The USMTS Modifieds took over the Ogilvie Raceway near Ogilvie Minnesota on Wednesday, June 14th along with unsanctioned B Modifieds for a makeup show from a previous rain out almost four weeks ago. There was not a lot of excitement among the Modified drivers for this event, as it was an "ad on" to their schedule and coming just before the fifty thousand dollar to win weekend, many would have just as soon taken the night off to tighten up their equipment and prepare for the important weekend ahead.
This was reflected in the fact that USMTS regulars such as Cade Dillard, R.C. Whitwell, Adam kates, Tyler Wolff, Mike Densberger and several others were conspicuous by their absence. Still, there were enough local and regional racers ready to race to make the field of twenty nine acceptable to the fans.
Along with the USMTS cars, the unsanctioned B Modifieds were also in action with a three thousand and one dollar top prize awaiting them. The composition of this field is and interesting one and I'll get to that later.
First, an update on last night's event at Mississippi Thunder Speedway. Track owner Bob Timm was on hand on Wednesday night to help his son Jake who was racing his Modified and he was available to speak briefly, something that he wasn't able to do on Tuesday.
The Timm Racing Team was tired, having put in a long day on Tuesday and then heading out directly for Ogilvie as soon as they got things buttoned up at MTS. Bob said he only got about four hours of sleep and most of that came after they arrived Wednesday morning in Ogilvie.
Bob stated that the entire purse of his event Tuesday was paid for by his sponsor for that night, Miller Ingenuity. They are a very civic minded business in Winona MN and with the combination of the community based Steamboat Days celebration plus the fact that it was Breast-Fest at the speedway(a breast cancer fund raiser for those of you thinking dirty thoughts), Miller Ingenuity was all for sponsoring the event to the extent that they did. Bob also tipped that he worked for Miller while he was going to high school so he knew the business well.
They paid the entire fifteen thousand dollar plus purse so he could afford to only charge five bucks or the Steamboat Days button as admission. That being said, Timm was very disappointed in both the fan turnout and the car count for this show.
With only forty seven cars racing in the three main classes, he called the drivers "sketchy" this year in that it's almost impossible to know how many cars are going to be on hand for any event and that traveling to races seems to be way down.
He was also disappointed in the small crowd, given the amount of local advertising the Steamboat Days tie in with the race received in both print and on the radio. We both agreed that the blistering hot conditions likely had a part in the small crowd but he still felt that there should have been more people on hand then there were.
So, the Timm Racing Team went into Wednesday night on a bit of a "downer" but that was soon to be changed around dramatically. About five hours or so after we spoke, they were wildly celebrating their first ever USMTS feature win when Jake Timm got past Jason Hughes in lapped traffic with just a few laps to go to get his monumental win.
The Modified forty lap main event went nonstop and with Hughes redrawing the front row, the decision on who would win seemed obvious. However, while Hughes took the early lead, he wasn't able to run away from the pack like I anticipated and Jacob Bleess and Timm were able to stay within striking distance.
As the race moved into its later stages, lapped traffic became a concern as Hughes was finding himself getting slowed up in the traffic and Timm caught him with Zach VanderBeek also catching the leader.
One particular car, due to be lapped, just would not move over and he was just fast enough that Hughes couldn't get by him. Unable to get a nose under the lapped car, Hughes didn't appear good enough to drive around the lapper, or perhaps the track was starting to take rubber and the low groove was just too good to leave.
In any event, Hughes was stymied, and when he slipped up the track just once, Timm was right there to take over the lead and when Hughes then tried to go high around the lapped car and repass for the point, he gave up second to VanderBeek too.
Timm drove on to the somewhat surprising win, surprising because Hughes simply doesn't give up the lead like that very often. He wasn't particularly jovial when interviewed, but one can understand his frustration. I, myself too hate to see a driver loose a win because the backmarkers can't figure out that they shouldn't be hogging the groove on a lead pack racing for the win, but the reality is that sometimes it happens.
However, Timm had a very good car at the end and his did exactly what he needed to do to get the win without roughing the leader either. In a short few years, Jake has come a long way as a driver and with his father supplying him with top notch equipment, he is a threat every night. By the way, to this point, I don't think Bob has raced at all this year and is he really retired or just waiting to get a second team car on the track?
Forty three B Mods signed in to race for the $3,001 dollar top prize in their class. While only one car in the field wasn't a WISSOTA sanctioned car, the race was run unsanctioned for one reason only. Chubbs Performance, who was the sponsor of the event, wanted to restrict the drivers that could participate in this event to Midwest Mod or B Mod drivers only. They didn't want any part time or full time Late Model or Modified or even Super Stock drivers coming in and taking the top prize which they wanted to see a limited Mod driver win.
If the race was sanctioned, likely by WISSOTA since this is a normal WISSOTA track, then they couldn't issue these kind of restrictions under the rules of WISSOTA so they had to run it unsanctioned to do this. Several drivers were denied entry due to their current or previous racing experience and likely, for the amount of money that the drivers were racing for, a sanctioned event would have drawn a bigger field but the sponsor was adamant on their feelings.
The B Mod feature didn't go quite as smooth as the USMTS race, with four yellows and one red for a flipping car on a restart. Coming from the third starting position, young Eric Lamm, the grandson of chassis builder Dave Jones, was the winner over Mitch Weiss and Travis Schulte. Weiss, a top notch MidMod driver in his own right, was driving the car of Jason VandeKamp on this night as VandeKamp was illegal to race, having also raced a Modified from time to time. Weiss had never been in the car before but did a fine job finishing second.
Lamm is in only his third year of racing but he has inherited the Jones family skills and is a star in the making. Speaking of the Jones family, legendary Modified driver Ron Jones was on hand to watch his son Corey, a young open wheel driver who has shown marked improvement this year, race Wednesday too and I got to talk to Ron for a few minutes. Corey had bad luck Wednesday when a flat tire took him out of the main early.
Speaking of the ups and downs of racing, Ben Moudry, the winner of a grand on Tuesday at MTS, was the lone USRA entrant on Wednesday night, and seemed to be riding high after his big win on Tuesday. However, with the quirks of racing, on Wednesday he got a flat tire right off the bat in his heat, and failed to make the main from a B feature. That's just some of the highs and lows in this often frustrating sport.
Thanks to Nate Fischer, promoter at the "Big O" along with the Wagamon family that own the track and Todd Staley and everyone else with the USMTS for a good night of racing.
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