It's been a tough week already. Rain outs on Monday, racing not to be reported on Tuesday and finally, some real racing action on Wednesday. However, once again it was a close call as if it weren't for the stubborn determination of the Maquoketa Speedway to finally get their Deery Brothers race in the books, we might be sitting someplace watching reruns of "I Love Lucy" rather than actually being at the track and watching the mud fly.
Track Manager Scott Schurbon was a busy man on Wednesday, but he did take time to return my phone calls and keep me updated on the situation at Maquoketa. They got a lot of rain in Wednesday morning and I was told later it was in the two inch range. Yet, even so, they were somehow able to get the track in shape for racing action by evening. Granted, it was far from optimal racing conditions but everyone was faced with the same obstacles and all twenty seven Late Models that pulled to Maquoketa chose to race, knowing what the track was like.
Standing water was everywhere, and staying on the track was far better than trying to negotiate the infield or the outer track area. In my area, if we had two inches of rain in the morning, there wouldn't be many tracks able to race by that night, and our surfaces are not near as heavy as the soil here in Iowa, except perhaps for the red clay tracks of the Lake Superior region.
I was skeptical when I first saw the track and I was already envisioning a scenario where everyone got to the track and then they found that they weren't going to be able to get it into shape and would call of the program. It seemed to fit the way my week has been going so far. However, somehow they were able to pull everything together and get the track into some kind of reasonable racing shape. I didn't hear any whining while I was in the pits and can't speak to whether it came later or not, but if not, the drivers deserve a round of applause for sucking it up and dealing with the conditions as they were presented to them also. It's not always that way, for sure.
Whenever he's on hand and I get the rare chance to say hello, I always stop by and chat with Late Model driver Andy Nezworski from Buffalo, who is originally from the U.P. of Michigan and I had the chance to see race when he used to run support classes before moving up to the Late Models when he moved to Iowa.
We chatted about the horrible weather that his home region had been going through with torrential rains that had caused massive flooding and many road closures, some of the long term variety.
Andy still carries some long term ties to his home region when it comes to his racing operation. Despite the fact that there are many engines builders and chassis dealers in the state of Iowa obviously, Andy still gets his racing motors from Adams Automotive Racing Engines in Cameron Wisconsin and his chassis is a Rocket from the shops of Brady Smith. Later, Andy would make an impressive charge in the Late Model feature, moving from thirteenth to fifth at the finish. he was ninth in the Deery Brothers points and will likely move up a couple of spots after Wednesday.
Some updates at the track since the last time I was at Maquoketa included a nice new scoreboard in the infield and new Musco lighting, although wouldn't you know it, one bank of lights failed to work on Wednesday, giving us a dark spot right on the front chute but nothing serious.
As always, the Deery series gets strong support from its drivers with the top fourteen in points and sixteen of the top twenty on hand for the race. The twenty seven car field was solid and provided three big heat races plus the forty lap finale. I was almost feeling that perhaps the feature should be shortened up, given the conditions, but the drivers did a good job of navigating the track and the four yellows in the main was far short of being unreasonable.
Denny Eckrich started on the pole and after fighting off an early challenge from Dan Shelliam, he was in control for most of the race. Shelliam's bid for the win ended on lap fifteen when he spun in turn one while trying to overtake Eckrich and that ended his chances.
Luke Goedert made a determined bid for the lead too and things got dicey in lapped traffic, but each time Eckrich would maintain the upper hand and hold off Luke. The last twenty one laps of the feature went nonstop but with several of the drivers near the back exiting stage right at this point, the lapped traffic was not near as bad as it could have been.
Perhaps the biggest mover of the night and the most important in the long term for the Deery title, was the charge executed by Jeff Aikey. It wasn't "showy" but it was determined and after starting sixteenth, he chawed his way up to third at the finish after a hard battle with Matt Ryan for that spot.
Coming into the evening, Aikey had only a one point lead in the standings over Tyler Bruening and with Tyler starting in the third row, it appeared he was going to make some hay on Aikey. But it didn't turn out that way and Bruening slipped back to seventh at the finish, which left him losing points to Aikey.
Justin Kay was expected to do well after starting fifth but he faded back out of contention early and settled for eighth at the finish. Chad Holladay was spectacular in his heat, coming from sixth to score an impressive win as he was able to find a lane on the outside of the track that no one else could run. Unfortunately, the Casey's Pizza draw was not nice to him and he started twelfth in the main and after an early side trip off the end of the track, he was a non factor. Darrel DeFrance was off the track before his heat even started with a smoking issue and he was forced to accept a provisional to make the main. But with dogged determination, he came from twenty third to eleventh at the checkered.
The support classes were really weak with only a handful of cars in each of the Sport Mods and Hobby Sock classes. However, there were surprises in each come feature time.
Kyle Vohringer has been cleaning up in the Hobby Stock class at Maquoketa, winning the majority of the feature races and leading the track points. On this night however, he couldn't handle the charge of Nathan Ballard, who drove past him and then held him off for twelve green flag laps in their main.
Tony Olson is leading the national points in the Sport Mods and when he started on the pole, it seemed to be a case of "game over." However, Gage Neal wasn't buying that, and he drove past Olson and pulled away from him at the end to score an impressive win. Both divisions clearly could have used a few more cars but those on hand did a pretty good job of entertaining us.
Thanks to Scott Shurbon and the Fair Board and all the other workers at Maquoketa for making the best of a tough situation and putting on an entertaining program that was done early and allowed those brave fans who showed up the chance to either hit the pits or get home early. Maquoketa has some busy times ahead as they turn right around with a regular program on Saturday and their Fair race is next Thursday, July 28th.
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