The Julien Dubuque Classic was held on Wednesday night, July 27th as a part of the sixty third Dubuque County Fair. For the second straight night, the cars took to the track in front of a big fair night crowd and for the second straight night, they produced some excellent racing for the fans. In fact, I believe the Wednesday night show was even better than Tuesday night's and that was no slouch by any means.
Keith Simmons and whoever is helping him out with track prep did an excellent job getting the track in racing shape. Many times, trying to race two nights in a row is a tough chore to get the track in the proper kind of shape for good racing. Well, that was not a problem on Wednesday as the track rolled in smooth and slick from top to bottom and the race cars were all over the track, passing and running side by side. This was the Dubuque Speedway that I remember from my first times at the track many years ago! Simmons did catch a break during the afternoon as it clouded up and that canopy certainly helped him keep moisture in the track on what was a hot and stuffy day otherwise.
A word on last night's program that was not mentioned and came as a surprise to the drivers but one that is worth letting the public know about. The Hawkeye Dirt Tour has an entry fee for all of its races that drivers must pay when they sign in. However, last night the Dubuque County Fair Association picked up the entry fee so that the drivers didn't have to pay to enter their cars. Driver after driver came up to the IMCA table with checkbook in hand, only to find out, to their surprise and pleasure, that there was no cost to enter this event. And on top of that, the purse was also higher than the average HDT event too. This is something that goes above and beyond by the Fair Board and something that the race fans should know about and perhaps, if you live in Dubuque County, you might want to thank your Fair Board member for supporting auto racing. Lots of Fair Boards don't anymore, you know.
The schedule for Wednesday night's show would include the four classes of cars that race at Dubuque on the regular Sunday night shows plus the Sport Compacts that race at Simmons other tracks but not Dubuque were also added to the program. Extra money was on the line for all classes as the Fair Board also sets the purse for this event and just winning a Fair race is also an extra incentive for most drivers.
Caleb Bentley drives the MadMan chassis number #10 car in the IMCA Modified class. This is a car that he purchased from Wisconsin's Mike Machl during the season. For Wednesday night's show, he would move the seat back and have Troy Cordes drive the car for him and try to help him get the car running better. Cordes is good friends with Mashl and helped arrange the purchase. Later, against a strong field of Modifieds, Cordes would have a pretty decent run in the unfamiliar car, giving the entire team some optimism for the future.
Over one hundred cars signed in to race for the five class special with solid fields in all classes except the Stock Cars which for some reason just can't draw a respectable field of cars to Dubuque. Although they had one of their higher car counts of the years to date, it still was a small number compared to what should be on hand to make an interesting race, although the Stock Car feature was not without drama, as were most of the feature races on what was a top notch night of racing.
The Sport Mods and Mods both had very dramatic finishes and the other three classes weren't far behind on a night that saw some excellent battles for the lead in just about every class.
Droste led every lap of the Late Model feature but that doesn't mean that things didn't get close and interesting at the finish. On a night when the top side seemed just a little more dominant for most drivers, Droste had great success running right on the hub, just as he did when he won the last Late Model special here at Dubuque. He seems like he's just crawling through the corners but by running as low a line as he does, he makes the track a lot shorter.
Much of the early watching in the Late Model feature was watching Justin Kay move up from his tenth starting spot. After a few laps, he found a line up by the wall and he got very fast. He had worked his way up to third and was gaining on the top two cars at a high rate of speed when he got crowded into the front stretch wall. He smashed his spoiler and tore up the deck, which brought out the yellow flag for debris. But after that happened, in the final twelve laps he just didn't seem to have the same speed.
However, Tyler Breuning, who was just about to be passed by Kay, suddenly picked up the pace after the yellow and he was bearing down on Droste for the lead. It's funny how a yellow flag can change things up and a car can change its performance markedly.
Droste was just about to be passed for the lead and whether he realized it himself or he got a signal, he changed lanes on the track and moved to the cushion just in the nick of time as one lap later and he'd be racing as the per surer not the leader. Even though you could tell he just wasn't as comfortable pounding the cushion and riding the wall, he made it work and held off Breuning and Kay for the win. Droste must be extremely happy that Simmons rescheduled the rained out Deery race for August 16th as it gives him the chance to harvest another big check.
The Modified feature was a dandy, the best race of the night and one that people will be talking about all week, unless of course, they can top it on Sunday night. Austin Moyer led every lap but again, that is very misleading as he was being challenged through the whole race and last night's winner, Justin Kay, proved to be his stiffest challenge.
Kay raced behind Moyer with an occasional test of the low side before he dropped back in line. However, as lapped traffic began to appear, things got really dicey for Moyer as he had his hands full with both Kay and also the heavy traffic.
On the last lap, Kay was able to squeeze under a lapped car off turn two and take over the lead and it appeared he had the race won. However, Moyer came back strong down the back chute, did a cross over maneuver out of turn four and they raced to the finish line side by side. Moyer's Chrysler powered car generated just enough power that he edged Kay at the line as the normally stoic Dubuque crowd was on their feet cheering. It was a dandy finish to a race that saw only one yellow flag and only one starter in the twenty four car field failed to finish. Many of the drivers who ran the HDT on Tuesday stuck around to make the field even stronger than normal.
The Sport Mods had a tough time keeping their race going with five yellows in fifteen laps making the race quite tedious as nearly half the field failed to finish. However, a great finish made up for that with what was most a most surprising conclusion. After some initial crashing and spinning in the early going, Troy Bauer found his way into the lead and it seemed that he was going to pull off the double, having won on Tuesday night. Several more yellows kept the field bunched but each time he would open up a comfortable lead. Much of the fun was watching Tyler Soppe work his way to the front after he started fifteenth on the grid when he had a rare gaffe in his heat race that caused in to miss the redraw.
Soppe had worked his way up to second but Bauer still seemed have things in control until one more yellow set up a two lap sprint to the finish. Suddenly, out of no where, Timmy Current shot to the cushion and quickly closed on the leader. Current had worked his way up from ninth using the outside and the short burst for the finish suited him just fine. He pounded the cushion while Bauer protected the bottom and on the last corner, Current went flying by for the lead and produced a stunning finish that few could have predicted.
Jerry Miles wins most of the Stock Car features and when he started on the pole, it seemed that he would win once again. However, while he was cruising around in the lead, his car suddenly just killed in turn two, a victim of some malady that saw him lose power. He was able to restart the car but he had to go to the tail and Badger Tim Schneider took advantage of this rare opportunity to take over the lead and go on for the win.
While the Sport Compacts don't race at Dubuque any more, the adding of them for this one show produced a spectacular turnout as two dozen of them showed up to race. Where they all came from, I can't say but I believe that Maquoketa and the Quad Cities were regions that had quite a few entrants.
Their feature race saw several yellows for lost wheels and other calamities but overall they didn't do a bad job of racing. Winner Brandon Bechen started eleventh and after the traffic thinned out some, he was able to go to the cushion and fly around cars as he worked his way to the front. He made the winning pass on Jake Benischek with just over a lap to go.
The Sport Compacts, no doubt after their good showing of cars Wednesday, were quickly added to this coming Sunday night's program also. Given that this class used to race here weekly, do you sense that with the big turnout that they are whispering in Keith's ear about getting back on the schedule weekly?
I have one interesting tidbit as passed on to me by an SPI employee pertaining to the upcoming schedule for the SPI tracks. While there should be a press announcement coming out soon, the three SPI tracks will be making a rather interesting step in an effort to increase their Late Model fields at their three tracks.
Feeling that some of their fields for Late Model shows haven't been as big as they would like to see, they intend to do something to make their shows more attractive to more Late Models that are apparently sitting at home on race nights.
Starting next month, each SPI track will drop one of their support classes for the night and instead, run double Late Model features on that night. In essence, in exchange for losing one of the support classes, the Late Models will have the opportunity to run double features at double the pay. Only the first feature will be for national points and there will be some sort of invert formula for the second feature each night, but essentially the Late Models will be given the chance to race for double their normal pay. The hope is that they can draw an extra half dozen cars from their other tracks that haven't been traveling and build up the fields at each of the three tracks. Dropping one class for this experiment frees them up with a little extra money to make the double payoff and also helps with time constraints added by the extra Late Model feature. It will be interesting to see how the drivers and fans respond to this rather unique idea but the feeling is that they need to take some action to help the Late Model programs and I applaud them for at least trying something rather than just sitting on their hand like far too many tracks running the Late Models and having the same issues do.
This is the first time that I have done the Dubuque County Fair doubleheader and I am certainly glad I decided to do so. I saw two good nights of racing at one of the tracks that I most like in Iowa and there's nothing that beats a good County Fair.
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