The Battle at the Bullring started Thursday night, March 9th at the Humboldt Speedway in Humboldt Kansas. Probably better known as "The Hummer", this track is hosting their third annual special for the B Mods(or whatever name your sanctioning body hangs on this class). Paying eight grand to win, this is one of the highest paying open wheel support class events going and while other tracks have tried to put together a similar show, most of the others have failed while Humboldt's event continued to be strong and grow. This year they put a cap on the entries and at race time, one hundred and eighteen B Mods were in the pits to race. In a shocking development, one of the strongest local entries and a weekly competitor at the track, Tyler Kidwell, was disqualified in pre race tech when the crate motor that they had recently purchased was found to have altered seals on it and the tech officials ruled out the car. With no other motor available to them, Kidwell was forced to withdraw from the action and just watch.
Drivers from the USRA, IMCA and WISSOTA sanctioning bodies were all in attendance and the number of states represented was stunning. Once again I have to beat my chest slightly and give a "shout out" to the WISSOTA drivers, many of which I see weekly or often racing at home, that again prove that they are among the best travelers in the entire county. Well over twenty five per cent of the field of B Mods racing here are from my region and walking through the pits, it almost felt like I was at one of my local tracks with a number of cars on hand that I see on a weekly basis, all the way down here in Southeastern Kansas. WISSOTA drivers were on hand from Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and three that pulled all the way from Canada! In fact, one of them, from Winkler Manitoba with Rick Fehr driving and Modified driver James Wall serving as crew chief this weekend, almost didn't make it. They lost a wheel off their tow vehicle somewhere South of Fargo North Dakota and they had to get towed back to Fargo. Fixing the truck in a windy and snowy parking lot, they made Humboldt with a couple of hours to spare. There is nothing that can stop a determined racer from getting to the track it seems.
Along with the B Mods, who are running double heats Thursday and Friday and then tallying up the points to determine Saturday's finales, the track is also running a full show of USRA rules but now sanctioned by NASCAR Modifieds each night. This was a big off season move by Humboldt to switch their sanctioning to NASCAR from USRA but as NASCAR allows for its short tracks, the track may run under whatever rules package they desire. So while the Mods are still using USRA rules and running American Racer tires, the drivers have to purchase a NASCAR license but then they get the benefits of that body, which I must confess I'm not clear on what they are at this point. There was some talk about the sanction change in the pits but I'm sure there will be much more when Humboldt's regular season starts next week.
Even though they were racing for only eight hundred bucks to win the Modified feature, a strong field of forty Mods was on hand. Again I must brag up the WISSOTA contingent on hand as a nearly forty per cent of the Modifieds on hand were from my region, many getting their first action of 2017 and many also looking to tune up for the "King of American" race upcoming in two weeks here at "The Hummer".
The weather has been very changeable lately and Thursday was a good indication of that. The day dawned sunny but within a few hours the grumbling of a thunderstorm rolled over the speedway. While they had some rain, fortunately the downpour endured by nearby Iola didn't happen at the track or otherwise we might have been sitting in a motel room on this night. The sun came back out, it got hot and sticky and was followed by lightning flashes much of the evening, fortunately from storms headed away from us. Then the winds changed to the North, the temperatures plunged and after being in shirtsleeves all afternoon, it was time to break out the heavy clothes. The weather the rest of the weekend sounds equally shaky.
After Wednesday night practice saw the track slick and hard from top to bottom, a condition not unusual at Humboldt, the rain in the morning and cooling temperatures made the track quite slimy as racing started. The fact that only the Modifieds hot lapped probably had something to do with that also. In any event, lots of drivers were surprised by the track conditions and some of the favorites had a rough time of it in the opening go round.
A surprise to me was the strong performance by the IMCA Southern Sport Mods. In my previous experiences, I had never seen them run that strong before when pared up with other sanctioning bodies but they had a number of heat race winners and other strong finishes by drivers such as Travis Johnson, Cody Smith, Kale Westover and Brandon Kenny. The Isaacs brothers also each won a heat while defending WISSOTA national champion Jeremy Nelson and defending event winner Sketter Estey also won heats in the second go round.
However, the best overall runs of the night were completed by Missouri veteran Stephen Muilenburg. And he did it at a distinct disadvantage. He brought a new car for practice on Wednesday night but blew up the motor. So he rolled out his well used back up car and promptly went out and won both his heat races, the only driver to do so.
There were two heat winners disqualified for issues involving the "chips" on their engines and one certainly can't accuse the track of being biased when Riley Whitworth, of the family that owns the track, was one of those disqualified.
In the Modified division, the story on Thursday was the visiting drivers, who dominated the action. Josh Angst from Minnesota swept past another Minnesota driver in Kelly Estey to take the early lead and then pull away in the main event. Jake Timm, yet another Minnesota driver, moved into third and then took the runner up slot. Angst had built up nearly a straightaway lead when he suddenly slowed with mechanical issues and pulled into the infield, giving Timm the top spot.
With not many laps left, Timm cruised home for the win, although things got a little tight at the end as Jake struggled with lapped traffic. The finest run of the night was put on by Missouri's Mitch Keeter, who has forsaken his number #52 for a plain number #1 in 2017. Keeter started tenth and quickly went to the front. Other than Angst, he appeared to be the fastest car on the track as he moved into second and cut into Timm's lead considerably at the end. Estey finished up third in his new SSR chassis with Darren Fuqua and Cody Schniepp completing the top five.
Timm accomplished his win with a brand new car that was seeing its first track time, having just been picked up from Jimmy Mars shop on Tuesday of this week. Angst was also running an MB Customs chassis that was very fast also.
For such a big event with so many entrants and many not being familiar with running at "The Hummer", I was impressed how smoothly the show went. They actually managed to start ahead of the posted time and other than a delay when they decided to infuse the Modified B features in the middle of the second round of B Mod heats, there was absolutely no delays in the program whatsoever. All racing was completed by eleven and there were many laps of racing put on the track on this night. Hopefully, this smooth operation continues on the upcoming nights when the weather will likely be even more unpleasant.
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