Sanders had.

The crowds didn't seem as big as they were for last year's race. Perhaps the cold evening temperatures kept some people away. To be honest, this race is not one that is particularly fan friendly. The show starts early and finishes late. Unless you are a big fan of Modified racing, for many of the casual fans it is probably a case of "race overload." I would guess that the vast majority of the fans on hand were either directly attached to the competitors on hand or fans that would describe themselves as big Modified fans. The casual race fan might show up on Saturday night, but likely not before. It seemed like a breath of fresh air to be done with the whole program well before 10 p.m. on Saturday, after both Thursday and Friday night shows pressed or exceeded the Midnight hour. If there would be one thing that would make this weekend more attractive, it would be some way to shorten up the proceedings each night. If that meant running only longer distance heats and features and eliminating the B features and giving each driver only one chance to qualify each night, I'd be all for it. And if that meant fifty drivers stayed home next year because they only got one chance to qualify each night, I'd be OK with that also. However, I get the feeling that this event is done more for the drivers than for the spectators and as such, likely the format won't change soon. But, as a hard core fan, you can bet that if possible, I'll be on hand again next year.

An interesting part of this year's race was the theme for the race cars which saw them in some way representing their home states in their car wraps. There were some very clever designs on display. However, unlike some years, the winners weren't announced on Saturday in front of the crowd and in fact, not a mention was made who the winners were. I may have missed it, but I'm still searching to find out who the winners were, days after the event.