Saturday, November 12th was night two of the annual "Flip Flop 50" (love that name by the way), at the Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis Arkansas. It was feature night for the weekend with twin twenty five lap events scheduled for the 360 Sprint Cars along with main events for the Street Stocks and Crate Late Models. The Modifieds and 600 Sprints would run another full program, just as they had on Friday night.
A couple new Streets and Late Models showed up for night number two and were allowed to tail the fields for their main events while several new Modifieds were also on hand for their second full show. Several drivers also opted not to return after damage incurred during Friday night's show.
Roo Schlafer, who was struck by a driveshaft in the leg after his Street Stock lost its drive shaft also did not return. He was limping badly after the accident on Friday night and did seek attention from the ambulance. While no mention was made of his condition, his Street Stock remained on the trailer Saturday night and a replacement driver took his seat in the Crate Late Model he was driving on Friday and tailed the field on Saturday for that main event.
A pre race announcement by USCS series announcer Wesley Overland has me making a correction on a statement I made in my last blog. Overland corrected Ray Bugg's age to seventy nine and announced that instead of retiring, Ray would indeed return for the 2017 racing season and that he may retire after he turns eighty!
One thing I noticed at RIS is that there are a large number of drivers racing in multiple divisions. While there is quite a bit of that also taking place in my home area, in many parts of the country I find that this doesn't take place much at all but there are considerable numbers of drivers at "The Ditch" racing in two classes.
One easily noticed change from Friday night was that the crowd was much bigger than Friday night's preliminary events crowd was. The large main grandstand on the front chute was nearly full and the back side grandstand, largely used by pit personnel, was pretty full also. However, it was a very late arriving and also early leaving crowd too. Many who arrived so late as to miss the preliminary events commented they weren't aware the races were starting ninety minutes earlier on Saturday. Also, the Sprint features were among the earlier features run on Saturday and the crowd, on a cool November night, was clearly a Sprint Car crowd as when they completed their part of the program, well over half of the crowd headed to the gates and the warmth of their vehicles.
As far as most of the crowd was concerned, they were on hand to see the Sprint Cars run their twin twenty five lap mains and then "get out of Dodge." And the Sprints cooperated by running off the two smoothest mains of the night while the other three classes had a terrible time getting any laps strung together in their main events.
The first twenty five lapper was lined up by the finish of the dash on Friday night with several others right behind based on their passing points. A B Feature on Saturday qualified another eight cars plus one provisional set the twenty four car field.
Derek Hagar led all the way for the win in the first twenty fiver. He got into lapped traffic quickly, and with only two minor yellows the event went quickly. Near the end he was really blocked up in traffic and Spencer Bayston caught him. Hagar threw a wild slider at Morgan Turpen on the last corner, climbing up on the back of her car. However, he was able to keep his car going and crossed the line to nip Bayston by a car length in a thriller that had the crowd on their feet.
With bonus money on the line and looking to be the first to ever win both ends of this event, Hagar would start twenty first in the second twenty five lapper. However, he had trouble getting through traffic and was never a threat to win the second twenty five. While I still have not seen the official results as of the producing of this blog, I don't think Hagar made the top five at the finish.
Danny Sams III started on the front row and led the first twenty two laps of the second feature. He had built up a big lead and with the lower placing cars in the first feature starting up front, there was no traffic to fight. Sammy Swindell was the driver on the move, starting nineteenth and dive bombing through the field in an impressive drive. He moved into second and caught the leader as the laps ran down.
Sams appeared to be in trouble but he then seemed to smooth out his game and Swindell found that he couldn't get past as the laps grew few. With only three laps to go, Swindell threw an ill conceived "slider" at Sams III in turn one. Sammy didn't near clear the leader and Sams III didn't back off and just let Swindell by. The result was a collision that saw Swindell spin but Sams III got by far the worst end of the deal as he was punted into the guard rail and flipped end over end.
It was not a shinning moment for the Hall of Famer as he drop kicked the fourteen year old teenager right into the rail after he had been running a fine race and truly deserved the win. Perhaps if he were a little bit older and a little bit bigger, he would have laid a "tattoo" on Swindell's nose, as "Slammin" Sammy deserved it, but on this night he just walked away and perhaps chocked it up to experience.
Another young driver, Jordan Mallett, then inherited the lead and he held off Ernie Ainsworth for his first ever USCS feature win.
Going into the first feature, there was only a one point difference in the season long points between Terry Gray and Turpen. But unbelievably, after that race was started, not another word was mentioned all night about how the points were shaking out, something that was among the largest hyped parts of the event before the weekend.
Both drivers were among the early drop outs of the second main and there should have been high drama to let us know just how the points were falling, but not a single word was said about the points situation, right up to the conclusion of the evening. How this could happen, I do not know but I would consider this to be a major failing on someone's part. Frankly, it just boggles my mind how such an important part of the weekend could be totally overlooked.
While the two Sprint Car mains were well driven events, the four other feature races were caution plagued, patience testing races. The Street feature had eight yellows, the Late Model nine and the Modifieds six and while I didn't keep track of the 600 Sprints, I would venture to guess that their race had the most of any class! Quite frankly, they were all brutal and by the end, when the Modifieds managed to put on some good racing when they could string a few laps together, only a handful of hard core fans were left on hand to watch. Oh, and let's not forget the Modified B which had nine yellows until they finally stuck a fork in that race early.
The Street feature went to pole sitter Justin Glover who took over the lead after long time leader Jon Stinson had mechanical issues with his car. Dayne Davis and Shane Waters trailed.
The Crate Late Model feature saw outside pole sitter Carl Thomas Jr. lead all the way for the win. Brandon Poppenheimer was a close second over track point champion Bubba Wilburn(you knew that there had to be at least one Bubba racing ,right?).
The Modified feature had the potential to be a really good race as the Modified field, for the second straight night, was loaded with strong running cars. However, it too was yellow flag laden with the Tank Lining of Paris team mates of Lucas Lee and Clayton Miller finishing first and second ahead of Hunter Wilbanks.
Overall, the experience of visiting a Mid South tradition in the Riverside International Speedway was interesting, and somewhat surprising. The facility was overall nicer than the descriptions I had received about the track. The surface disappointed me though. I was looking forward to a weekend of mud slinging on the famous "gumbo" that Riverside brags about but instead saw two nights of "ice racing" on a surface that was so incredibly slippery it reminded me more of linoleum than dirt. The way many of the regulars struggled all weekend keeping their cars pointed the right direction has led me to believe that what I saw this weekend was an aberration and not at all like the track is on a weekly basis.
They did a much better job on Saturday of getting the show started on time and didn't really take any time consuming breaks but it was still 12:30 am before the final checkered waved on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I'd be willing to give the track another shot in the future but would expect some things to be improved for sure.
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