Illinois Drivers Take Home the Big Money at The Dome

Night number three of the Gateway Nationals at The Dome at America's Center was the money night and while the Late Models raced for some good change on Friday night's twin feature events, it paled by comparison to what both classes would be racing for in Saturday night's two main events.

Twelve Last Chance races, evenly divided between the two classes would qualify the last cars for the main events and each of these races were like mini features, both in the number of entrants in each race and the quality of the cars that would be knocking heads with only two in each to move on to the mains.

The action started off with the track pretty wet once again, although not as heavy as it was to start things off on Friday night. They were all lined up and ready to race but the first Late Model drivers out nixed the track conditions and several more minutes of hot laps and packing were called for before the "thumbs up" sign from pole sitter Brandon Sheppard signaled that all was ready for a start. This did delay the dropping of the first green flag until about twenty minutes after the posted starting time, the only time all weekend that the first green flag did not drop within a scant few minutes of the advertised time. Overall, the entire show was run under a much tighter leash this year which allowed all three nights to be completed at a much earlier time.

As you might guess, the action in the Last Chance races was wild and woolly with everyone giving it their best shot to make the main. The "chrome horn" became a valuable asset for many of the drivers and the banging and bashing was considerable, even though they warned at the driver's meeting that they were going to be more aggressive against rough driving, although I didn't really see much evidence of that. Interestingly, while all six of the Late Model Last Chance races were won right off the pole, only half the Modified races saw this same thing take place as my observation was that overall the Modifieds raced much better side by side all weekend than the Late Models did for whatever reason.

If there was a perseverance award it should go to Late Model driver Derek Fetter. He took a hard flip on the front chute during Friday night's show yet was back on Saturday after putting in some long hours to get his car race worthy. He started in the back of the first Last Chance and that's where he finished but at least he gave it the "old college try," not wanting to end his season with the distaste of a wreck to fester all Winter.

Some of the best racing of the entire weekend took place in the final Last Chance for the Late Models where Tim Dohm and Mike Spatola carried on a great battle for the last qualifying position in that event. They took turns "dive bombing" each other and swapping lanes on the track throughout much of the event until Dohm prevailed at the end.

There were not a large number of drivers entered in both classes but as qualifying concluded, there were two drivers that made both mains which is quite an accomplishment, given the size and quality of the fields. They were Bobby Pierce(no surprise) and Allen Weisser(at least a mild surprise, particularly in the Late Model).

The only significant break of the entire weekend was then presented between the finish of the Last Chance races and the opening ceremonies. The official opening was scheduled for 8 p.m. and that can probably be moved up by a significant amount next year as they really didn't need as much time as was allocated for the Last Chance races.

The official opening ceremonies produced much "fire and ice" as the pyrotechnics were spectacular, as promised and certainly one of the things that this facility can provide that is unique for this event. The "talking heads" continued to remind us about the extra "buzz" of this race, as if we in the audience couldn't sense this ourselves as there's no question that the "pomp and circumstance" of this race is very cool and one of the things that makes this event different and unique. I wonder if Todd Staley got a kick back from the promoters here as they "stole" his Lee Greenwood song that highlights USMTS events to open up Saturday's show.

The introductions for the Late Model feature drivers are always a highlight of this event and Jason Welshan clearly was the winner as he brought down the house as when he was introduced he held up a sign that said, "Scott Who!" to many hoots from the crowd. Bloomquist tried the "crotch chop" but I'm afraid that it is now old news and he'll have to come up with a new gimmick

There were two significant moments in the Late Model feature race which was run off first. The initial one was when Bobby Pierce drew the outside pole, a perfect spot for him, particularly early in the race when the top side still had some moisture. The other key moment was on lap twenty nine when Brandon Sheppard pulled up lame with a flat tire, triggering a yellow that saved Pierce's hide as he was stuck on the outside and just about to be passed.

Pierce had taken the initial lead and was running the cushion. Billy Moyer looked good early until he spun and it was Tyler Carpenter and Tanner English that were applying the most pressure to Pierce. Pierce caught the lapped car of Gordy Gundaker and that's when things started to get interesting. On a short track like this, much of the action is generated when the leaders have to fight their way through lapped cars, and for perhaps the first time in three nights, a long green flag period between laps twelve and twenty nine allowed this to take place.

Gundaker would not get off the bottom and Pierce was running up his behind on every lap with English nearly sneaking by him on several occasions. Finally Pierce made the decision that he needed to get around Gundaker since Gordy was just not going to move over, no matter how much he was warned by the flagman and bumped in the rear end.

However, once Pierce got up on the high side, he discovered how much it had slowed down and he knew he was in trouble as English again challenged him. In fact, Tanner briefly took the lead one lap before Sheppard showed  but Pierce was fortunate to have edged back into the lead barely when the yellow flew.

With lapped traffic now not a problem, Pierce hugged the low groove on the green and pulled away. Shannon Babb was trying to put on a show as he hammered the cushion and worked his way into the top five but he punted English on the restart and sent him to the back. Babb then found the cushion to just be too choppy and after tearing off the right side of his car, he dropped back to the inside and salvaged seventh at the finish.

Carpenter had a great run for second and Darrell Lanigan drove a steady race to come from fourteenth to finish third, although I think he had nothing for the top two cars.

English pulled a real "boo boo" when he came storming out of the pits just as the victory lane celebration was ready to commence and confronted promoter Cody Sommer, who was trying to enjoy the "fruits of his labors" with the winners.  English and his drew were rewarded by getting an "escort" back to the pit area. Sure he got "dumped" by Babb, but quite frankly, that same kind of thing had been going on unpunished all weekend and he was mistaken if he thought he was going to get a call against a local hero at that point of the race.

For Pierce and his many fans, it was a great way to wrap up his season before he makes the big move to his new racing home for 2018. And who knows, as unpredictable as this racing game is, I wouldn't be surprised to see somewhere down the line Bobby back in the family ride, if only for some special local races.

The Modified feature saw a good battle between Brent Mullins and Ray Bollinger for a number of laps before Bollinger made the bottom work to his advantage. Mullins came from the second row to take the lead running the high side, but it gradually started to go away and Bollinger, who was "married" to the bottom groove and clearly wasn't going to move off of it, gradually pulled up beside Mullins and then eased past him. Mike Harrison and Kenny Wallace challenged as Harrison tried both high and low in an effort to move up.

Wallace was right in the hunt until he spun out and a couple of late yellows kept the field bunched. On both the late race restarts, both Mullins and Harrison tried to drive around Bollinger but there just wasn't anything to be grabbed on the top and this allowed Bollinger, smooth as silk on the inside, to hold on for the win. I think that the difference between this year's show and that of 2016 was that the outside line was never quite as good this year, no matter what they tried to do to "speed it up." Whether this had to do wit the soil itself or the shape of the track, I can't say but the lack of "rim riders" was somewhat disappointing this year.

Tanner Mullins drove a steady race for fourth and Pierce worked his way up to fifth at the finish. For a few brief seconds it looked like it might be possible for him to pull off a double win, as he was pounding the cushion, but it just didn't have enough speed for him to advance any farther forward.

So, overall it was an interesting three days of racing. The overall program was run off much better than last year with things going off much quicker and smoother. We can always "nit pick" about certain things but quite frankly, overall, the colossal nature of this event is quite mind boggling and the amount or work necessary to pull of this endeavor seems almost impossible to imagine. It would be an achievement of the highest order to be carried out at any track in the country but when you consider that they literally build the track in a couple of weeks, run the event and then tear everything back down again within the space of a few days, it's almost "mind blowing."

It was announced that record crowds attended on both Friday and Saturday nights and the good news was that they already announced dates for 2018. Next year the event will be several weeks earlier as Nov. 29,30 and December 1 will be the dates for the race. And for greedy fans like myself that always used to enjoy going to the Knepper Midget show at DuQuoin that is also held this weekend, perhaps next year I'll be able to attend both. And Sommers has also got open wheel people wondering also after the very successful test run of both Midgets and Sprint Cars earlier here this week. Could there be something to that test as in a "teaser" for next year? We shall see.

Hudson O'Neal, Gundaker and Mullins Top Dome Night Two

Friday night, December 15 marked night number two of the VP Racing Fuels Gateway Dirt Nationals at the Dome at America's Center in downtown St. Louis Missouri.

After Thursday qualifying runs set the field for the weekend, Friday night it was time to get serious with Last Chance races for the Modifieds, Heat races and Last Chance races for the Late Models and then, in the evening's finales, double feature races for the Late Models and a Modified feature to wrap up the evening's entertainment. Not only would the feature races pay good money, the top eight in the Modifieds and the top four in each of the Late Model features would "lock in" for the top spots for Saturday night's huge finale and they would redraw for the top starting spots.

There was one more additional driver that showed up for racing on Friday as William Stile of West Newton Pennsylvania, who was pre-entered in the event, finally made it to the Dome. He told me that they were four hundred and fifty miles into their six hundred mile trip when they had transmission trouble with their hauler. After a tow to a transmission shop and an expensive replacement transmission, they made the rest of the trip. He was highly complementary of the staff at the Dome, who allowed him to race even though he was late. They allowed him to tail a Heat race as he had already reconciled himself to the fact that they might just be watching the event. William said it would end up being his most expensive trip ever and that the bills would probably eat into next year's racing budget and perhaps, even the year after that! He did get to race that heat and he did finish it without further troubles so he will have one more crack tomorrow in a Last Chance event.

It wouldn't be a race unless I ran into "Crazy Martin" from Iowa and he was on hand to celebrate his seventieth birthday at the races this weekend. He even had a hat made up that he was wearing to announce the fact to the world.

I also ran into another Iowan in the grandstand and that was promoter and race director Mike Van Genderen. He told me that he would be working at Donnellson and Vinton and as well as running specials in Memphis Missouri. He will not be at Osky in 2018 and since he was the only one that put in a bid for racing there for the coming season that unless something changes in the coming months, there may be no racing at the historic half mile in the coming year. He also said that they might be involved in one more track but that would be a surprise and that's all he would say on that matter. 

As far as his own racing program, he does have a new car and hopes to race at Boone and at other special events over the Summer but doesn't plan to race in Florida this year, feeling that the UMP rules are not favorable for him.

With the Modified Last Chance races being so massive with well over twenty cars scheduled for each one, the decision was made before the program started to go with six Last Chance races instead of the four scheduled and take the top two, not three into the main event. With so many cars on hand and the track only capable of taking about twenty cars comfortably for a main, many drivers are left on the sidelines watching the feature races instead of participating.

With lots of laps to be had on the track, they had it considerably wetter for the start of the show on Friday. And it needed to be to help open up a second lane. With Friday devoted to racing only, and not a ton of one groove time trialing, the cars were racing more side by side and eventually they were able to make it a much wider track with increasing numbers of drivers choosing to run the high side and some with much success.

Eighteen preliminary events set up the fields for the three feature events with the first four heats forming the first feature and the back half of the heats the second main. The Modifieds ran a sole feature but the top eight made the Saturday night show.

Billy Moyer just keeps rolling along and he was the leader for the first laps of the first feature until over taken by Rusty Schlenk in the Rayburn house car. Schlenk appeared on his way to victory until he ticked the outside wall and gave himself a flat, right rear tire with only a few laps left in the twenty lap feature. As Schlenk started to slow, David Brazeale tried to pass him for the lead. Brazeale got by down the back chute but then he got sideways and collected Schlenk and both were done. Hudson O'Neal inherited the lead on the restart and he fought off Moyer to get the win. Jason Welshan and Bobby Pierce, from tenth, also locked themselved in for the show on Saturday.

The second Late Model feature had a bit of an unusual look to it with the first three row filled with solid competitors but not ones you would off the top of your head predict to win an event of this magnitude. Gordy Gundaker took the early lead but Myles Moos, a central Illinois crate Late Model star that is just starting to experiment with open Late Model racing, then took to the high side and blew past Gundaker to take over the lead. It looked for a few laps that a major upset was brewing but slowly and surely, the top side started to give up, or perhaps Moos' tires started to give up. In any event, he started to slow and Gundaker, who never moved off the bottom, retook the lead. The rest of this race was somewhat anti climatic and everyone kind of lined up on the bottom and rode. For Gundaker it was obviously a huge victory at the track that his father is largely responsible for constructing for this event. Behind Gordy, it was Tyler Carpenter, Chad Zobrist and Tanner English that locked in for Saturday.

The Modified feature produced a bit of a surprise as Kansas' Tanner Mullins led from start to finish to take the win. Mullins is driving his own equipment again after being one of the many drivers to have a "cup of coffee" as the driver of the Gressell equipment earlier this Summer. Mullins, who does most of his racing with NCRA and USMTS, didn't seem to have any trouble adapting to the UMP tire and lack of spoiler as for the second straight night, he started in front and stayed there. Despite the half dozen yellows that slowed the action, he never wavered from his pole spot and never felt a severe challenge. Mike Harrison was the show as he worked the high side, which for awhile looked like it was going to allow him to drive by for the win until later when he found himself stuck in that same lane when it wasn't working as well and he was driving the wheels off his car just to maintain his spot. At the end, he dove back to the bottom to salvage third behind Mike McKinney at the finish. Brent Mullins, Levi Kissinger, Tommy Sheppard Jr, Kenny Wallace and Ray Bollinger also locked in for Saturday as everyone except Mullins would be considered top runners in the Illinois and Missouri Modified ranks.

There were two rollovers in the Late Model division on Friday night. Both Austin Hubbard and Derek Fetter took hard tumbles as the fact that for such a small track the drivers do get up a lot of speed and they are sideways so much of the time, it doesn't take much of a tap from a fellow competitor or the wall to send them flying. The only surprise is that there have been no Modifieds dumped yet.

There was one year incident in the Modified feature when a "big one" nearly occurred. Tyler Nicely had just had enough when he got slammed by the odd looking "mud bus" of Tim Hancock and knocked halfway up the track. Hancock had been wearing out other drivers for two nights and Nicely finally decided that his surname was not how he was going to respond to Hancock's actions. Going down the back chute, Nicely "dumped" Hancock for which he immediately drew the black flag. If I had been in Nicely's shoes, I'd have done the same thing!

An odd situation occurred before the start of the second Late Model heat when David Payne pulled on to the track and the crew had neglected to remove a empty fuel jug and filler that was still laying on the deck of the car. After a couple of "burn out" sessions to warm the car, the entire contents were deposited in turn one where Kevin Gundaker had to retrieve them.

Myself and friends around me are having trouble determining just what is the criteria on restart lineups as we have seen cars spin on the first lap and get their spot back, other cars do the same and have to go to the rear, cars be a part of multi car pileups and regain their position and others sent to the back for the same thing. Consistency seems to have been lacking to this point and the number of driver's arms out the window waving seems to confirm that.

A huge crowd was on hand for the second night's action and they have been a lively group indeed. The last race for most people in 2017 has produced a party atmosphere and the special effects that the Dome can generate have only enhanced that. And again, for the second straight night the better managed program was reflected in the fact that even though a lot of racing was done and much time was also used to track maintenance, the final checkered flag waved just around 10 p.m.

Babb Tops Dome Opener

The second annual VP Racing Fuels Gateway Dirt Nationals at The Dome at America's Center kicked off on Thursday night, December 14th with a rousing opening night of racing action.

An even two hundred race cars were positioned in the spacious pit area next to the racing arena with both Modifieds and Late Models set to do battle in opening night action. By my count, there were twenty four states plus a lone entrant from Ontario Canada represented in the pits as the field of cars was surely one of the most eclectic ones gathered all year. Both classes are running under UMP rules this weekend so that means Hoosier tires on both classes and all spoilers are gone in the Modifieds as the rules specify flat rear decks only.

Due to the logistics involved of staging two hundred haulers in downtown St. Louis and then methodically getting them parked, there is no time for a practice session so unlike most major events run in this country, everyone goes into the opening night action "stone cold" with each driver only allowed about a two lap, hot lap session right before qualifying. And with this track so much different than most that drivers will see, some tend to thrive on opening night while other struggle greatly. Area drivers tend to benefit slightly as this track is really not that much different than either Belle Clair Speedway or Highland Speedway just across the Mississippi River in Illinois and the top stars in both classes are good enough that they can adapt to almost any track in just a short time.

Everyone is allowed in the pits at 11 a.m. and then the teams hurriedly unload their race cars and  get their cars ready for action. Many of the local teams switch to open trailers for this show as it just is a bit easier to navigate the smaller trailers inside the confines of the building.

At 3 p.m. the cars hit the track in groups of eight or so for a two lap practice session, after which they immediately go into time trials. New this year, all cars will only receive one set of time trial laps instead of two times through the rotation which literally added hours on to the opening night of racing last year and served no purpose since the track got much slower for the second go round anyway and no one was able to match their first laps because of that. Both classes were broken down into two flights for time trials so each driver was only qualifying against half the field. However, as I've maintained almost forever, time trials is really not much different than drawing a pill number as the first cars out for time trials draw the best track and invariably the quickest time comes from the first few cars. And such was the case again on Thursday as Mike McKinney was the thirteenth Modified out for qualifying and he was quick at 12.207 while Jason Welshan was the sixth Late Model out and his time was 11.477, good for the pole in the first heat.

The second half of the field found a track that was pretty well used up by the time they got on it. Still, Mike Harrison was the fifth out for the second half and Hunter Rasdon was the eighth out for the Late Model second flight. With times of 12.719 and 12.259, the track was substantially slower by the time the second half of the field saw the track.

Time trials would be a critical part of the show Thursday since everything is lined straight up and with only the heat race winners making the show out of the heats, a poor time trial would be a significant impediment to running a feature race either Friday or Saturday night.

After time trials, except for the Race of Champions, the Late Models would be done for the night while the Modifieds would have their eight heat races, straight up with thirteen or fourteen cars per heat and only the winner making the show. With seven of the eight heat races won right off the pole, you can see just how important the qualifying was. In the only race not won from the pole, Chris Arnold benefited from that curious UMP rule when he spun by himself on the first lap of his heat and was allowed to regain his spot on the inside of the second row, rather than go to the tail like every other sanctioning body in the world would require. Then, with point man Gary Bentley getting crossed up on the restart, Arnold would muscle his way past, take over the lead and win the race in what most people would say was a travesty of justice and Arnold would say was good racing luck.

In the first four heat races the majority of the drivers drove with some patience and civility and there were only a small number of yellows. The second half of the Modified heats saw impatience and desperation take over and these races were marked by drivers running over and through each other trying to get to the front. Suspension parts, sheet metal and front bumper sales went up immeasurably at this point as eighteen yellow flags were called for in the last four races of the night, sending many to the pits early and fans heading for the gates.

The Late Model Race of Champions started eleven cars with five grand on the line for the winner of the brief, twenty lap race. Shannon Babb is rapidly taking to this tiny oval, which in truth is not a lot different than his home track at Macon. The surface might not be quite as heavy and the banking not as high, but it does race much like the track that he cut his teeth on.

A curious start where pole sitter Don O'Neal got caught with his pants down as the starter surprised the field with a quick green and O'Neal, while rushing to stay with Billy Moyer on the outside of him, pushed up the track on the green. Babb used the opportunity to drive under Don into the lead and he led all twenty laps.

O'Neal, with nothing to lose, became the first driver that moved off the bottom on purpose all night and he nearly was able to catch up to Babb using the high side. Some parts of the high side gave him traction but there was also one corner that was too loose and what he would gain on one end he lost on the other. Still, it gave the drivers and spectators hope that the track would open up more for Friday night's racing when you know that the drivers will be all over the track if they can find some success by moving off the bottom. With just qualifying and the Modifieds on their narrow tires racing, everyone was on the bottom, even though it did start to get rather bumpy but nothing like it was last year.

Kevin Gundaker is again in charge of track prep and the consensus is that the track is slightly longer and wider than last year although it didn't appear to race any different than it did on the opening night last year, despite the two "talking heads" telling us otherwise. However, last year their was no evidence after the first night of racing that the following two nights would be as spectacular as they were so I don't think we really have any idea at this point how the track will race the rest of the weekend until we actually see it in action.

Speaking of the "talking heads", they would again be drawing Jeff Broeg's ire as they continue to announce to the TV audience to the point of ignoring us that are actually there watching the race! This is my "pet peeve" about live broadcasts too.

Another curious thing is that during the opening night of action the security people make everyone move to the back straightaway to watch the races and they close down the front straightaway entirely. Now, you can see just as good on the back chute, but for those fans that bought tickets for all three nights and wanted to sit right at the start-finish line, some did not take the news well at all. And it does seem strange to have a victory lane ceremony in front of a crowd of zero on the front chute, while everyone is sitting on the back chute! Oh, and they put up a victory lane banner behind the winner that completely blocks the view of the victory lane for those sitting on the back chute, which is everyone!

One great thing is that the management took the mistakes of last year to heart and learned their lessons after last year's opening night debacle where the racing program dragged on to the wee hours of the morning. Starting times were followed this year, time trials were cut back and the entire show was much more trim and "on point" than last year's had been. To wit, the final checkered flag waved Thursday at 9:30 p.m. while last year the racing didn't even get started until two and a half hours later than it finished this year! Now that's what I call a great improvement. Hopefully the rest of the weekend will go just as smooth and I have confidence that it will. Now we will all hope that when the racing gets going Friday night that the track widens out and we get the spectacular kind of side by side racing that last year brought us.

Boggs Takes Finn Watson Memorial

Just about the time you think you have me figured out, That's the time that I pull off one of my illogical trips. I was not able to travel to Vegas this year for the Duel in the Desert but I didn't want what was likely to be one of the last racing weekends of the year to go unfulfilled. So, after some digging, I discovered a race that perked my interest. It included Late Models and Modifieds and the chance to travel to a track I had never been to before.

Long story short, on Saturday, November 11, I made the trip to the Lake Cumberland Speedway in Burnside Kentucky for the Finn Watson Memorial Race for Late Models which was a part of the Schaeffer's Oil Iron Man Championship Series. The Brucebilt Performance Iron Man Modified Series was also racing as well as the KDRA Super Stocks and Stock Four Cylinders.

As it turns out, while this would be my first official race at Lake Cumberland, I had been to the track before although my memories of the visit are rather foggy. Many years ago, after a rain out at Brownstown Indiana Speedway, we made a banzai run to a race in Kentucky, only to get rained out for the second time on that date. Details of the trip are foggy, but I'm sure the track had a different name back them and looked somewhat different and I think we even took a different route last time, but I suspect many of the roads in the Somerset Kentucky area have been changed since that visit so many years ago.

The one thing that stuck out in my mind from that trip many years ago that tripped my memory immediately was when I saw the grandstand at Lake Cumberland. I have never in my life seen a set of grandstands that have as steep a pitch as the ones at Lake Cumberland. Seriously, they are almost straight up and down and a real challenge for anyone to scale. The top row sits in the lower stratosphere and the migrating geese were actually flying lower than I was seated! This might be just a slight exaggeration but as close as you sit to the track, I felt like I was watching a race from a hovering helicopter. It is remarkable and only if you get the chance to experience it can you fully relate to what I'm trying to impart.

The track is a D shaped oval with quite tight corners entering turn one and leaving turn four. The back straightaway is one sweeping corner and a wall surrounds the track with another wall on the inside of the track. There is pit space in the infield but not near enough to hold all the cars so many pit outside of turn one in a rather rolling field and on up the hill that leads toward the Hardgrove residence. The field was rather soft and several of the big rigs got stuck and had to have some help re positioning themselves. The red clay of the race track slicked off quite quickly, producing some dust but a smooth racing surface. Interestingly, the track was watered on this day by a fire truck provided by the Burnside Fire Department, which might have been another first.

Lake Cumberland Speedway has a rather unique back drop perhaps unlike that of any other track in America. Just outside the parking lot sits a monstrously high pile of sawdust. What produces all this sawdust is rather interesting. The Kingsford Charcoal Company has a huge plant in Burnside Kentucky, one of four that they operate in this country. For fifty years, Kingsford has operated this charcoal plant which currently employees one hundred twenty five people and operates twenty four seven and produces immense clouds of steam from stacks into the Kentucky air.  

Lake Cumberland Speedway has had a rather checkered past with the track opening and closing several times with various names to address the track as. Brandon Hardgrove this Spring announced that the track would reopen this year with weekly racing being featured after the track has set vacant for a period of time. Harold Hardgrove was the original owner of the track and ran it on several occasions until his passing recently. In fact, the track is known as "Hardgrove's Hardcore House of Mayhem", a name they seem to relish.

Cars were called to the line right at the advertised time of 5 pm to start hot lapping. Unfortunately, all four classes would be time trialing on this night. So, even though the Modifieds group qualified during hot laps, the Late Models qualified two or three at a time while the Super Stocks and Four Cylinders also qualified two at a time, it was still nearly 6:30 pm before the first race hit the track. It just seems almost impossible to start a race program on time if time trials are involved. And just to please Jeff Broeg, even though he wasn't in attendance, all the races were started straight up off the times. To make matters worse, the pa system wasn't very effective so finding out who were the quick qualifiers were was a guessing game. However, I must say that once this task was completed, the program was run off in an efficient manner with the races hitting the track in quick fashion. The only thing that slowed them down was that they only had one wrecker who seemed to be MIA every time they needed him and he had to be tracked down.

Chris Tilley's Schaeffer Oil Series was the featured division on this night, as Late Models usually are at this track. Five grand was on the line for the forty lap feature winner with thirty four Late Models signing in to race. Most of the drivers were from the Kentucky and Tennessee area but there were also a few cars from Indiana, Dakota Knuckles from Virginia and Illinois' Bob Gardner. Victor Lee was quick qualifier and as a driver that I have enjoyed watching over the years, I was hoping for him to put on a show like he did in qualifying. However, he blew his motor four laps into the first heat and was done for the night. Four heats and two B features set the twenty three car starting field for the Late Model main.

Steve Smith missed his heat race and ended up taking a provisional, a decision he may have regretted later when he ended up on his lid four laps into the main event. The feature race itself had plenty of action with Kent Robinson and Jackie Boggs doing the battling in the early going. Robinson led the first few laps and then was passed by Boggs. A yellow saved Robinson but Boggs was later able to again make the pass.

When Boggs jumped the cushion in turn two, Robinson tried to pass him on the inside but a lapped car was in the way and then made contact. Robinson was turned and while he restarted the race, he soon pulled off with damage. Boggs then had to fend off challenges from Michael Chilton the rest of the race and while Chilton came close, it was Boggs taking the win.

Jeff Watson had his Late Model fitted with new tin that resembled one of his father Finn's most recognized cars as it looked in 1985. Finn started his racing career in 1963.  The #P1 Paul's Pipeline special was a tremendously successful car in its time and while I don't think I ever saw Watson drive that car, I do remember the #P1 cars. Watson's tin didn't stay good looking for too long as he was involved in the same wreck as Smith and the sheet metal was badly damaged on the car.

Thirty three Modifieds were on hand for their grand to win event. After Shaun Flannary set fast time, the same qualifying method as for the Late Models was used. Tyler Nicely chased Timmy Payne for several laps until he took over the lead. Once in front, he was pressured heavily by Flannary but he never flinched as he drove on for the win.

KDRA Super Stocks produced two heat races and saw Robbin Perkins and Tyler Collis battle for several laps until Collis took over and drove on for the win.

Why they are called Stock Four Cylinders I will never know as they appeared to be anything but Stock. They had twenty seven of them with everything from rear wheel drive Mustangs to some front wheel drive cars too. I looked like about three different classes racing together as they had everything from stock appearing cars to some of the Mustangs that were slab-sided and sported huge spoilers. Pole sitter Tyler Hayes went on to take the win.

The races themselves were pretty good and it was certainly a chance to see a whole bunch of drivers that I would not have seen at any other time during the year. The track seemed to race fairly well but with the format that started the fast cars right in front, that almost always limits the passing that occurs. The crowd seemed pretty good for a cool November night and they pleased the majority of the spectators by running the Late Model feature first. This also alleviated any congestion leaving the grounds as most "bailed" after the Late Models and Mods were done.

Thanks to Brandon Hardgrove and Chris Tilley and their staffs for their help. Hardgrove announced that Lake Cumberland will run a full weekly schedule in 2018.

Erb and Gravel Take Close Wins to Wrap Up World Finals Action

Saturday, November 4th the World Finals wrapped up at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Saturday program would be similar to Friday night's show with the only difference being that the Sprint Cars and Late Models would flip flop the running order for their division's program with the Late Model feature being the last event on the card while on Friday night the Sprint Cars would be the last event on the card. Big Blocks would again run double Last Chance events while the other two classes would run a full program of heats, last chance events and then their main events.

The field of race cars was very similar to Friday night's event, with only a handful of cars not running as the result of either serious mechanical failures or from crashes. Friday night's worst accident saw Sadie Siegel pound the first turn wall with her Sprint Car and a walk through the pits before the racing started revealed that the car had already been stripped down to its bare frame. Blown motors on Friday night also took care of several Late Models, Big Blocks and a couple of Sprint Cars too.

Perhaps track management took to heart all the complaints about the horrible dusty conditions  that prevailed on Friday night as the track was considerably wetter to start the racing on Saturday night. Of course that didn't last too long but even in the long run it made the track better which the drivers commented on throughout the night. The weather conditions were different too which probably played a part in the different track conditions. It was cooler on Saturday and heavily overcast, two things that certainly would help the track.

For those of us sitting on the back chute, we were certainly grateful for a strong Northeast breeze which sent the dust rolling into the main grandstand. Those folks weren't too pleased however and a number of them filtered around to the back chute to watch the show. Persistent horrible dust conditions seem to be a staple of this track and despite trying all manner of things to reduce the problem, it still remains just as bad as it has always been.

The Big Blocks came to the grid first for their main event. The Super Dirt title was still in the balance as the last feature of their season began, but Matt Sheppard was not about to let it slip from his fingers. After being fortunate enough to redraw the pole, he led all the way in the forty lap main to win both the feature race and guarantee himself the Super Dirt title. He had some pressure in the early going from Keith Flach with three yellows in the first sixteen laps keeping things pretty bunched.

However, the last twenty four laps went green and Sheppard pulled away from the pack as he won rather comfortably. This was not the greatest weekend for the Big Blocks as quite frankly, their racing was much of the follow the leader variety and the side by side racing was at a minimum.

Donny Schatz had already guaranteed the Sprint Car title but he was aiming for his two hundred and fiftieth Outlaw win, which would have been quite the way to wrap up his season. Schatz took the lead early after starting third but he wasn't able to shake Brian Brown and David Gravel. The first few laps were plenty rocky with several crashed that included a four car flip in turn one after a stacked up restart.

The last half of the race went nonstop and Schatz seemed to be in control, even though Gravel was running him close. David made a couple of slider attempts to pass in the last five laps and nearly pulled off the move, but each time Schatz would regain the lead.

Schatz' biggest problem at the end was a couple of lapped cars that didn't seem to be able to decide where they wanted to run. Schatz had to pause briefly and Gravel used the opportunity to shoot past for the lead. Schatz tried to come back using the low side off turn two but there was nothing there and he lost ground as Gravel drove on for the win. Of course most in the crowd were pleased as Schatz wins too much for some, but I prefer that exceptionalism be rewarded, not scorned. For those that hope for Schatz' Outlaw win streak to  be put to an end in 2018, Gravel is likely their best hope.

Despite the last lap pass for the win in the Sprint Car main, for the second straight night the Late Models put on the best show from start to finish. The Late Model feature was another dandy with five cars in the lead pack right down to the finish, just like on Friday night. Again it was Mike Marlar that led from the start with the field again chasing him. Shane Clanton and Dale McDowell were the early drivers chasing Marlar but then they were exchanged for Jimmy Owens and Brandon Sheppard. With most of the drivers running the low side, Sheppard was pounding the cushion, short track Illini style. He made have made it work for the second straight night but for the fact that he got way too high in turn four and gave up one position and a bunch of time. Owens took Sheppard's place ramming the cushion but he could only make it work to a fashion that allowed him to retain his place.

Marlar started to slow a bit just as he had the night before but after fighting off a couple challenges, it looked like on this night he might be able to hold on. However, Dennis Erb really picked up the pace and he was able to get under Marlar off turn two with just a few laps left. Just as Erb does in winning most of his races, he's never spectacular or "showy" but more often than not, he's there at the end. If ever there was a "Mr. Consistency," it would be Erb. It proved to be a great win for him and an excellent way to wrap up the season, although on a roll, Erb will likely head to Alabama for racing next weekend at a track that fits his style.

Just as surprising as the strong runs both nights by Marlar, Erb and Owens were the poor showings by Don O'Neal, Darrell Lanigan and Scott Bloomquist among others.

This event continues to grow every year. It was announced that Thursday night's crowd was the largest ever for the Thursday night race, the Friday night race was a near sellout and Saturday the place was a complete sellout of tickets. While off the top of my head I don't know what the grandstand seats, it is a huge grandstand and the number of people in the pits also is astronomical.
This event has to be a huge money maker for the World Racing Group as I would guess that the only races that perhaps have more people in attendance are some of the events at Eldora and while this race pays a nice purse, it doesn't come anywhere close to what those races pay. It would be nice if the management would thank the racers by upping the purse for next year's event as there seems to be no indication that the spectator turnout will start to level off.

For those that have not been to this race as of yet, I can't think of a better chance to see the three biggest divisions that the World Racing Group sanctions all together on one big stage. Most of the best cars in all three classes are on hand and this is one of the few race tracks in the country that can properly present such a race. There are also tons of other racing related things to do in the greater Charlotte area.

I need to sent out a special thanks to Shaun Johnson of the Charlotte Motor Speedway staff for his help setting me up for the weekend and also Don Stodola of G Force Racing Gear for his help too.

One last thing to be noted.  I'm typing this from the passenger seat of a car as we hurtle our way home from North Carolina on some of the roughest interstate roads known to mankind, so if you find an occasional keyboarding gaff or spelling error, take pity.

Williamson, Sheppard and Schatz Top World Finals, Friday Edition

After a Thursday night of qualifying and a few Big Block heat races, the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway kicked into full action on Friday night, November 3rd with a nearly full program in all three divisions.

Big Blocks would run Last Chance races and their forty lap main event while the Late Models and Sprint Cars would have full shows including heats, Last Chance Qualifiers plus feature races, the Late Models going fifty laps and the Sprint Cars thirty.

With only an abbreviated program on Thursday night, the attrition rate among the three class was very minimal. In the Big Blocks, Jimmy Horton, who blew up  a motor on Thursday night, borrowed a back up car from Pat Ward to race in the feature race on Friday. Justin Rasey, who pounded the wall in turn four on the last lap of a heat race on Thursday night loaded his car up and watched the action on Friday so they were down one car.

In the Late Models, only Chris Ferguson did not return so there were seventy four Late Models trying to make the main event.

And in the Sprint Cars, they actually gained a car as John Price, who was on hand on Thursday night but had mechanical issues prevent him from getting on the track, tagged the back of a Sprint Car heat so there were fifty three of them looking to qualify for the feature race.

Qualifying for any main event was a brutally difficult assignment as the qualifying  races were all very short in length, not many cars moved up and the fields were both big and very talented. For example, the Big Blocks ran two Last Chance Qualifiers with thirteen cars in each and only two moving into the main over a ten lap distance. The Late Model heats started twelve or thirteen cars for an eight lap race with only the top three moving on and of course, the lineups were straight up off time trials. Then they ran three Last Chance races that started about twenty cars apiece with only two moving into the mains. The Sprint Cars use their regular Outlaw format so they run dashes after redrawing the top two in each heat and the dash sets up the front six rows for the main event with the other qualifiers falling in behind them.

They did start big fields of cars for the main events with twenty nine Big Blocks taking the green, thirty one Late Models starting the Late Model main and with thirty cars taking the green, perhaps the biggest field of Sprint Cars to race a main event that I have seen in a long time. Of course, a cynical person might say that one reason there are so many cars in the main event fields, and this holds particularly for the Late Models, is that so many of their series regulars failed to make the show through the normal means that they had to take a provisional to start the main event. Of course, only a cynical mind would come up with that.

 The Big Blocks are the only division where the World of Outlaws title is still undetermined with both Donny Schatz and Brandon Sheppard having already guaranteed titles in their respective divisions. In the Big Blocks, defending champion Matt Sheppard holds a thirty something point lead over Billy Decker as the two come into their final weekend of competition. Sheppard's story is one of the most amazing of any racing season as Sheppard was battling for the point lead until he was suspended for two races following an on track scuffle following an incident with another competitor. He fell all the way back to ninth in points but when he returned, he was "on fire" as he won a stretch of consecutive main events and fought his way back into the point lead, even though it was tenuous coming into the last weekend over veteran Billy Decker.

Sheppard started on the pole and led the first few laps of the Big Block feature, which was slowed three times for yellows in the first five laps.

On the next restart, Sheppard didn't get a good one and Mat Williamson shot past him for the lead. They then ran off the last thirty five laps nonstop and Williamson did a great job of holding off Sheppard for the win. Several times Sheppard got close in traffic but each time the young Canadian driver would hold on and he would cross the line with a couple car lengths on Sheppard at the finish. Decker started tenth and worked his way up to third at the end, so those two will go into the final night of racing in 2017 with the title still undecided.

The Late Model feature was truly the only really entertaining race of the night. With only two yellow flags in the fifty lap distance, it was a good battle right down to the end. Mike Marlar took the early lead with Jimmy Owens chasing him. Dennis Erb, Josh Richards and Dale McDowell were also in the lead pack. Marlar was able to maintain the top spot but Owens was never far behind. Follwoing a yellow flag, Erb was able to move into second and he set up the chase on Marlar.

Brandon Sheppard, who had started sixth but faded back a bit was now on the move as he raced to get into the top five while at the same time, Richards, in a near look alike car, started to fade just a bit. As the race started to get near the thirty five lap mark, Marlar started to have some handling issues with his car and he was slower coming off the corners. Erb began to close on him and as Marlar was slowing down the top runners, Owens, McDowell and Sheppard were all closing up on him.

It was at this point that Sheppard made the move of the night as with most of the front runners racing low through the corners, Sheppard threw his car to the high side of the track and it stuck. He quickly began to reel in the top three at an alarmingly quick pace and before we knew it, suddenly the top three were running in a bunch.

Erb tried his best to get under Marlar but at the same time, Sheppard had a full run on the top side and he blew past both drivers to take over the lead, a lead he would extend over the last few laps as the Outlaw point leader did a nice job of saying the day for the regulars over the Lucas Oil invaders and others. Erb, Marlar, Owens and McDowell completed the top five in what was a good race.

Schatz continued to show why he is the ten time Outlaw Sprint champion as he came from behind to make a remarkable pass that guaranteed him the feature win. Billy Balog, the Wisconsin driver, likely raised his notoriety on this night as he won a heat race, then a dash and led the first few laps of the feature race.

A "shoot out" to Balog who's family lives only about forty miles from me and who's father I used to watch race full bodied cars back "in the day." When Balog moved back to Wisconsin from Alaska and started his stateside racing career, he hung out at the local tracks while he was building his racing operation and partnered with local sponsors as he started his Sprint Car career. Then he discovered the IRA and everything built from there.

Balog had the Madsen brothers chasing him early in the race while Schatz, who always seems to start slow in every race, worked his way back up into contention. Schatz runs a different line than everyone else at this track, much lower on the track and when he is able to make it work, allows him an open passing lane as most of the cars are up beating on the cushion.

That's what he did again on Friday as he was able to drive under both the leaders who were battling each other and traffic and he cleared them all in one mighty move. After that, he led the rest of the way with just one yellow with six laps to go to bunch the field. He got away clean following that restart and really wasn't challenged the rest of the way. Ian Madsen finished a strong second while Dave Blaney showed he still has got the moves as he came from tenth to third in the Minnesota based Motter car. Kerry Madsen and Joey Saldana completed the top five.

Unlike other years, there wasn't the slew of wrecks that have often been a part of this race. While there were a couple of hard contacts with the wall, only one car got upside down during Friday night's action.

One thing that I must mention that you probably won't read or hear about any place else is the horrible conditions that the spectators have to endure at this race. The dust problem at this track is absolutely terrible. Friday night's show was certainly for me among the top five dustiest races I have ever been to. While the track may remain racy for the drivers, the dust situation in the grandstands is almost unbearable. Many times it is impossible to even see what is happening on the other straightaway or identify cars because the dust is so bad. You walk out of the track literally coated in red dust from heat to toe. It makes watching the races miserable at best. Yet, everyone just seems to take it as a part of the show and while they might roll their eyes a bit at the conditions, no one seems to say much. I guarantee you that if a similar situation occurred at any track in the Midwest, a near riot would likely take place and spectators simply would not tolerate such miserable racing conditions. Truly it is a disgrace that World Racing Group allows such conditions to exist at their premier event of the year and seems to be uncaring about making any improvements to the situation. I saw Tom Derry walking around the area where I was seated before the show started but I'm willing to bet that once the action started, he was up in the air conditioned, glassed in VIP section, not in the "real folks" section where we were all getting "sand blasted". This place is jam packed with people and there aren't even enough seats to go around for everyone. But I can guarantee you that all the fans on hand watching are "hard core" fans because any casual fan that would come out for this race would never attend another race in their life, based upon what they would have to endure and how they would look and feel by the time the night was completed. I, for one, will have to seriously consider whether or not I want to put up with this again for another year because it is so bad that it makes the racing not even fun to watch. But, just like track management is counting on, by Saturday night I'll have put my objections aside and I'll be out in the "sandstorm" for more of the same, at least for one more night.

World Finals Commence at Charlotte

Thursday night, November 2nd, the Textron Off Road World Finals kicked off at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In an all World of Outlaws sanctioned event, the Sprint Cars, Late Models and Big Block Modifieds all went through opening night exercises as they started their qualifying procedures in preparation for two nights of racing action on Friday and Saturday.

All three classes went through qualifying laps on Thursday with the Sprint Cars running single car qualifying against the clock, the Late Models going three and four apiece against the cloud also while the Big Blocks ran group qualifying against everyone else in their heats with the heats being split into either four or five car waves.

Class totals found that fifty two Sprints signed in, along with seventy five Late Models and forty seven Big Blocks. All three totals are slightly higher than the 2016 race produced.

The weather was spectacular with perhaps the best night ever for this event in its history, a race that has been plagued from time to time with rain issues.

This is one race that features the best of the best with most of the top drivers in all three classes in action. The top twenty one drivers in WoO Sprint points were on hand before we got to a couple of absentees in Dominic Scelzi and Rico Abreu. The top nine in Late Model points are here with the concussed Frankie Heckenast being the only top ten runner not on hand. After that the next missing driver was sixteenth place Donald Bradsher who actually had Jonathan Davenport in his car until Davenport moves over to his new Lance Landers ride starting next week. The top ten in Big Block points are on hand with the first absentee being Stewart Friesen who is racing a Truck with NASCAR this weekend.

With nearly one hundred and eighty cars in the upper and lower pits in total and nearly every single one of them going up and down the road in an impressive toter or semi, just walking through the pits is quite the experience. The amount of spectacular equipment is truly mind boggling and even better than either Arizona or Florida as all the big classes are on hand all at once. Along with all the drivers that are on hand, lots of other top notch drivers are seen roaming the pits catching up on the latest developments in technology from all the builders but busy making deals for the 2018 racing season which will start in just a few short weeks. Now days there isn't much of a gap between one racing season and the next and many are already making their preparations for either/or Arizona or Florida.

Thursday night's program is a bit different than most you will see as qualifying is the big thing with all three classes doing their qualifying for both Friday and Saturday night's program on Thursday. The Sprints and Late Models do two full sets of time trials with each one setting the field for one of the two nights of racing while the Big Blocks, who seem to be treated somewhat like the "red headed stepchild", do group qualifying as stated earlier and then they participate in two rounds of heat races that determine starting positions and B feature lineups for both Friday and Saturday night's racing.

For those of us that aren't big fans of time trials, it's one of those "grit your teeth and bear it" kinds of nights as the time trials for so many cars seem to drone on nearly forever. Fans come and go, drifting in when their special class hits the track and then either heading for the pits to roam or to souvenir lane to do the same while the other classes are going through their exercises.

Once they start the qualifying, track officials don't touch the track. No watering or other such nonsense takes place once the first car hits the track as they figure the conditions are the same for everyone and by splitting the qualifying into groups, there is no big advantage to either drawing a low or high number. Reinforcing that is the amazing ability of this track to not "give up" as the laps continue to be laid down as it seems to stay remarkably consistent. That would be proven out later, especially in the Sprint Car ranks.

David Gravel was quick qualifier in the first round of Sprint qualifying, turning a lap at 12.530. However, the truly amazing thing was that Trey Starks would be quick qualifier in the second go round, turning a lap at 12.606, less than a tenth of a second slower than Gravel. However, Starks was the fifty first driver to qualify in the second round of time trials and nearly one hundred cars timed in between the two, yet the track basically remained just as it was much earlier! You just don't see that happen very often, if at all. There were also several other events that went on between the two rounds of Sprint qualifying including the first round of Late Model time trials!

Donny Schatz had two solid rounds of time trials and one of the surprises was Billy Balog as the Wisconsin driver was in the top three for both sets of qualifying.

Two sets of Late Model qualifying found Mike Marlar set the pace in the first round at 14,385 and Josh Richards top the boards in the second round at 14,536. Both the Sprints and Late Models will run six heats on Friday night with last chance races to grid the rest of the starting fields. It goes without saying that a lot of great cars and drivers will be sitting on the sidelines when the feature races start.

The Big Blocks are really under the gun on Thursday night. Not only do they qualify but they also run heat races to set the starting fields for both Friday and Saturday so the only true racing action presented on Thursday night is two rounds of heats for the Big Blocks. Their night is very risky in that any problem in qualifying or one of the first rounds of heats could severely affect their entire weekend.

This came to light twice in the Big Blocks as both Brett Hearn and Jimmy Phelps, top runners both, had trouble in first round time trials and had to go to back up cars. Not being able to  qualify in the second round, both had to start in the back of both their heats and neither qualified for the main event so both are looking at two Last Chance races in the next two nights and hope to squeak their way into the mains.

The lone racing of the night, the Big Block heats, were very disappointing events. Two sets of five heats for each night's qualifying found that the win of all ten started in the front row and there was virtually no passing at all in any of the heats. Certainly part  of that was due to the straight up heat race lineups and also in part that the track remained fast with a healthy berm that most of the drivers were running off of, which made passing that much harder. Knowing how exciting the Big Blocks can be, the heats were a major disappointment. Hopefully the track will slow down and widen out for the racing the rest of the weekend which is likely since with no qualifying, not everyone will be running in the same groove all night and there will be more actual racing which helps to widen out the track. With the tedious portion of the weekend now behind us, the hope is that things will pick up dramatically for the weekend. Certainly that will likely be the case as the best in the business are on hand here in all three classes.

Stovall Takes the Money at Muskogee

On Saturday, October 28th, the two day Midwestern Dirt Track Championship wrapped up at the Thunderbird Speedway in Muskogee Oklahoma with last chance and feature races being held in the five divisions that were on hand at the big half mile this weekend. Four of the classes were classes that run at the weekly programs at Thunderbird with the Late Models added on for this special event.

Likely the track management would have liked to have seen the midweek weather continue through the weekend as it was in the seventies for Thursday night practice but the cold front came charging through with lots of wind and falling temperatures and bot nights the conditions were far from ideal for the race fans and competitors alike. Fortunately the monster concrete edifice where the fans sit at Thunderbird blocked the wind somewhat and it would lay down both nights around Sunset but it was still mighty cold and only the hardiest of fans managed to make it through both nights, all night without picking up and heading to the warmth of their vehicles.

Virtually all cars that raced on Friday night returned for Saturday night's finale including a couple that would have appeared to have expired motors on Friday. Some swapped power plants and others just tried to cobble together enough pieces to get through one last night of racing, with mixed results I might add.

Last chance races were first held for all classes except the Late Models even though all cars moved up from the Last Chances to the features except in the Modifieds where they had the highest car counts. Apparently they felt that a few more races were needed to give the  fans their full money's worth but on this cold late October night, I would have guessed that a spectator vote would have been to just go ahead, throw everyone in the mains anywhere and let's get to racing. Especially when, although forecast to be warmer than Friday night, it certainly seemed much colder on Saturday with the temperature in the mid thirties by the time I got to the car and a goodly layer of frost already formed on the windshield!

They were scheduled to start two hours earlier on Saturday night but after too many sets of hot laps for me, it was closer to an hour earlier than Friday night's show. Separate sessions for the qualified and non qualified cars really wasn't necessary and again I think it was part of their thinking to try and make the show feel just a little bit bigger.

For me, the top feature races were the Late Models and the Modifieds although a couple of the other classes had their moments too and there were a few interesting developments in the "support classes" along the way. The track was black and slick, much as I remember it being "back in the day" when we used to come to Oklahoma to wrap up the racing season as back then a late October race was almost unheard of. The track had two lanes at least however, and there were cars running both right up against the concrete wall and those that were hugging the low side so passing was certainly possible in all classes and surprisingly, only one of the five feature races was won off the front row, even though the mains were lined straight up off the dash and the heats. So it was clear that the race was certainly able to be passed on.

The ten grand to win Late Model headliner was the second feature race to be run, a nice touch for those fans on hand to see mostly the Late Models and then head for someplace warm. I would guess that about thirty per cent of the crowd did take advantage of this to head out after the Lates were done.

Their feature race turned out to be a three car battle between Billy Moyer Jr., Jesse Stovall and Terry Phillips and while Phillips never officially led a lap, he was always right in the hunt. Moyer led early but Stovall would challenge and then fall back and then challenge once again as momentum on this big track was key. If Stovall wasn't able to make the pass for the lead, it would kill his momentum and he would need a few laps just to catch back up again. Moyer was running mid track while Jesse was right up against the concrete, just where you would expect him to be.

A mid race caution gave him his chance and on the green he blew by Moyer on the high side, and by the time Moyer got to that piece of territory Stovall had squeezed past him to take over the lead. Moyer was in "chase mod" the rest of the event and while he got fairly close several times, Jesse held his line and came home for the win. His winning route included pushing the cushion in turns one and two and then hugging the low groove on the other end of the track. Phillips lost third with a rare engine failure late in the race and Rodney Sanders made a nice charge up to third at the line.

Sanders had a nice night as he also brought his Modified with him and made a good charge up from the third row to win that event. Tyler Wolff and Chad Wheeler battled for the lead in that race early but Sanders was working good on both the high and low side of the track and he patiently picked his way to the front, finally blasting past Wolff on the high side and then driving away for the win. So, between the two classes, he had a nice check waiting for him at the end of the night.

This race was slowed for a violent collision in turn one after Jared Russell spun after several cars tangled in front of him and then a pack of cars, at very high speed, came charging in on him with no where to go. Caden Ellis slammed into Russell and was launched like a tilt-a-whirl into the air, spinning around like a top. It was a very hard hit but fortunately, no injuries resulted.

Super Stock driver Darin Rigney certainly threw a "monkey wrench" into the theory that in order to be successful in a two day show such as the one held at Thunderbird, one must be in attendance to burn up a set of tires practicing on Thursday night, then qualify through a heat on Friday night to then put yourself in position to win the main.

Rigney did none of the above but the Gentry Arkansas driver still won the Super Stock feature going away. He wasn't on hand to practice on Thursday and also spurned the heat races on Friday. He just showed up Saturday night, started dead last in the Last Chance and then won that and then after starting eleventh in the main(he was supposed to start thirteenth but got up one row too far for the start), he then patiently worked his way up through the field showing great speed and drove past Dennis Schonefeld(he of the Schonefeld Headers family) to take the win. He wasn't helped either by a  bunch of cautions as this race had only three, he was just plain very fast. Pole starter Dylan Davlin finished third.

The B Mod and Pure Stock features were both not quite so appetizing as both were plagued by yellow flags amid the falling temperatures. The B Mod feature had the potential to be interesting but every time they tried to race, someone instead decided to spin out and the caution would wave once again.

Starting on the pole, Dustin Leatherman would lead the entire race although he was challenged by several other drivers at various times. Leatherman, a name voiced by track announcers probably nearly as long as this track has been in operation, would hold on for the win. But wait a minute, the one person Leatherman failed to impress that was most important was the tech man, and for an unnamed reason, Leatherman was disqualified from the win for a technical violation. 

This gave the win to Leroy Cook Jr. from Tulsa. Cook Jr certainly earned the victory the hard way in retrospect. He was fifth on the grid for a restart with only three laps to go, went to the cushion and made a huge charge, nipping Cody Jolly by inches for what we thought was second place. As it turned out, the scintillating move was what got him the feature win.

The Pure Stock feature was also a drawn out affair that probably would have produced a good battle if they could have kept the race going. Jacob Cox, David Whittle and Jack Kirby were all closely matched as they battled back and forth between yellows. However, fourth row started Allen Owen from Pocola would eventually march his way to the front and with a outside pass down the front chute, take the lead and then fight off Cox for the win. 

The final checkered flag flew about 10:45 p.m, just about the same time as Friday night but it could have been much earlier if we could have condensed the program a bit and convinced a few of the drivers to keep their cars pointed in the proper direction. However, it was still an entertaining weekend and for me, a chance to see a lot of different drivers at a track that I hadn't visited in literally, decades.

One person that I failed to mention last night that has been deeply involved in the resurrection of the Thunderbird Speedway has been Stanley Slater and everyone gives him a ton of credit for breathing new life into the historic track and for his whole family that have also been very much involved. Everyone here has been most accommodating  to this visitor but I did see one discouraging note upon my arrival on Saturday as I walked into the grandstand and that was the lad holding the sign announcing that there would be no "re entries" allowed into the grandstand. In such cold weather that is very poor policy and needs to be changed.

An Honorary "Okie from Muskogee"

The racing season is coming to a close. The number of events is dwindling to a precious few and trying to find races to attend gets to be real challenging this time of year. That is particularly so especially when the weather conditions become less than favorable. It becomes time to weigh the cost and time involved to the reward harvested.

This weekend found most of the racing action called off days ahead of time, good in some ways but also very depressing in others. My choice of racing options was very limited but I really wanted to squeeze in another race or so this last weekend in October if possible plus, who wants to sit around the house and watch it snow?

One race that I happened to discover over the past couple of weeks that was being held this weekend was the Midwest Dirt Track Nationals which were being held at the Thunderbird Speedway in Muskogee Oklahoma. Now, I used to attend the Oktoberfest special that was always held in Muskogee but that was years ago and I have not been to a race in Muskogee for quite frankly, probably decades. The idea of going back to the big half mile for a year end special piqued my interest but I needed to make sure that they wouldn't cancel the event at the last minute due to the cold as a drive to Muskogee is more than just a a drive around the block. Also, would there be enough cars to warrant such a long drive. I flip flopped on the idea for a couple of days but finally decided that you only live once so why not go for the gusto?

So, one flat tire later I rolled into the city of Muskogee set to see some racing action. The program was split over two nights with the qualifying heats and dashes on Friday and on Saturday the Last Chance races and main events will be held. Five classes will be racing with Late Models making a rare appearance along with Modifieds, B Mods, Super Stocks and Pure Stocks.

This race is an attempt to get the old Oktoberfest kind of year end special restarted and the track ownership and management worked hard to get some Late Models to commit to this race. They visited a number of other year end specials and talked to a number of drivers, trying to get them back to Muskogee for this race. With twenty two cars on hand, they were moderately successful although I must admit that I had hoped for a few more than showed up. Probably the cold weather didn't help this situation and race car drivers are like most other people. First they watch to see how things pan out and if the event is successful, then they jump on board the following year. While I know that the top paying spot is ten grand, I don't know about the rest of the purse schedule and that may also be a factor. However, there were some good cars on hand plus some drivers I never get to see so the racing should be entertaining.

The car count for all classes was remarkably similar with each class fielding between the low twenties and the high twenties and a total of one hundred and twenty seven cars signing in. As far as the other classes, the Modifieds were running under USRA rules although there were a few IMCA cars also while the B Mods were also USRA with a few Sport Mods, minus spoilers also in the mix.

The Super Stocks and Pure Stocks were a little more confusing as to look at the cars, they appear similar. They are even running on the same size tires this weekend as Muskogee, Salina and Fort Smith, the three tracks that are supplying the majority of the cars in the support classes, all have different rules. This is the point where you say hallelujah for sanctioning bodies that supply consistent rules over a broad range of territory. 

The Thunderbird Speedway is a big, half mile track with not much banking, much like it was when it was first built around the turn of the century. In fact, Muskogee is known as the "Historic Track" with the first racing here in 1903 I believe. However, everything has been spit polished under the new ownership with bright retaining walls, new sponsorship signs and new wheel fences being placed around the track. The lighting for both the track and the seating areas is excellent and new sound system has just been installed also.

One thing that has been changed is that the roof of the huge grandstand has been removed. Apparently it was condemned several years ago and then taken off. However, the grandstand remains as a huge concrete edifice that dates back to the WPA days and the wide concrete slabs provide excellent places for lawn chair seating.

The track has gone through its share of rocky times over the past decade or so with several management groups trying to run the show and the track opening and closing more often than a revolving door. The opening of the ultra modern Outlaw Motor Speedway just down the road didn't help things but now that facility sits closed for an indeterminate time.

Everyone speaks very highly of the new owner, Randy Gass, who is a businessman in the area. What I didn't know was that the Fairgrounds was a city owned property and Gass bought it lock, stock and  barrel and it's now his alone. However, there must be some kind of a working agreement between the city and Gass as a large building just across from the main grandstand houses many city vehicles and in fact, the cities' police vehicles were getting maintenance in this building also.

I also got to meet the track announcer, Jesse Webb, who is one of those rare breed of announcers that actually roam the pits and meet the drivers and find out what the inside scoop is, rather than waiting for a line up sheet to be handed to him so he can read it over the pa. He made it clear that enthusiasm for racing in Muskogee and been reignited by Gass and that their plan is to get the track sanctioned by NASCAR for next year, running USRA rules, so that they can form a three night circuit with Salina OK and Humboldt.

Friday night was a special night for the track as they were also inducting a number of new members for their Thunderbird Speedway Hall of Fame. Many of those on hand I was not familiar with but there were some that I had either heard of or had actually seen race such as T.J. Pauchert, Larry Phillips, Dan Leatherman and Harold Leep. In fact, Paster Paul, the chaplain of the KRA Speedway in Willmar Minnesota and pastor of a church in that city and a long time friend of the Leep family, would be pleased to know that Harold's widow was on hand to accept the award. Leep was promoted Thunderbird the first time I was ever at this track.

Passing points were used for four classes on Friday but the Late Models had to time trial for some reason, even though the vast majority of the drivers on hand are used to running under a passing points format. However, the track was set up to time multiple cars at once and after a slight malfunction of their equipment, they were able to breeze through that thrilling portion of the program quickly.

Just running heats and dashes alone doesn't make for a very thrilling program but there were some close finishes in all classes. With all the necessary special things with the Hall of Fame induction, it made the start of the program very last with the first race not taking the green until 8:42 p.m. However, I was very impressed with the speed that they ran through the rest of the program. One race was just taking the checkered when the next one would pull on to the track, take one lap and the green would wave again. the entire twenty race card was done in two hours flat which was good on a bone chillingly cold Oklahoma evening.

One car I found particularly interesting was the #32Y Modified of Ron Yates. The car is painted black and white just like a police car and is sponsored by the Muskogee Police. As an added attraction, the car has "a cherry on top" which was blinking brightly throughout his heat race. He, however, did not pull anyone over during his heat event.

Billy Moyer Jr was the quick qualifier for the evening for the Late Models and then won the dash so he will be starting on the pole position for the main event. However, I anticipate that Jesse Stovall, Terry Phillips, Kyle Beard and Robert Baker, among others, will give him plenty of competition on Saturday night.

One last comment. I can't think off hand of any other track I've run into this year where the drivers, car owners, mechanics and track officials have all been so friendly. Everyone that found out I was from "out of town" wanted to talk and their enthusiasm for the track and desire to spread the word about Thunderbird was refreshing and honest. A nicer group or racers I haven't run into in a long time.

Look for a report on the main events on Saturday but likely not until Monday as I'll be traveling home and I can't both drive and type! Also, for those interested, there should be some information on the World Finals in Charlotte next weekend as I plan to be in attendance all three nights at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And after that weekend, who knows? 

Richie G Tops Darkside race; Correction please, Walla's Up

After a precious few hours of sleep, it was time for my bleary eyes to provide navigational support as I followed the mighty waters of the Mississippi South and across into Iowa. My destination was the Farley Speedway for night number two of the Topless Weekend special at Farley promoted by Darkside Promotions.

After what sounded like a successful effort on Friday night, it was time for night number two of their weekend special at Farley with Modifieds racing for a big check of five grand for the winner of their fifty lap grind. Also on the card were Late Models, Sport Mods, Stock Cars and Outlaw Stock Cars(again I exclude the Micro Mods, just as last night). It was a pleasure though, to be able to count all the classes of cars and not have to use both hands and take off my shoes to do so!

Brevity is the key word I'm hoping for and in that regard I believe the officials and management at Farley are much more in accord with me on that point than the tracks I have been visiting of late have been. With bad weather looming off to the West and the clock ticking, a swift and precisely run program is what is called for on this night, and with the drivers cooperating to their fullest extend, that's what we would eventually see.

The top three classes would be running topless on this night and while I don't think I would like a steady diet of this kind of look, on a rare occasion it does make things kind of interesting as there are views of the drivers as they work their magic that you just wouldn't see if the cars all had roofs. It is surprising, though, how much different and sometimes difficult it is to pick out one car from another without the roof in place.

The Modifieds led the car count number on this night as they should with their division racing for considerably more money than the other classes. There were thirty nine of the Modifieds on hand with just the Stock Cars and Outlaw Stock Cars having smaller fields than comfortable but not much different than Farley normally has during the regular season as except for the top three classes, car counts are a continuing problem.

Hot laps were moved up an hour, presumably with the weather coming in and the first race took the green at 5:30 pm approximately. A one spin rule instituted for the heats kept things moving well and for those that couldn't or wouldn't start after they spun, woe on to you and a quick exit to the pit area.

I have seen racing now a few times at the shortened Farley Speedway and I'm really thinking that this was the best move ever for this facility. I assume that there are still those that favor the big half mile but likely those are people that grew up on half mile racing. For me, the short track is so much more interesting and on a night like Saturday, where it was slick from top to bottom but did not take on rubber, it made for some great racing. Also, the pit area off turns three and four seems to be working out very well and will likely be ever better in the future. No vehicles in the infield except service trucks also makes the place look much cleaner and provides a greater margin of safety for both the pit workers and everyone else in the pits.

The Modified feature was the headline event and it was an excellent race from start to finish. When the distance of fifty laps was announced, some in the crowd groaned as lightning could first now be seen on the western horizon. However, the drivers did a magnificent job of racing hard but clean and the race went forty laps before the yellow was displayed for the first time.

Cory Dripps was the early leader but there was no one that could stay with Richie Gustin in the early going as he charged up from the third row to take the lead and then gradually draw away from the field. The only driver able to stay with him was Tim Ward who continued to follow several car lengths behind but wouldn't go away, even as Gustin worked through lapped traffic.

With that many green flag laps, you can imagine the number of lapped cars and Gustin was constantly working through traffic but he could never shake Ward. With about fifteen laps to go, Ward started to move in on the leader and he closed to the rear bumper of the #19G. Ward tried a low side move in turn four and the two brushed together relatively mild. However, it was a hit at just the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective), place and Ward suffered a flat front tire. He slowed and the first yellow of the race flew with forty laps down.

Jason Walla, who had qualified for the main through a B feature, had gradually worked his way to the front and he inherited the second spot. He tried to track down Gustin, but Richie held on through one more minor yellow and drove home for the win. The winning interview was done, the rest of the racing continued and not a word was said about a possible disqualification. Traveling on Sunday, I did not know until Monday that Gustin was later disqualified and that Walla was awarded the win. Something to do with either deck height or spoiler height was apparently the issue and with the cars topless, an alteration to either could have provided a significant advantage. In any event, it was a tough way to lose five grand. However, for the yet to be crowned 2017 IMCA national champion, it was a nice bonus for Walla and made the long trip from North Dakota worthwhile. With so few cars left on the lead lap, Ward changed a tire, passed a few cars in the remaining laps and found himself scored second at the adjusted finish.

Joe Docekal, who normally runs Modifieds, won the Sport Mod feature after a nice drive past Justin Becker and Troy Bauer. Austin Heacock came from twelfth to finish as the runner up . Josh McBernie came from twenty second to finish third. Earlier, McBernie flattened his front bumper on another racer's rear bumper after the fact when he felt like he had been "roughed" during his heat race. Unfortunately for him, track officials frowned on the action and DQ'd his heat race effort, thus the deep in the field start for the main event.

The Stock Car field might have been tiny, but Tom Schmitt and Greg Gill put on a classic two lane battle for the win that lasted nearly the entire fifteen laps of their main. Gill was hugging the rail while Schmitt ran the high side. Early in the race, Gill tracked down Schmitt and passed him but Tom refused to give up on the high side.

As the laps ran off, Schmitt started to pick up the pace again and he gradually reeled in the leader. They were side by side with only a couple of laps left and then Schmitt gradually gained a slight edge. Gill was forced to come off his line and that gave Schmitt an interesting win. Gill would recover his edge as he led from start to finish to win the Outlaw Stock Car feature which had both Stock Cars and Quad Cities Street Stocks racing. Gill was the only driver to enter both classes.

The Late Models fielded nineteen cars for their main event. Ryan Dolan wasted little time taking the lead from the third row and it looked like he might dominate. However, yellow flags proved to not be his friend as Tyler Breuning used the slow down periods to his advantage as he took off like a rocket when the green came back out.

He was able to drive around Dolan and take over the lead and he led the rest of the way. Jeremiah Hurst came from twelfth to finish third in a race that saw a late yellow when veteran Darrel DeFrance hammered the home stretch wall hard and did significant damage to his car.

I applaud the track officials for a smooth run program and the drivers for putting on such a good effort. It was a "cracker jack" show and I didn't have to pitch a tent to get through the night.  I was told that the crowd on Friday night was good but unfortunately, it was a bit light on Saturday. Perhaps the weather and all the football games played a part in that, but those that missed lost out on a good racing program. Thanks to Darkside for their help and a reminder that they still have one more program yet this year as they finish off last week's weather shortened event at Tipton on this coming Sunday afternoon.

I must say that there was certainly much discussion about the 2018 racing season in the pits before the show. Not from being right around the Hawkeye state, I was surprised how much talk was going on.  While there is always some turmoil and changes from year to year, I think this off season is going to be one for the books. I have never heard so much discussion, uncertainty, and displeasure with the rules , some of the promoters and the sanctioning bodies that I have already heard this year concerning Iowa race tracks. It's going to be a real crap shoot what things will look like come 2018.

Richards Dominates at MTS

An eventful weekend started on Friday night, October 20th with a visit to the Mississippi Thunder Speedway near Fountain City Wisconsin for night one of their ninth annual Fast Festival. Originally scheduled for two weeks earlier, the entire weekend had been rained out and rescheduled for this weekend.

However, the weather was still not done toying with the river town track and after a dismal forecast for Saturday night that had been carried all week leading up to the race, the track opted to fold the event into just one night of racing on Friday, paying the extra purse for the one night show that had been originally planned for Saturday night's race following a regular pay night on Friday.

At this time of the year it seems that the racers are willing to do whatever it takes to get one last race in so even though it turned out to be just a one night event, the racers flocked to MTS to get one last race in before calling it a season. Spectacular weather on Friday certainly didn't hurt the cause and the MTS pit area was swelled to over flowing.

To my way of thinking, there can to be much of a good thing though, and MTS probably caused me to reach my tipping point on this issue. Along with their five regular USRA sanctioned classes, they also race 600 Mods on their third mile track plus both Senior and Junior Slingshots and Outlaw Mini Mods on their small track in the infield. Then, for fun, they also threw in USRA Stock Cars which have raced at the track this year on a few occasions.

But that wasn't enough apparently on this weekend as also invited were the WISSOTA Street Stocks and Midwest Modifieds. The Street Stocks used to race here and just for fun apparently, they also added the MidMods. Neither class was sanctioned this weekend but that didn't keep a big group of them from showing up to race one last time also.

So, if you have a calculator to do the math, by my count there were a mind numbing TWELVE classes of cars that each raced a full program!!! This may have been the most different classes I have ever seen at one show on one night and even I had to call "Uncle" at this. Programs ranged from a couple of heats and a feature to three classes that ran four heats, one or multiple B features and then of course, main events for all twelve classes. OMG, this was just way too much.

Track management touted that well over two hundred cars were in the pits racing but I am a "snob" in what I consider a true racing car and my total, minus the four classes powered by small motors equaled one hundred and eighty one cars, still a goodly figure.

With a forty five minute late starting time due to registering all the drivers, full shows in all twelve classes plus misting after nearly every race due to the high temperatures and extremely strong winds, it was going to be a late, late night. Even though they pushed each race out right at the conclusion of the proceeding one and nixed the driver interviews(which must have killed track announcer Dan Bailey), it turned into an obscenely long race program. Specific numbers will follow.

Racing was decent in all classes with a couple of really close finishes to highlight the racing action. The star performer of the night was Mondovi's Tommy Richards who won feature races in two classes. The irony is that Richards was one of the top runners at this track for the last several years. That is, until 2017 when they kicked him out the door when track management dropped the WISSOTA Super Stocks from their program and Richards took his Friday night racing up to the Red Cedar Speedway, along with his two brothers who both had also raced at MTS until both saw the classes that they had run in also eliminated in the past couple of years as track owner Bob Timm has moved to an all USRA program, so far with mixed results.

Tommy won both the Street Stocks and MidMods in borrowed rides for the night. He was driving the second Street owned by his brother Danny who also races in that class and he won the MidMods in an entry fielded by Calvin Iverson, a rookie driver that the Richards family has been mentoring this year. In fact, brother Danny also drove a second entry for Iverson in the MidMods while Calvin raced a third car that they fielded for this night.

For some reason, MTS slipped up and didn't add the Super Stocks also since that is the class that Tommy R. does the best in, being a top five driver in that class nationally for WISSOTA. How they forgot to include the Supers, I'll never know. Doesn't a "bakers dozen" of classes sound just peachy?

Even though the WISSOTA MidMods hadn't raced at the track all year, they fielded nearly three dozen cars of their own so the two "limited" Modified classes had well over sixty cars just between the two of them.

Other highlights of the racing program saw Jake Timm(no nepotism needed) start on the pole of the Modified feature and lead all the way for that win.

The closest race of the night was the B Mod feature where Parker Hale and Casey Knutson were banging wheels on the last corner as they fought for the lead with Hale prevailing.

The win for Elijah Zievenbergen in the Stock Cars was an important one as he is in a close battle for the USRA national title in the division. He grabbed the lead early and ran away from a good sized eighteen car field for the win.

Johnny Severtson came from the third row to win the Hornet feature, a race that saw IMCA national champion Nate Coopman on his lid after contact on the back chute as he tried to fight his way to the front of the field.

Those folks on hand were witness to the first racing start of Sam Mars from Mondovi. Sam, of course, is the son of national Late Model driving star Jimmy Mars, who was on hand to also try out a few things on a Modified. Sam is the middle school aged son of Jimmy(his exact age shall remain our secret) and way last Spring Jimmy told me that when he started out Sam, who has experience racing carts and such, in a real race car, he would have him drive a Limited Late Model to start right out and not develop some bad habits from driving some other class of car.

So Sam was behind the wheel of , a not surprisingly white #28, that was actually raced this season in the WISSOTA Late Models by Jesse Glenz. Sam was clearly right from the start not afraid of the car and he was "gassing it up" plenty. However, he got a little high coming out of turn two during his heat race, climbed up on the Jersey Barricades that make up the back wall and turned the car over on its lid where it slid down the track upside down.

Sam was unhurt and quickly clambered out of the car. Paraphrasing, his first words were "it isn't damaged too bad is it?" followed by, "sorry Dad."  If Sam goes on to have a racing career anything like his dad's, we will all  be able to say we were there the night that it all started, and what a memorable way to begin his racing career! It turned out to be quite the weekend for the Mars family starting with Sam's debut on Friday and ending up later during the weekend with the announcement that Jimmy Mars has been named as a member of the 2018 National Late Model Hall of Fame induction class. Congratulations to him. And I can say I also was on hand the night at the Red Cedar Speedway when Jimmy made his debut too.

Check the MTS website for a complete list of winners in all classes of racing.

Oh, one last thing. The final checkered flag waved at 2:06 am.

Gilbertson on Top at Spring Lake Speedway

I should have recognized that with it being Friday the thirteenth, some kind of mischievous or bizarre happenings were going to occur before the clock struck Midnight to announce the dawning of a new day. Sure enough, my first visit of 2017 to Scott Duval's Spring Lake Speedway near Unity Wisconsin was one for the books with just about any misfortune other than pestilence and famine taking place before a long, long night of racing was completed.

Friday night was night one of the third annual Autumn Clash to be held at Spring Lake Speedway. This was scheduled to be a two night show with full programs for six classes of racing on each night. Spring Lake Speedway was brought back to life by Duval a couple of years ago after the track sat vacant for a few years. Some of you may know it better for its interesting original name; that of the Monster Hall Raceway.

Duval has done a large amount of resurrecting and refurbishing of the grounds as the facility looks nothing like it did either originally or after it started to decay under some bad management and then neglect. He put a lot of money and "sweat equity" into the place and has made it come to life in a way that most, myself included, would never have imagined  possible. Scott is a "talker" but he is also a "doer" and he has gotten the local communities back involved with the track and generated much interest in the place.

I got the tour of the place during the afternoon and saw some of his most recent upgrades that included a third suite that has been completed plus some VIP boxes also. In his plans for next year are a relocating of pit road so that the racers and fans don't have to travel down the same road into the place and his hope is to purchase some more land from the farmer next door to expand his pit parking.

If you've never been to Spring Lake, what you need to know is that it borders both a lake and a campground that used to be a part of the facility. The entrance road off the county highway goes through the campground and the main grandstand butts right up against Spring Lake. The idea to keep the big haulers out of the campground road is largely both a convenience issue for the fans plus a safety issue for the campers.

He is also working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that governs all Wisconsin bodies of water. He is planning on clearing out the shoreline(with the DNR blessing) and creating a walkway along the lake for race fans and also for campers to use. It will be very fan friendly when completed. One thing Scott is not short on and that is ideas.

Spring Lake Speedway is in central Wisconsin and sits wedged in between the operating areas of three different sanctioning bodies. To the East, virtually all the tracks are sanctioned by IMCA. To the North and West the tracks are all WISSOTA sanctioned track while to his Southwest along the Mississippi River, the tracks are USRA sanctioned. This positioning has been both a blessing and a curse to him. Trying to decide which,  if any, sanctioning body to go on board with  is both a political and tactical "hot potato." So what he has decided is to pretty much go with open rules in some classes and to follow WISSOTA rules in other classes. The Mods and B Mods(as he calls them) use general rules that allow cars from all sanctioning bodies to race while he runs WISSOTA rules for the Streets and Super Stocks. The Pure Stocks and Hornets use local track rules. It probably hurts him a little to not have a class appropriate for the Stock Cars but then also running the open rules probably keeps a few Modifieds away because those few USRA cars on hand sport a considerable advantage over the other Mods.

For this event he throws all three sanctioning B Mod groups together on their own tires and does the same with the Modifieds, evening giving the IMCA cars a big spoiler. The Stock Cars are allowed to run with the WISSOTA Streets and the Eastern Wisconsin version of Streets which definitely gives the Stock Cars an advantage but the familiarity of the local drivers helps even up the score.

As with just about every track in the Midwest this weekend, the weather was a worrisome variable. A number of storms drifted just to the South on Friday and the evening saw some clearing and racing was on as scheduled although it was reported the the heavy rains in eastern Wisconsin kept some of those drivers home. Still, the car count was very good with one hundred and forty one drivers signing in to race, the second highest car count ever at this track since Duval took over. B Mods were by far the highest class with forty three of them signing in to race and all three sanctioning bodies represented. It was a true hodge podge  with cars from all over on hand including some area blacktop cars that converted over to run dirt, which is something highly out of the ordinary. Also noted was the fact that several former blacktop racers are switching over from the "darkside" to dirt racing which is partly a reflection on the unstable condition of some of the area tar tracks that used to be much stronger, and a seeming resurgence in a few of the area dirt tracks. Duval himself would take to the track on this night with his Modified,  the first time he has raced at his own track since he purchased it.

The staff was a little overwhelmed by the huge turnout of racers, many of which arrived at the last minute due to work commitments, travel time and the questionable weather. This created a big back up and for that reason racing started nearly forty minutes late. However, once they got started, things moved along well with a plethora of races scheduled.

That is, until the ambulance crisis hit. This track is located in a rural area and is staffed by a volunteer local ambulance crew but when a major highway accident occurred, they were called away and there were no back ups available due to the serious nature of the highway incident and the fact that multiple ambulances were needed. I didn't keep time but I believe that we lost at least an hour before the ambulance was able to return and racing could again proceed.

We got back to racing which went swimmingly for awhile; that is until the fog started rolling in. It was an incredibly damp night anyway but then the fog started to form and boy, did it get heavy. This was just as the feature races started and quite frankly, they did some racing under what i felt were unsafe conditions as from the grandstands it was impossible to identify the cars on the front stretch and they totally disappeared on the back chute. In fact, the Super Stock feature was cut short because track officials couldn't see the cars and I don't know how the scorers could tell the cars apart, since manual scoring is still used here. Locals reported that they could never ever remember a fog event like what we saw on Friday.

So, we waited awhile longer and then, out of the blue, the fog started to lift and we were able to return to racing. However, the air was still extremely damp and it was starting to develop a layer of moisture on the top of the hard racing surface and suddenly, we had cars spinning wildly out of control, much like water being dropped on a tar track. Several wild wrecks were the result and finally, track officials took to rolling in the track before each event, to try and keep the moisture from forming. As you can imagine, all  this took an inordinate amount of time and as the crowd slowly trickled out the gates, the races continued and the last checkered flag flew at about one thirty in the morning. Much of the delay was unavoidable however.

The premier race on the schedule was the Modified feature which went to Minnesota's Matt Gilbertson. Towing all the way from West central Minnesota, his sponsorship from Seubert Calf Ranches, a local firm, was likely the reason he drove such a long distance in shaky weather. He started in the third row and passed Michael Truscott for the lead and then held off a still challenge from Dave Baxter for the win. Since getting his new MB Customs car, Gilbertson has had a strong second half of the year.

Truscott came back to lead all the way and win the B Mod feature. Truscott has been one of the big winners in western Wisconsin this year with his GRT from CRC and he finished well ahead of Tony Bahr, who has been strong since debuting his new Shaw car on Labor Day weekend. Another big winner this year, Minnesota's Jason VandeKamp, finished a strong third.

Tommy Richards scored an easy win in the Super Stocks and Jay Kesan was smart in using the race track as he won the Street Stock feature. Eastern drivers Trent Nolan and Paul Diefenthaler clearly had more speed with their Stock Cars but Kesan and Danny Richards used their knowledge of the track to keep back the invaders and finish first and second.

Danny and Tommy's brother George won the Pure Stock feature as he is one of the top point getters in WISSOTA Pure Stocks so it was nearly a three brother sweep for the Richards family from Mondovi. By the way, for those that weren't aware, these Richards are all related to the racing Richards that do very well in eastern Wisconsin racing in Grand Nationals and now in Modifieds at tracks like Oshkosh, Beaver Dam and others.

George Seliger won the Hornet feature. What is notable about that is the fact that up until a couple of weeks ago, this car was a regular on the tar tracks of central Wisconsin and in fact, still sported a windshield on this night. No matter, it was a very fast car.

It was a long night for announcers Ben Brost and Steve Parsons as they had a lot of dead air to cover but they did a good job of entertaining the crowd during the "down time." I also thank them for their help with drivers' names for those unfamiliar to me.

One last thing from Friday night. Duval was very anxious for me to see his latest thinking and that is a new class of race car that he is developing. Recognizing that getting new drivers involved in the sport is increasingly hard and that the old starter class, the Pure Stocks, have gotten out of hand price wise as well as being hard to find, he is developing a new class to eventually replace them.

Called the NPS 6 class (New Pure Stocks), the class will be for six cylinder, front wheel drive cars such as intrepids, Concords, Malibus, Luminas etc. He said they are very obtainable and with a spec roll cage that he has been building, the whole car can be built for $1,500. To keep the class affordable, he will be instituting a $1,000 claim on the whole race car plus exchange. Everything goes except the seat and battery on the exchange.

He had his first built car on display and then it was raced with the Pure Stocks later. The Corsica was competitive with the Pure Stocks and his plan is to run them with the Pure Stocks until they have a full field of them built(hopefully some time next Summer) and that in the meantime he will pay both classes and score them separately, even though they  race together. I do think that they will need to find some way to make them louder as the one raced on Friday night was way too quiet to be a race car!

The second half of Duval's special was rained out on Saturday night, just like most events also planned for this bad weather weekend.