On Monday night, August 5th I attended the Arnie Ranta sponsored, first half of the Open Late Model doubleheader that was held at the Farley Speedway in Farley Iowa. This was a ten grand to win show for the open motored cars of the Midwest with IMCA sanctioned Modifieds and Sport Mods also participating.
This show was a bit confusing to identify as it had more sanctioning bodies involved with it before the first green flag flew than flies at the county fair. It started out being a MARS race but when MARS couldn't produce a field of cars that justified what they were charging, the Farley Speedway folks and MARS split. Farley stated that MARS was too expensive for what they were offering while MARS take was that the race was cancelled. This, of course, wasn't the case and much "mud" was tossed back and forth between the two parties over this bit of subterfuge.
The Corn Belt Clash was also a sanctioning partner for this race and while Corn Belt head Cam Granger and his trailer were on hand to help administer the event, about the only true Corn Belt Late Model on hand was that of Mike Fryer.
UMP was a late addition to the sanctioning party but I saw no presence of them on hand other than Jerry Mackey stating it was a UMP sanctioned race and the only true Late Model on hand with UMP ties was Rusty Schlenk.
Therefore, most of the Late Models on hand were drivers with Iowa ties or "big names" that had been contacted by the Farley Speedway Promotions group. Just like Keith Simmons before them, they went to Cedar Lake and begged, cajoled, pleaded with and in some cases, bought off some of the Late Model drivers to pull down to the northeast corner of Iowa and race on their off night. And just like most years, a half dozen or so of those that promised to attend backed out in the last twenty four hours and left the promoters holding the proverbial bag. Nineteen Late Models answered the call to race which was very similar to the numbers that had been marshaled in recent years. And it should be noted that also, like most years, a very good crowd was on hand and I heard not a single discouraging word about the car count.
The truth is that there is a huge interest in Late Model racing in this part of this state and they have a hunger to see these kinds of cars race. It seems to me that the simplest way to solve this problem is to just go ahead and book a series event, whether it be Lucas Oil or the Outlaws, which ever or perhaps both if they can be obtained. That way, you are at least guaranteed that the top ten or twelve in series points will have to be on hand and it would certainly save a lot of guesswork for the promoters. But there must be some reason that this hasn't been done years ago because it seems like such a simple solution to the problem.
Of the non Iowa drivers, I would assume that Scott Bloomquist, Shane Clanton, Mike Marlar and Rodney Sanders would be the professionals that most of the fans would want to see. However, along with Bloomquist, the driver that for sure turned out the crowd was the appearance of Brian Birkhofer.
Birky still maintains an almost "God Like" quality among the Iowa race fans and for the promotion group to offer him a car to drive and get him to both shows was a brilliant stroke of promoting genius. And it worked as the fans turned out in droves and the driver most wanted to see, even above the controversial Bloomquist, was Birky.
Driving a car owned by Jason Rauen with a recent wrap for Birky, Brian turned the fast lap of the night and it looked like the script was falling in place. Unfortunately, after that things went down hill fast as he drew a "three" on the invert and after not being able to move up in his heat, he started ninth in the main and was the first car out with mechanical issues. However, I'm sure they'll get the car fixed for West Liberty where Birky will be even closer to his home base and with more nice weather promised, I would guess a huge crowd will be on hand to see him run.
Bloomquist, despite being one of the advertised drivers on hand for the performance, maintained a very low profile on this night. Except for a few words for Rick Eschelman as the drivers were introduced for the feature, he had nothing else to say as I'm surprised that a special interview with him was not arranged. Seems to me that they didn't truly get their "money's worth" out of him but then again, who knows how many people showed up just to see him race. That is a tough figure to calculate.
Bloomquist started on the pole for the main event and normally, that would be "lights out" for the rest of the field but that wasn't the case on this night as Bloomquist has been having a tough time of it lately. In fact, I'm told that much of the day following the U.S.A. Nationals in Cedar Lake was spent in testing after a disappointing performance there.
He did take the lead and led through the first fifteen laps but Marlar quickly cut into his lead and was "dogging" him for several laps. Following a restart, he slid high in turn four and Marlar drove under him to take over the lead, a lead he would maintain the rest of the way. Diercks also got by "Bloomer" and drove a steady race in second. Late in the contest Bloomquist was able to get back in second but as he tried to make a late race charge, he got a flat tire which triggered the last yellow with only three laps to go.
There were a plethora of flat tires as apparently rocks and the sandy racing surface just eat up the Hoosiers that they use for open motor racing. Marlar pulled away in the last few laps for an apparent win, but wait a minute. In this wild and crazy world of dirt track racing, you never just know what might happen.
Marlar's crew quickly pushed him over the scale and toward victory lane but officials quickly flagged down the car and redirected it back to the scales. This time the process didn't go so smoothly as the car sat and sat on the scales as officials and crew members swarmed the car. Marlar had a stern look on his face that didn't bode well and finally it was announced that he had weighed in light and Diercks had taken his first big victory. I was probably not the way that Spencer envisioned getting his first big open motor win, but a win is a win nevertheless.
Later, published reports indicated that the car weighed in thirty pounds light and that Marlar's pit crew, figuring a "burn off" weight amount would be allowed and calculated that in their strategy. They were late in arriving and missed the driver's meeting, at which time it was announced that there would be no "burn off" amount for this event! I guess it does pay to attend those driver's meeting even though most seem meaningless.
The Modifieds had a very solid field of cars on hand and they performed in an entertaining twenty five lap main event that went nonstop. Even though Mark Schulte led all the way, it was anything but a boring race as he was constantly challenged for the lead while there was much advancing of positions behind him and drivers racing all over the track, something that the Late Models did not show later.
Most interesting was the charge of Matt Ganson who was running the top side of the track. He closed on Schulte near the end of the race and it looked like he might be able to make the winning pass, but just then they hit lapped traffic which proved to be a "bear" for him and he ended up falling all the way back to fifth at the finish as J.D. Auringer marched through the pack from ninth for second and Wisconsin driver Mike Mashl finished third.
As good as the Modified feature was, that's how bad the Sport Mod feature was. Even though he started fifth in the small field, Tyler Soppe raced into the lead within a couple laps and then he rapidly disappeared from the field. The last nineteen laps ran off nonstop and at the end there were only three cars on the lead lap as the race bore more of the appearance of a hot lap session rather than a main event.
Most of you have already been to Farley this year so I won't bore you with all the details of the renovation but needless to say, the place looks entirely different than the last time I was there. From the new wall to the new pit area, from the extensive renovations seen almost everywhere on the grounds to the new scoreboard, it indeed is a new Farley Speedway from what I remember. Now it would appear the next thing that needs examination, at least for these long distance Late Model races, is the track surface itself.
The lines for the concessions were horribly long and indeed, just buying a ticket Monday required quite a considerable wait so those are all things that might need to be reexamined and perhaps modified for their next big event but overall they had to be very happy with their first effort. A speedily run program overcame a late start, precipitated somewhat by a delay caused by a highway accident nearly but truly more due to the result of the dreaded time trials, an unpleasant by product of open motor racing.
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