Ricky Thornton Jr topped the IMCA Modified feature race on opening night of the annual Spring Nationals at the Beatrice Speedway in Beatrice Nebraska. As usual, it was a huge opening night for this event with other winners including Kyle Vanover in the Stock Cars, Joe Docekal in the Sport Mods and Chanse Hollatz in the Hobby Stocks.
The city of Beatrice may be one of the few cities around that "get it" when it comes to showing community support for a racing event in their town. It was tough to miss the huge blinking signs at the city limits welcoming race fans and teams to their fair city in southeastern Nebraska. Clearly, they realize the economic impact that the drivers, crews and fans bring into the town for this weekend's activities. Some many towns turn a blind eye toward such things so as a visiting fan, it feels nice to see when your economic support is appreciated.
Being one of the first races of the year in the Midwest, driver support for this race is always strong and from a widely varied area. Besides Nebraska, drivers were on hand from Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Texas, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Missouri, Canada and even Alaska among others.
There is always a huge field of cars on hand for this race and the opening night total was one hundred and ninety four race cars. As always, the support divisions provide just as many entrants as the top billed classes but I did think the Modified field, while strong, was considerably smaller than some years. I believe the last time I was at the Spring race in Beatrice the Modified field was pushing one hundred drivers but it wasn't half that this year. The recent rugged weather in the upper Midwest, specifically North Dakota, was mentioned as a possible reason why the car count was down. However, there was still plenty of cars on hand to provide a full night of racing.
I am always tremendously impressed with the high level of organization for this event and how smoothly the race program is administered. I can think of many tracks, that if they had this many cars entered and the pits spread all over the county as they are here at the sprawling fairgrounds, would have a tough time even getting the show started at some point during the evening! Compare that with Beatrice who managed to sign in nearly two hundred cars, run off some brief hot laps, have a driver's meeting and still start within a few scant minutes of the advertised time. And once they got started, it was nonstop racing until the final feature race was completed. They ran off thirty four races and had the whole show done by 11 p.m. Remarkable! Of course, the one spin rule does help keep things moving but the coordinated effort by the track officials and the cooperation of the drivers all help to keep the show moving. It is such a pleasure to see a program run off in such a top notch manner.
As you can imagine, with such big fields of cars, the qualifying events were very intense with several instances of drivers rapping each other in the bumpers following their races as they objected to some of the "slide jobs" and other attempted passing maneuvers. However, all was "fair in love and war" as the twenty four car fields were assembled.
There is always quite a competition here between the local drivers and the visitors to see who comes home with the wins and the weekly racers here jealously work to protect their home turf. However, on this night three of the four feature wins would go to visiting drivers with only track champion Kyle Vanover "holding serve" as he came from the third row to win the Stock Car feature.
I felt the Modified feature was the best main event of the night. After a full evening of racing on the track and no track prep done to the surface, the track was very black and smooth by Modified feature time. Most of the racers in the three previous mains had run the low line and it didn't seem that there would be much top side racing in the Modified main.
However, Thornton Jr is one of those rare drivers with the talent to be able to work the track until he finds a line that will allow him to make passes and he is relentless at doing so. Hunter Marriott took the early lead in the Modified feature and it appeared that he might run away with the event. However, Thornton Jr came from the sixth row to move into second and once he got behind Marriott, he worked all over the track looking for the edge that would get him by. Finally, he was able to adjust his line and get a good run off the banking and driver into the lead. And he had only two yellows to help him get to the front.
But once he made the pass, he pulled away from Marriott for the win. Cayden Carter, who led briefly, held on for third ahead of Jesse Dennis and Jordy Nelson.
Vanover came from the third row to win the Stock Car feature as he was able to get his car handling well on the bottom and he was able to drive under the field to get the win. Jordan Grabouski, who was the first car out of the Modified feature, surprised by also driving in the Stock Cars and he gave it everything he had in an effort to pass Vanover. Grabouski was one of the few trying the top side in the Stock Cars and he pushed it with everything he had but had to settle for second. Cayden Carter also racing in both of the top classes and he made a strong march through the field, coming from nineteenth to third.
Joe Docekal, who moved from the Modifieds back to the Sport Mods a couple of years ago, made his first appearance at Beatrice a winning one as he started on the pole and fought off several challengers throughout the main to win the feature race. He held the low line and while both Jarred Hackler and Johnathon Logue at times appeared faster and were nearly running up the back end of Docekal, they could never figure out quite how to pass Joe.
The second feature to be won right off the pole was executed by Chanse Hollatz as the North Iowa star maintained the low line and didn't give anyone a chance to pass him. There was only a first lap yellow in the Hobby Stocks and then they ran wire to wire and Hallatz displayed a lot of speed as he pulled away from the pack. Taylor Huss finished a strong second with Jesse Vanlaningham in third.
The first night of the weekend doubleheader displayed some good racing but the real stars of the night for me were the track crew, all the workers and promoter Toby Kruse who put on once of the smoothest special events I have seen in quite some time.
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