Night number two for the King of America VIII saw the Modifieds run two rounds of qualifying heats with their total passing points for those two events setting the lineups for Saturday night's ladder of final events. The B Mods, on the other hand, ran their biggest paying event of the weekend on Friday night and it was veteran Randy Zimmerman that rode the high side around "The Hummer" to take the big win.
Not to rub it in to all you folks suffering through a crummy March weekend weather wise, but as I pulled into the parking lot here at Humboldt in the early afternoon, the temperature is seventy three degrees, the sun is shining and the wind is howling out of the South. The USMTS and the Whitworth family have certainly lucked out on the weather to this point this weekend as within a relatively short distance of less than a hundred miles from here, the temperatures are more than thirty degrees cooler and the precipitation has been falling all day. We remain high and dry in our little "bubble" of good weather and while the strong winds remain challenging to the track prep crew, at least we are racing.
Only Austin Bonner and Rick Beebe failed to return in the Modified field and with the addition of drivers Steve Wetzstein, Arne Anderson, Ryan Gustin, Bob Timm, Chase Sigg and Gene Nicholas to the field on Friday, eighty two Modifieds will go through qualifying rounds to try and make the main. This represents a significant increase over the field from 2017 but I have no explanation as to why the numbers have picked up this year as I know of no significant changes that would have positively produced such change.
Two of the late entries in the Modified field, in fact it was the two Minnesota drivers, had stories attached to their entries. Steve Wetzstein announced that he is retiring from the sport and has three race cars and motors, his transporter and trailer all for sale. He started racing in 1990 and has decided that it just is time. Always one to tell it like he sees it, he is not happy with the direction the motor rules are going and feels that recent changes have rendered his engines obsolete and tough for him to even sell. The fact that the Chateau Speedway in southern Minnesota, the track that he has always considered his home track, is closing likely forever, made the decision that much easier. There are mountains of stories about the exploits of Wetzstein during his racing career and he has always been one of the most colorful characters at the track during his time, and his presence at the track will be missed. However, his son will continue his racing career running WISSOTA Midwest Mods again in 2018.
On the other end of the spectrum, Bob Timm returned to the wheel for the first time in two years in the families' second MB car that is used for a back up for son Jake. Bob said that he had always wanted to drive one of those cars and never had the chance so this weekend, with plenty of crew on hand to help prepare things, Bob took the opportunity to get out and race once again. With no practice laps, he took it pretty easy during the first set of heats but by the second go round, he was wading right in their with the field, running door to door. The plan is that on occasion, when the USMTS is at some of the their far flung locations and the fields are smaller that Bob may again jump behind the wheel. However, he won't be able to do the whole tour with son Jake as Bob's business is very busy and with an increasing number of employees to oversee and much responsibility on his shoulders, he must limit his vacations and missed days at work. And his plate is very busy as he is also the "go to" guy for all phases of the operation at his Mississippi Thunder Speedway near Fountain City Wisconsin that he runs that will be opening again the end of April.
There was some missed communications in the chain of command as all press releases indicated that the Modifieds would run three sets of qualifying heats on Friday night but all along, USMTS President Todd Staley had planned for just two sets of heats. However, everyone took the change in stride and with the hard edged attitude that most took toward their qualifying heats, I don't think a lot of the cars would have lasted for one more round of heats!
There was plenty of banging and bumping in the fourteen heats contested and with a dozen cars and twelve laps in each, they were very much like mini feature events and just as important to the drivers. The field seems very well balanced this year and with the level playing field that seems to exist, where drivers started was where they finished, baring miscues or mechanical issues. There weren't very many examples of huge charges through the pack except for a couple of rare instances. There did seem to be about four drivers that were a cut above the field and they included Jake O'Neil, Lucas Schott, Darren Fuqua and R.C. Whitwell and those four drivers will start in the first four positions for the main event Saturday. Others that made the top twelve and are locked in include Josh Angst, Jason Krohn, Johnny and Stormy Scott, Kent Arment, Ricky Thornton Jr, Cody Skytland and Travis Saurer. Minnesota drivers lead the way with four of them in the "big dance" along with three from Arizona while there are only one from Kansas and none from Iowa. I think we might be store for one of the more interesting KoA events in the history of this race on Saturday.
The two best races of the night included two of those cars now qualified as Schott battled with Jake Hartung for one heat race win and then Schott battled with Angst for another in the second round. Schott couldn't pass Hartung but a last corner pass of Angst might have guaranteed him the pole.
The most shocking events of the night on Friday were the disqualifications of Kyle Strickler and Mitch Keeter following heat race action. Strickler was disqualified following a heat race win for some sort of frame issue while the deck height on Keeter's car was too tall following a third place finish in his first round of heats. The deck height issue was the one that tripped up a number of drivers last week in Mississippi where a number of them were also disqualified.
Certainly the two disqualifications sent shock waves through the pits and shook up the possible outcome of this weekend's racing. Strickler appeared to be the fastest car on the grounds following his Thursday night feature win and he will now have to climb through a whole series of preliminaries to even make the main, no small feat in and of itself. I just have to wonder how a car can pass through tech one night and be declared the winner and then not pass just one night later. Of course, some will say that they can't look for all things possibly wrong each night and that is probably true, but it just seems to defy logic how things can change so terribly on a car in just twenty four hours. But of course, teching is and always will be a "black science", even at the highest levels of racing and some things that occur in the tech shed can just leave one scratching your head from time to time.
The DQ for Keeter was just as significant as he has "owned" this race track for the last year or so and is always among the strong favorites to win any race here, as last year's performance in this event clearly indicates. He didn't even bother to race the second round of qualifying and his weekend must be done.
We will see if the tech shed, which has been busy this week with several DQ's on the opening night of action in the B Mods, will have more to say about the outcome of this weekend's racing action or if things now settle down. Stay tuned.
The B Mods had their biggest money of the weekend on the line Friday night and they participated in an interesting twenty five lap main event that saw about a half dozen cars racing in a big group and battling for the lead. Steve Muilenburg was the early leader and he made his car incredibly wide for several laps until J.C. Morton was finally able to squeeze by. Muilenburg would eventually break and drop out of the race.
Morton was under the gun after he took over the lead though as Kris Jackson came storming up from the fifth row to challenge on the low side. In fact, he did make a pass for the lead, only to see it called back by a yellow. On the restart, Morton had trouble on all sides as Jackson was nipping at his heels while Randy Zimmerman went to the outside to challenge. Andy Bryant also moved in while Cody Jolly was flying up from the seventh row to join them and pretty soon we had about six cars battling for the lead.
The race had the makings of a classic except the darn yellow flag kept waving and breaking up the flow of things as it seemed like just when some hard racing would break out, someone would go for a spin and slow things down again. It was frustrating as the yellow waved four times in the course of only three laps.
Finally, some green flag racing broke out and Zimmerman made the outside work as he squeezed past Morton to take over the lead. The pack stayed right with them though and Morton continued to try and drop low and take the lead back. The final yellow set up a three lap sprint to the finish and Zimmerman was able to keep his car straight and true through the corners as he held off the late rush by Morton to take the win. Jackson had to settle for third ahead of a charging Mike Striegel and Jolly.
Zimmerman is a long time veteran of the sport, having raced Late Models for many years before he got into Modified racing and I had to share with the folks I was sitting with that I remembered a race many, many years ago up in Minot North Dakota that paid some huge bucks for the time and Zimmerman showed up with one of the experimental six cylinder Modifieds. Honestly, I don't remember if he won that weekend but he did win a number of those big buck traveling shows that occurred back in "the day."
Many of you know that Modified driver Jason Pursley just races for fun and that his real job is that of an elementary school Principal in Missouri. Jason related to me that he has been working with a devise that he invented that can easily be put on the door of classrooms to safely and quickly bolt the door shut to keep anyone from intruding. It's sad to say that we have to worry about such things but that is the way of the world right now and we have to adapt to it.
Jason's invention is simple, efficient and cost effective too and schools and other public entities all over the country have been calling him to find out about his product. He is looking into getting a patent for the product and may have produced a "cottage industry" for himself that might turn out bigger than he ever could have imagined.
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