Fans from the old TV series, "Hogan's Heroes" will remember that famous line. Kindhearted Sgt. Schultz would often utter those lines to Pvt. Carter, one of Hogan's men.
In the context of the Southern Iowa Speedway, the answer to that question is, "winning another feature race." Although they barely missed a clean sweep when Zack VanderBeek edged out Cayden in the Modified feature, Cayden still won yet another Stock Car feature race while Brayton won the Sport Mod feature in racing action Wednesday night at the Southern Iowa Raceway as the Carter name was the headline attraction.
Let's be perfectly honest here. Osky was not my first choice for Wednesday night racing. I came to Iowa this week hunting for some Late Model racing but the weather took care of that quickly on Wednesday as the Summer Nationals event scheduled for Wednesday at Farley was drowned out early in the day. Fortunately, there were some alternative options and after studying the weather and determining what I would prefer to see, it was off to the Mahaska County Fairgrounds for another taste of IMCA racing on the big half mile at Osky.
The program was a weekly, five division program but extra money was added to the purse in various positions and in various classes. Any Modified that would finish on the lead lap would be guaranteed $150. The top three in the Stock Car feature and the top two in the Hobby Stock feature would receive the same winning payoff and there was also a bounty issued on Carter in the Stock Cars with an extra $100 to the winner if he/she could beat Carter and Cayden would finish the race. If Carter wins four weeks in a row, he would receive the $100 for each week or a total of an extra $400. The event was called the Dave Lowry Memorial but if there was any explanation of who Dave was or the significance of the night, I missed it.
Drivers were inspecting the track before the show as the inside tires had been moved out about a car length all the way around the track. Apparently the Fair Board had done some measuring and they wanted the track to be an exact half mile oval, thus the moving of the tires. No one on hand could explain the significance of such a thing, but that's what the Fair Board wanted so promoter Mike VanGenderen just sat back, bit his tongue and let them do their thing.
It was a steamy, steamy night in southern Iowa Wednesday and my first real dose of Summer weather. However, I didn't seem to be the only one suffering as there were quite a few people commenting on the humid conditions. I believe it did also affect the attendance which was down from what I normally see at Osky.
Osky has been one of a number of tracks that have been suffering from short fields in some of their divisions, thus the innovative cash additions to the purse as a way to spur some different cars to show up on Wednesdays. Again on this Wednesday they weren't exactly overwhelming the vast confines of the Osky pit area as fifty seven cars signed in to race in the five IMCA classes offered.
However, the good news was that the drivers proved that it wasn't necessary to have a teeming pit of race cars to have some good racing. Actually, the Stock Car and Modified features were both excellent events with the Stock Car main especially being one of the best races seen by me in quite some time.
Zack VanderBeek, who was doing double duty driving a car from the Nathan Wood stable, led much of the early going in the Stock Car main. He had plenty of competition from Wood, Mike Hughes, Todd Reitzler and Damon Murty. Carter started ninth on the grid and it took him some time to work his way through traffic, as the race remained under the green from start to finish.
However, eventually Carter worked his way toward the front and the battle was on. Unlike most of the drivers, Carter was willing to go both high and low to pass cars as he showed great confidence in the ability of his race car to run all over the track. After some furious battling, he finally got to the front by getting past Murty and he drove on to his eighth straight win here, as he has been the only Stock Car to win at this track this season! That is quite a remarkable achievement.
Brother Brayton was just about as impressive in the Sport Mods and he actually got to the front even faster than his brother. Brayton also started ninth in the Sport Mod main but he found an opening early in the race and shot to the front like he was fired out of a cannon. Once in front, he pulled away in a race that was only stopped once, on the second lap, and after that ran green to checkered.
Cayden had a little more trouble getting to the front in the Modified feature but except for a strong running VanderBeek, he might have won that race too. Zack had his IROC chassis working well and despite several challenges from Carter and Colt Mather, he was strong enough to fight them off for the win. While VanderBeek's two race cars for the night arrived on open trailers, Zack also had his big doublestacker on hand as he was ready to roll out for a race in Minnesota on Thursday as soon as the show was over on Wednesday.
Dustin Griffiths and Cody VanDusen dominated the Hobby Stock and Sport Compact features respectively. The two races had a total of one yellow between them with the winners getting to the front early and driving away from the field.
The vintage Sprint Cars made an appearance on Wednesday also. There was a #88 yellow car that raced that was a dead ringer for a car I used to see race every week at home. The driver was Bob Hop from the Twin Cities and the car had the Justice Brothers sponsorship on it too. I wish I had made the trip over to the back pit before the races to find out just who was driving that car, as he was never identified on the track, even though he won the feature.
As usual, the program was a quickly run show as is the norm at Osky. Even with a break after the heats to hold some kid's rides, the final checkered waved before 10 pm and I walked in the back door at home at 4 am, another race in the books.
VanGenderen has some big special shows coming up, some on nights other than their regular Wednesday night shows. Check the speedway website and facebook page for more information.
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