The normal progression of a race car driver is to move upward from division to division, if of course it is possible to do that financially. Not all can do that and many remain in a so-called "support class" for their entire career because they don't have the finances to start over at a higher level and rides become even more challenging to find, the higher on the "ladder" you go.
Not too often is it seen when a driver, after reaching the highest rung on the ladder, decides to drop back down and race in a "lower class" while still participating in the highest level divisions.
Justin Kay is the exception to the rule. He vaulted straight up to the Late Model class and Iowa fans can tell you how that has worked out. So when he started to show up with a Modified, it caught many by surprise that he would also want to compete in the open wheel class, given that I've been told that driving a Modified is a totally different "animal" than driving a Late Model as the open wheel car drives totally different. However, Kay has quickly picked up the skills needed to be successful with the Modified, and he is currently on a roll, having dominated the Knoxville round of the Hawkeye Dirt Tour last week.
Tuesday night, the 26th of July, the Hawkeye Dirt Tour steamed into the Dubuque County Fairgrounds Speedway for the first time. They were part of a three class show that also featured the Sprint Invaders and the Sport Mods.
It was county fair time in Dubuque and the sixth third edition of the Dubuque County Fair and like all good fairs in the state of Iowa that have a race track as a part of the fairgrounds, dirt track racing would be a large part of the entertainment offered during the fair. Three nights of racing will be featured during the nearly week long run of the Dubuque County Fair with Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday night racing all in action.
Yes, "the Boss", Jeff Broeg was also in attendance at this event as he was co-announcing the Sprint Invaders along with Bill Wright so I will leave it to Jeff to tell you all about how the Sprint Car portion of the program went as he is the man with the knowledge when it comes to that group of drivers. I will just say that John Schulz and Josh Schneiderman had a good time exchanging slide jobs on each other following yellow flag restarts as they raced the high side of the track and Schulz turned out to be the ultimate winner.
The Modified field was one of the best for the Hawkeye Dirt Tour races that I've seen so far this year. At forty drivers, it was one of the biggest car counts for one of their shows and most of the top racers in the series were on hand along with many of the Dubuque regulars. You can always tell when there are some new drivers participating in the series for the first time as they're required to go through tech the first race they run at, and the tech line at the IMCA trailer in the pits was constant before the action began.
Eight of the top ten in Dirt Tour points were on hand Tuesday as the point battle remains quite close and drivers are still jockeying for positions. Five heat races with only the top two in each heat moving on to the main event produced some very intense heat race action. In fact, in a couple of cases it seemed to go even beyond that with some rough driving evidenced that unfortunately, in most cases wasn't punished. Of course, all that does is lead to more ill will that generally is seen manifested on the track later in the evening or perhaps, on another occasion.
One driver fit to be tied early on in the evening was the third place driver in points, Kelly Shryock. To say his evening started off poorly would be an understatement.
If you've been to Dubuque, you know that the one downside to an otherwise outstanding facility is that the pit space is very limited. Drivers have to park where ever they can find a relatively flat space and just the open trailers, of which there are very few any more, are allowed in the middle of the track. The fact that the fair was on just exacerbated the problem for the big haulers, plus rain earlier in the week and last week left some places soft even though they didn't appear so.
What this meant to Shryock was that as he was wandered the East end of the "outfield", trying to find a spot to park his big rig, he got "highsided" with his rig and he was stuck. Valuable time was lost while they searched around for something to help pull them out of their predicament and eventually two tractors were able to extract them and Kelly found another place to pit.
But the "fun" wasn't over yet as just as the final lap of hot laps was being completed, his car let out a tell tale cloud of smoke and it was clear that he had lost a motor. Hmm, I thought crate motors never blew up. In any event, more work was ahead for Shryock and his crew. Now bear in mind that while Shryock is not traveling all over the country any more, he is still a professional race car driver by trade. While most people likely wouldn't be carrying an extra motor around with them and also wouldn't have the set up necessary to complete a motor change in the pits, Shryock and his crew went right ahead and had the motor changed in time for a B feature and while he missed the show by one spot, he received a provisional to start twenty third in the main.
Does anyone else see the irony in Shryock, who at one time wouldn't be caught dead running at an IMCA show, now getting a provisional from them to start a main event? It just goes to show that there are no certainties when it comes to short track racing and what is "gospel" one night might just not be so in the future.
In any event, Shryock then put on one of the drives of the night. With only two yellow flags to show the action and bunch the field, he drove all the way up to fifth at the finish and salvaged his place in the points with races yet to come to give him the chance to even more so up his point total. Shryock was also one of the few to make the middle and lower groove work and of course, if he was going to pass other cars, he needed to do just that as he had to run where they weren't .
Not only was Kay fast, he was also lucky as he drew the pole for the start, just as he drew the front row at Knoxville last week. And let's face it, no matter how fast you are, starting position for any special event is key.
Kay went to the cushion immediately and pulled away from the field. There was an excellent battle for position behind him, but the only time he was challenged was following the two restarts. The always fearless Chris Abelson, the Hawkeye point leader, made a couple of bold slide job attempts to get past Kay, but Justin remained cool and did the "cross over" on both to get back into the lead.
Local drivers did well and upheld the name of the track as Ryan DeShaw, Matt Gansen, Jeremiah Hurst and Mark Schulte all had top ten finishes.
Based on what I've been told and have observed, when it comes to Sport Mod racing there is a real rivalry between Tony Olson, Tyler Soppe and Troy Bauer as they battle over national points and All Iowa points. The three have been very dominant when it comes to eastern Iowa Sport Mod racing and they long for those events when all three are in attendance. Tuesday, Olson, who does not run Dubuque on a regular basis, was on hand and all three went at it with some fearsome racing action.
Of the three, only Olson struggled a bit in his heat, which set his starting position back somewhat for the main event. Soppe came to the front quickly and he established a pretty strong advantage. And then, as we say, he "stepped on it", hitting a marker tire in turn four and spinning all by himself while comfortably in the top spot.
This gave Bauer the lead and he finished in first with a strong challenge from Austin Schrage. Olson settled for fifth and Soppe bulled his way through the field in the last six laps and got all the way back up to sixth. Clearly, some spirited races lie ahead for these three competitors.
It was a good night of racing and a very good crowd, by far the biggest I had seen at Dubuque so far this year, was on hand to watch. It was a great weather night for racing, one of the best of the year. The only down side to the night was that it was uncharacteristically dirty and perhaps the big tires and wings of the Sprint Cars had something to do with that.
Surely there must be some corporation or civic minded business in the Dubuque area willing to partner with the Fairgrounds on a new scoreboard, which is desperately needed. And please, do it before announcer Jerry Mackey has apoplexy over the goofy numbers that mysteriously pop up on the board.
Thanks to Keith Simmons and everyone at SPI for their help and especially to Jamie Blum of the Dubuque County Fair Association for all her assistance. They do have the Julien Dubuque Classic scheduled for Wednesday night with big money on the line for all the regular classes that race at the fairgrounds. Perhaps I should stick around.
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