Friday night, March 2nd brought second round qualifying for the B Mods at the Humboldt Speedway for the Battle at the Bullring IV along with another full show of NASCAR sanctioned Modifieds. For the B Mods, it was their final opportunities to improve their point standings through two more rounds of heat races as everyone tries to advance as high on the ladder as possible before the big money gets distributed on Saturday night. The Modifieds are trying to get more laps as they tune up for the King of the Dirt coming in two weeks to "The Hummer" while the local and weekly racers try to get a head start in the point standings as they look to become NASCAR champions both here and at the Salina Highbanks Speedway which is also a NASCAR track.
The attrition rate was apparently quite low during night one of qualifying on Thursday night as only four B Mods failed to return which meant that one hundred and thirteen of them would take a green flag Friday night in one of twelve heat races. Then they would reshuffle the deck and another dozen heats would be held with the total points of the four sets of heats determining the positioning of Saturday night's races.
Several Modifieds did not return but there were other new ones on hand to replace them and the number actually increased by one to forty two Modifieds, split into five heats, a couple of B Features and a twenty lap main event as they raced for a grand top prize.
Most notable additions in the Modified field were the entries of Zach VanderBeek and Late Model standout Jesse Stovall. Zach opted for Kansas when the weather cut deeply into the planned weekend of USMTS racing down there while Stovall was looking to get laps on a Modified as he preps for some upcoming big shows.
Slow and steady marked the path of VanderBeek as he had to qualify for the main through a B Feature but then he drove all the way up to fourth at the finish of the main event.
Stovall was much more spectacular but his evening was short lived. Driving an aggressive line on the track, as he has often done, he was very fast in his Modified heat, that is however, until he drove straight into the turn one wall when the car failed to turn. Hitting the wall with severe force, he rolled to a halt in turn one. The contact was indeed heavy enough to badly damage his car and Stovall, his "bell rung", took a few minutes before easing out of the cockpit. Needless to say, his evening was done very early.
An update on the two B Mods that were DQ'd Thursday night and lost high finishes because of that. Both Austin Ellis and Tony Bahr, two drivers by the way that I see race weekly back in Wisconsin, had been doing work on their cars before the race program on Thursday and somehow, both cars had the chips on their "rev box" set wrong and when they were checked, both were about two hundred revs high for the rules. Neither disputed the findings and both agreed that it was just a "mess up" in the pits before they started racing. Both later did well on both Thursday and Friday night in the following heat races as they proved that their cars were fast even when legal. However, both were crushed by their mistakes and despite each having three solid finishes in other heats, the lost points from their one bad heat will bury they in the qualifying order for Saturday's finale and both will have to pass a bunch of cars to make the main.
Everyone in the B Mod class was doing a lot of point watching and trying to calculate how things might break down by the end of the night on Friday. Many were analyzing their heat races and others to see where the competition was starting and who each were racing against in their respective heats. Of the top twelve in points, by the end of the night many of them had solid runs again on Friday and were likely locked into the top twelve and guaranteed feature starting positions. Some near the bottom of the top group didn't do so well such as Cole Campbell, Roy Long, Randy Zimmerman and Matt Dotson who crashed out of a heat. The reason I'm speculating and not giving hard facts at this point as to this moment, when I'm typing this, the final points have not been posted to my knowledge so I really don't know which drivers will be sitting in the top twelve.
Three that likely will include Dustin Daniels, Cody Jolly and Kale Westover. All three won their opening round heats on Friday night and sat in the position of breaking the record for this event if they could sweep the fourth heat race win and take all four that they entered. However, the competition proved tough and none was able to get that fourth heat win so the record will stand as it is.
Whoever does make the big show, it will be a war of attrition as fifty laps is a very long distance for the drivers in this class, using to racing twenty lap events and seldom running races longer than that distance. Those that show patience and save their cars will likely be there at the end after everyone settles in a few drivers get "weeded out."
As far as the Modifieds in their main event on Friday night, only two minor yellows slowed the event and Fuqua, who came right off the pole, drove away from the field to score an easy win. He was never challenged during the race and following the two yellows, pulled away both times. He was debuting a brand new MB Customs car and it obviously was strong for him right out of the box.
For the second straight night, the show was put on by Mitch Keeter who once again didn't race that well in his heat and had to run a B Feature.
However, from that point he was a rocket ship as he started thirteenth in the main event and raced up through the field, passing on both the high and low side of the track. His car showed amazing speed in the corners and he was able to gain several car lengths on the rest of the pack in each turn. When the high side was blocked, he was able to dive low and slide up past cars to gain more positions. He edged past Tanner Mullins right at the line to steal second spot and if the race had been a thirty lap main, Fuqua would have had his hands full.
Showing good speed for the second straight was Mullins with another solid run while last night's winner Terry Schultz also grabbed a top five with Dan Ebert right behind him.
Once again the track was in prime shape with it being black and slick from top to bottom, smooth and the drivers were able to use the whole track. And all this was done once again without seeing any track prep work done. The schedule for Saturday shows the possibility of a break for "farming" but with the lesser amount of races on Saturday night, I think every driver in the pits would just as soon see them leave the track alone. rather than dig it up and turn it into a "speedfest" , rather than a driver's track which is what it has been the last two nights.
The evening concluded with a Race of States event for the B Mods and it was a very nice touch to see the drivers carrying the flag of their home states and they formed up for the race. Kris Jackson represented Missouri well as he started on the pole and ran away with the race but Michael Truscott represented the "Cheeseheads" well, coming from tenth to finish second and getting the "Hard Charger" award.
Every year it seems like the Whitworth family makes improvements to "The Hummer." This Spring the addition was another set of bleachers added on to the grandstand coming out of turn four. The nice thing is that the grandstand is fully enclosed from the back and I'm told the plan is to eventually enclose the backs of the entire grandstand. Since it's nothing if not windy constantly in Kansas in the Spring, that will be a very nice addition to cut down the winds the do on occasion howl through the stands. And the hot rumor circulating through the stands is that in 2019 "The Hummer" will host both a World of Outlaws Late Model and Sprint race, one reason that the Whitworths are working to increase their attendance capacity.
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