Sunday, November 6, 2016

Sanders Misses the Desert Buffet; D.Q.'d from Feature Win

While the headline of this post seems to make no sense, humor me for just a few minutes as I try to explain the shocking conclusion of a good racing weekend.

Saturday night brought the feature race to the grid for the first annual Chisholm Trail Showdown at C. Ray Hall's 81 Speedway in Park City Kansas. It was the ladder events for the Modifieds and even though the ladder didn't have quite as many rungs as some of USMTS's special events, that doesn't mean that the racing was any less intense. Also racing on Saturday was another full show for the B Mods/Sport Mods including a grand to win main event.

There was one additional entrant in the Modifieds as John Webb from Pauls Valley OK. debuted a brand new MB Customs Mod. He was not on hand for Friday's show as his daughter was cheer leading her last ever high school football game and he was not about to miss that event. He didn't let his tail back starting spot spoil his evening as he later would fight his way into the main event and finish in the top twelve.

I got the opportunity to meet young Modified driver Logan Robertson from West Texas. He is running an MB Custom Mod also and was actually the person that drove up to Wisconsin to pick up Webb's new Modified. Logan is a regular at Webb's Southern Oklahoma Speedway, even though it is a four hour tow for the family based team. He also travels to as many special events as possible too.

We were treated to some special information as both Hall and Todd Staley were interviewed on the track during one of the breaks in the action.

C. Ray admitted to being surprised by the large crowds on hand both nights for this weekend's events. The crowd on Saturday was very impressive and was nearly a sell out and C. Ray admitted he didn't expect this big of crowds for this weekend. C. Ray also admitted that it was largely him that turned this planned three day event into a two day show with a reduced purse as he just wasn't sure how the fans would respond to racing this late in the year. Clearly, he won't slip up like this again next year as he and Staley announced that they will have an April show in 2017 paying ten grand to win and a late season event is also in the works, likely with at least ten grand on the line for that race also. My guess is that there would have been a good twenty more cars this weekend if it would have been a three day show. C. Ray also announced that the World of Outlaws Sprints will be at 81 next year also.

Staley reported that each region for his series next year will pay $20,000 and the Hunt will likely pay $40,000 to the winner. Todd confirmed that the prematurely leaked event at the Cedar Lake Speedway will indeed happen with that June event to pay fifty grand to the winner as the folks at Cedar Lake apparently have the desire to "one up" Bob Timm at Mississippi Thunder Speedway who paid forty grand to win a race this year.

This race previously was the two day weekend event for the UMP Late Models as a part of the "Hell Tour" Summer Nationals. With Cedar Lake apparently not participating in the series next year, I guess only Sam Driggers of UMP knows what this means for the series.

I'm not sure just what was going on but for the second straight night it appeared that the track was over watered, resulting in some "hammer down" conditions and a lengthy packing session involving the race cars necessary. While the low line worked at times for some, it wasn't a consistent groove that could be used and so most of the racing was done in the high groove, leading to some dicey rim riding and lots of instances of slide jobs being used.

After carving down the forty four car field through two preliminary races, the twenty six car field of Modifieds was set to go for fifty laps. After being the high point earner in heat race action on Friday, it was Sanders who started on the pole and he took the immediate lead. Ryan Gustin quickly moved into second after starting sixth and he was essentially a two car race the entire distance. There were three yellows in the race and all were for minor spins and stalls.

The middle part of the race was probably the most entertaining part of the event as Gustin was able to run relatively close during this time and watching the two dive through the heavy lapped traffic was both exciting and entertaining. After a lap twenty nine yellow, Sanders was able to gain a comfortable lead and his main danger was again the lapped cars but he skillfully worked past them. He crossed the line with a comfortable lead over Gustin and Dereck Ramirez.

However, that's when things got crazy. Second through fifth passed through the scales and pulled down to the front chute. Sanders was the last to scale and almost immediately, it appeared that something was wrong. The car was placed on the scale a couple of times, then backed off and then re positioned. Still there were no announcements and a lot of people seemed to be looking at each other. There were way too many people near the scale that added to the confusion.

Soon there was a lot of finger pointing and arm waving and lots of activity by members and car owners of the cars that finished behind Sanders. An announcement was made that Sanders was the winner but that didn't seem to end the confusion and there was lots of heated discussion among the teams represented the front runners. Most of the crowd had exited the facility by this time when suddenly, the announcement was made that Sanders had been disqualified and that Gustin was the winner. I'm guessing that most of the fans in attendance didn't find out until much later that Sanders wasn't the winner.

To Rodney's credit, he seemed, at least at the scale, to take the news well. I saw no yelling, or displays of anger and there was no spraying of gravel as he left the scale. What happened in the confines of the pits is, however, unknown. While the issue was trying to be sorted out before an official announcement was made, the pit announcer interviewed the second through fifth finishers and they were at mid season form with their whining. Runner up Gustin, before he was proclaimed the winner, was complaining about lapped cars not getting out of the way, third place finisher Ramirez was complaining about a one lane track. Only Terry Phillips gave any indication that he enjoyed the race and he is usually "Mr. Grumpy" about most things. Racing in November on a beautiful night and that's the best they can do?

I caught Staley as he was crossing the track and heading up to the tower after the final announcement was made but while much milling around on the track was still taking place. I asked Todd how much Rodney was light and he told me that the track scale measured in increments of five pounds and that the measurement was at 2445 pounds which means that Sanders was somewhere between one and five pounds light. That's why I say that if Rodney had made one more trip through the buffet he might have made weight!

For the second straight night Gustin played with the B Mod field before winning another grand. He started third and took his way getting to the front as he sized up the field. However, when the proper time came, he made his move to pass for the lead and then he proceeded to pull away for an easy win. I did notice that the McCartney team that Gustin was driving for no longer sponsors the Gressell Modified team.

The B Mods did a nice job running their main as they had only one yellow in their twenty five lapper and only three cars didn't finish the event. Gustin's biggest challenge was weaving his way through the heavy lapped traffic with at least ten cars down a lap at the end and only eleven on the lead lap.

For the second straight night the Sport Mods took the B Mods to task with five of the top six finishers being Sport Mods after three of the four heats were also won by the Sport Mods. According to top B Mod finisher veteran  Steve Muilenburg, the big spoiler that the Sport Mods have makes all the difference in the world.

Talk about clever marketing and merchandising. 81 Speedway doesn't have a concession stand in the pits. However, what they do have is two young guys on a cart that carry the same concession items that are available in the main grandstand and they roam the pits all night, and they stay very busy.

I enjoyed the weekend of racing at 81 Speedway. C. Ray made a point of stating that in working on his schedule for 2017, he respects the drivers and fans that come for the weekly show but he is also careful to offer a wide variety of types of racing so that things stay fresh. 81 Speedway has a lot of good things going for it and should be on your list for consideration for a track to visit in 2017 if you haven't been there before.

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