The auto racing season opened up in the state of Missouri on Friday night, March 17th with night one of the Memphis Spring Nationals at the Scotland County Speedway just outside of Memphis Missouri. Under the promotion of Mike VanGenderen, a five division program was run on Friday night to mark the opening of the season at Memphis. At has been done in recent years, Memphis will not attempt to run a weekly program but instead will focus on several special events and among them are races that push the envelope at both starting and ending the racing season in the Midwest. Fans are already excited for 2017 with the highlight event likely to be the MLRA race that will be run here later this Summer.
A good field of cars was on hand with just over one hundred signed in to race. Only the Hobby Stocks were short on cars and that seems to be a continuing trend in this area as most will remember that Hobby Stocks were dropped from the program at Donnellson last year and many of the cars that race here at Memphis are also regulars at Donnellson. There were also a number of drivers from farther away that showed up to get some of their early season racing fix satisfied. From the farthest distance was likely the Stock Car driven on this night by Kyle Frederick from the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin. He was driving the house car of "The General", Troy Jerovetz, a car that was housed for a month earlier this year in Arizona with Frederick flying down to race it. He told me that they had driven in quite a bit of snow on the way to the races on Friday, but fortunately, all of that precipitation stayed to the North of Memphis. Frederick would later record a top ten finish in the Stock Car feature.
The day of racing started off early with an open practice session slated from 2-4 pm that helped pack in the track while raising quite a bit of dust at the same time. About forty cars took advantage of the opportunity to arrive early and get some practice laps. After that, the track crew scrapped off the rubber, packed and rewatered the track and racing began around 7:45 pm. For the opening night, the track stayed in good condition with it being smooth and while it took awhile, eventually the groove widened out and the racing got better as the evening progressed. While the racing got better, we were also reminded that it wasn't quite balmy out yet as a strong wind picked up out of the Northwest and blew a ton, causing the evening to get quite cool before the final checkered flag waved.
The highlight of the racing action was the Modified feature which was a dandy. Cayden Carter started in the front row but lost the lead to a "slider" from Hunter Marriott. Carter then caught back up to Marriott and the race was one as the two leaders pulled away from the pack and fought their own battle. There were plenty of lapped cars to deal with and that produced the best racing as the two leaders weaved through the traffic while Carter at the same time tried to size up Marriott for an opening to take the lead.
There was some hair raising action as the top two knifed through the backmarkers. Near the end, Carter took his best shot, getting beside Marriott but Hunter made a great move to dive low on the track and get a good run to the finish for the win. Austin Luellen, Kurt Kile and Kelly Shryock had their own battle for third.
It was a good night for the Carter family as Cayden also finished in third in the Stock Cars as well as earning the runner up honors in the Modifieds. Also, brother Brayden led all the way to win the Sport Mod main event. Tyler Sopped tried his best but there was no catching Carter in the main.
I was expecting fireworks in the Stock Car feature as a solid field of cars was on hand and a big battle in the main was in the cards. So it was quite surprising that once Jeff Mueller got the lead, he led from start to finish. The Stock Cars utilized the high groove and kind of got in line, with Mike Hughes tailgating Mueller all the way while Carter got freight trained right at the start from the pole to third. The top three stayed close together but no one was able to offer a serious challenge. I thought Hughes might make a banzai on the last lap but he settled in behind Mueller and rode home second.
While the Hobby Stocks had the smallest field of cars by far, their main was quite interesting and also provided by far the wildest moment of the night. While the rest of the night went quite smooth with no big wrecks, the Hobby feature produced a violent flip on the back chute with just a couple of laps remaining. Damon Murty was driving Bill Bonnett's car on this night and had led from the start of the event. Augie Bach was running a solid second but as the laps ran down, Murty seemed to be getting slower and slower on the chutes. It sounded like some sort of a motor issue which was confirmed when the car continued to pop as it headed for victory lane.
Anyway, Bach moved in to challenge and was really pushing as he went for the lead. However, he got too high leaving turn two and clobbered the back stretch rail which sent him flying and he barrel rolled several times. The car was quite torn up and Bach had his cage rattled by the hard tumble. And what an awful way to start a racing season by tearing your brand new equipment all up.
Murty was able to block the fast groove for the two lap finish and he held off Scott Shull and Mike Kinkaid for the win.
A big field of Sport Compacts ran off a nice and orderly feature race with just a couple of yellow flags. Josh Barnes came from the second row to take the lead early and he pulled away from Brandon Reu and Luke Benischek for the win.
Before the races, Mike VanGenderen expressed a bit of concern over what the field of cars might be, given that it is very early in the season and many of his regular competitors are still not ready for the season. However, the car count turned out to be more than acceptable and the racing was more than satisfactory.
A couple of the drivers expected to be strong contenders in their divisions were eliminated when both Michael Long and Austen Becerra were done after hot laps when both had major motor issues and loaded up early.
An interesting side bar to this race is an unusual factor that Van Genderen was allowing for this weekend. Any driver, for a small fee, could take a "mulligan" and redraw if they pulled a really bad number. It was allowed only once for the weekend and I didn't hear how many, if any, drivers took advantage of the opportunity.
It was really brought home to me how much sooner Spring comes to this country that to us back up North. As we watched farm machinery and anhydrous ammonia tanks going up and down the highway as the races commenced, I guarantee you that no one is thinking about getting in our fields yet!
The track was a little wet for the start of the program and took some extra packing to get in race shape. That, and the big wreck with Bach that took some time, made the show run just a little bit late, especially considering how much it cooled off. However, the racing itself was nonstop with one race quickly followed by another and for opening night, everything else went pretty smooth. The crowd also was pretty good for a March opener, leading to optimistic hopes for the 2017 season.
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