The Sunshine State Mod Tour wrapped up its tour on Saturday, February 12th with the seventy five lap, five grand to win finale event at East Bay Raceway Park and it was a dandy with East Bay regular Jeff Mathews edging out Kevin Adams by less than a car length in an outstanding main event. David Reutimann also edged Adams to win his second straight B Mod feature in the final event for that division also.
Forty seven Modifieds signed in for the final night of the four evening series at East Bay, which has been contested in spectacular Florida weather. The racers that have been on hand all four nights were rewarded on Saturday, with the top six in points for the three nights so far at East Bay automatically moving into the main event and the five heat races started straight up, staggered by points accumulated so far this week. Those that chose not to run all four nights or to show up only later in the week when the purse money went up had to work a little harder to make the main. Those that didn't qualify out of the heats had one last show in the two B features with twenty four cars plus a past champions provisional and the highest point driver not making the show also receiving a starting berth. Twenty five cars actually took the green flag in the main with Kyle Strickler mysteriously missing at the start. The driver who tore up the series early on had to qualify through a B, winning one of the events, but then failed to show on the track for the lineup for the feature.
The show was moved along at a good pace Saturday and series officials avoided the temptation of dragging things out by eliminating the driver introductions that bog down many a show by sending out the starting field as soon as the B Mods were done. They introduced the top six in points and did their draw for the starting positions on the front chute and that was enough to satisfy the crowd as far as meeting the drivers up close and personal.
Unlike Friday night when the track rubbered up early, eliminating much racing and tearing up tires, the track was totally different on Saturday. At least twice during the show when it appeared that it might dry up and the groove might start to narrow up, suddenly the surface took on an almost slimy appearance and the cars were once again all over the track. I would assume that this was the result of some different track prep and the famous tides that affect the racing surface here at East Bay. It's always hard to tell here just exactly what the track prep strategy is as all the work is done very early in the day and by race afternoon the most that you might see on the track is perhaps the water truck briefly or some heavy equipment rolling the track. Once the first race car hits the track, the only track prep you might see is some trucks rolling in the cushion between events. In any event, the track was excellent for the seventy five lap feature and saw cars racing all over the track. At the thirty five lap fuel stop, the only cars that changed tires were a couple that were way in the back and probably thought they had nothing to lose by doing so. None of the drivers anywhere toward the front changed tires, indicating that the tire issues of Friday were not cropping up.
It turned out to be a wonderful week for local driver Jeff Mathews who after a poor run on Wednesday made the bold move to buy a crate motor, put on the big spoiler and try to improve his performance. No doubt influenced by Strickler's impressive runs in the crate, Mathews became an instant threat with the new motor combination. Sharp eyed readers no doubt caught my gaffe in yesterday's report as Mathews in indeed running a new chassis from David Stremme but they are called Lethal chassis, an error now corrected.
The seventy five lapper itself was an excellent race with Mathews working his way into the lead and moving out to a sizable advantage of nearly a straightaway in the early going. Adams worked his way up from fifth starting spot to move past Kenny Wallace into second just before the fuel break.
Yellow flags, while they were few, were huge points in the race on two occasions. After the race resumed following the fuel stop, Adams moved to the cushion and blew past Mathews into the lead. He then built up a significant advantage which was trimmed when he got hung up in traffic and Mathews closed on him. Another yellow with fifteen laps to go swung the tide again as Mathews made a charge to drive under Adams and retake the lead. Jeff then opened up some ground on Adams, but Kevin again started to cut into the lead.
With just a couple of laps left, Adams had closed to the rear of Mathews but a couple of lapped cars forced him to run a slightly different line that might have been the deciding factor at the finish. Adams did make a charge off the final corner, dropping low and trying to sneak under Mathews but he came up a half car length short in what was a very entertaining event and much more competitive than I might have imagined, going into the long distance finale.
Mike VanGenderen straighten out his program immensely on the final night as the defending champion started eleventh and finished a strong third. Still, he couldn't completely avoid the erratic nature of his new car as he triggered a multi car pileup on lap thirty when his car inexplicably took a right turn in turn two. However, VanGenderen was able to keep moving and he avoided having to go to the tail of the field.
Ray Bollinger had a nice run also with a fourth place finish, despite the side of the car being all bashed in following a collision. Bollinger's week has been a tough one with his own car sidelined early when he ran out of motors with the time following being spent trying to chase down the set up in Lucas Lee's back up car that saved him from heading home early back to Illinois. Kenny Wallace had another consistent run and I have to give a "shout out" to a couple of other drivers that picked up their game on championship night.
Curt Myers is a veteran driver who has raced in multiple divisions in WISSOTA racing and is the two time defending Super Stock national champion but after not having raced a Modified for five years, he decided to get back into that class for 2017. He has been struggling a bit so far this week but Saturday he showed that he is getting things back up to speed as he first managed to qualify for the main and then nailed down a top ten finish.
Chad Williamson drives Late Models back in his native South Dakota but for this series he caught a ride in the back up car of another South Dakota native, Dennis Haven. They have been struggling all week to find speed in their cars but Saturday he looked much better, not only making the main but just missing a top ten finish for the budget operation that Haven fields.
Other than the competition yellow, there were only four other yellow flags in the seventy five lapper, eleven cars finished on the lead lap and seven failed to go the distance it what was overall a very smooth main event.
Reutimann started on the pole for the B Mod feature and led all the way. Adams used a late restart to try and slingshot past David, and he got up beside him but couldn't quite complete the pass. Adams was using a wounded motor the last two nights and that, plus the edit that saw him forced to remove his spoiler, made Reutimann's crate the car to beat. For those that were screaming that Adams was using an "over the top car", his motor was a WISSOTA legal, 9.5 to 1 flat top , B Mod motor using a four barrel intake and carburetor for this series, all of which were perfectly legal. But with some of the radical stuff some others were trying to use in the B Mods, those rules will certainly have to be cleaned up before next year's event.
It was a very tough night for local racer Bill Howard who blew up the motor in his primary car in his heat race. He came out with a back up car for a B feature and promptly got that car in a big wreck and he limped back to the pits with much work to be done if he plans on participating in any more Speedweeks events.
Adams claimed the point titles in both classes for the Sunshine State Mod Tour and while he has always run well in these events, this was by far his most successful and consistent year in Florida. His switch back to Shaw chassis late last year seems to have been a wise one to this point.
A very good crowd was on hand for the Modified finale on Saturday night and they seemed pleased with what they had seen as the program was entertaining and moved along at a nice pace. It would seem that the Sunshine State Mod Tour has found itself a home among the many racing activities that are going on in Florida this month and looks solid for the future.
Thanks to everyone at East Bay Raceway Park for their help as the Modified portion of their month long racing extravaganza wraps up.
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