Thursday, March 31st, the King of America Modified Nationals kicked off at the Humboldt Speedway in Humboldt Kansas. A three day program, the K of A event has an unusual format, at least in part because of the huge car counts that turn out for this event. With the numbers of Modifieds, which are the featured division for this event, turning out numbers that make it prohibitive to run full programs each night, USMTS officials have come up with an innovative qualifying format that the drivers seem to like.
On both Thursday and Friday night, drivers draw for starting positions in four qualifying races, two of which are held on each night. The drivers start in different positions in each event and race against different competitors. Points are recorded for their finishes in all four events and the drivers are allowed to throw out their worst race, thus making it their best three of four. The top twelve in points after two nights of qualifying automatically make the main event while the rest of the field is lined up for last chance races, based on how many points they have earned.
All the qualifying events are very intense as you might imagine with each race truly being a mini feature event. One spin or bad break can end a weekend early, and if a driver has one bad race, the pressure is really on as they then have nothing to fall back on. For example, Ryan Gustin scratched out of his first heat race for reasons unknown. He raced the second heat and finished a strong second. However, he still faces two more heats on Friday and if he has one bad race, he is sure to be then be buried deep in a B feature on Saturday. A couple of drivers scratched on second round qualifying after having troubles in the first heat so they are in deep trouble indeed, having had two or non finishes which surely would put them at the back of a Saturday B.
There is always drama in these heats too. Brad Dierks won the opening heat of the night, only to soon be disqualified due to having the wrong "chip" in his motor. He started well back in the pack for his second heat and didn't finish well, so he is already in deep trouble.
Dave Elson from Missouri made only a few laps with what appeared to be a brand new car when he hit the back stretch wall and did a violent flip, ending up on his roof. A significant amount of time was required to extract him from his car and he went to the hospital for evaluation while his car likely went to the scrap yard.
Later, William Heath rode up the wall on the front chute on the green for a heat and took Rodney Sanders with him. Sanders nearly got out of the ball park while Heath went for a flip. Sanders was able to restart and finished fourth in his heat but he might have been able to do better if his right front was pointed in the proper direction. Heath tore his car apart in the flip and his blood pressure was skyrocketing when he climbed from his car.
The only down side to this format is that after night one, while for might have some notion where the drivers stand, until they race again on Friday you really have no idea who's feature race bound and who is heading for B mains.
The B Mods ran a complete program on Thursday, as they will for each night of the three day show. They had a strong field of cars that required five heats, two B's and then of course, the main event. Their feature was a dandy and one that I would have wished could have been a little longer than its twenty lap distance as it was a very entertaining event and slowed by only one yellow flag. Shawn Strong led most of the race but he was challenged on every corner by Kris Jackson and Yancy Shepherd with Shepherd's team mate Mike Tanner joining the front pack late.
The finish had a bit of controversy as the flagman showed the white flag to the field, then pulled it back again and then waved it again on the next circuit. Jackson, who was racing for the win, appeared to back off when he saw what he thought to be the checkered when in fact it turned out to be the white, and by the time he got going again, he had dropped from second to fourth, with both Shepherd and Tanner passing him.
Pity poor John Feirn. He towed all the way from Chippewa Falls Wisconsin to race but found that he couldn't make it through the tech line before even getting on the race track. The perplexed Feirn loaded up and headed home, a nice nine hour pull, without ever turning a lap on the track.
I've seen some strange things in the upper berth of race car stacker trailers before but Thursday brought a first for me. On the upper berth of Randy Sandvick's trailer was a full size airplane, minus the right side wing! it seems that Sandvick, a flying aficionado, had been doing some flying in the area, but was going to drive his hauler back to North Dakota, so they merely took off the right side wing, tucked it away and loaded up the rest of the plane in the trailer.
There were forty two B Mods and one hundred and six Modifieds that signed in for opening night race action. When I asked USMTS head Todd Staley what accounted for the big increase in the Modified car count over last year's event, when only eighty two Modifieds were on hand, he just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Even the experts have a tough time explaining some things.
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