Sunday night, April 22nd, the regular season opener was held at the Benton County Speedway in Vinton. Having just ran their Frostbuster a week ago Thursday, the track was idle last week with Sunday night starting off the point season at the black dirt quarter mile oval on Vinton's South side. And it would be a night be fitting the tight little bullring with lots of close finishes, a few spectacular wrecks and at least two of the feature events resulting in more than a few hard feelings, something that will have to monitored as the season progresses.
You would never have known that it was just the opener and it was only April, the way the drivers tore into each other, giving no quarter and asking for none in return except for the opportunity to lay a bumper on each other when the moment was right.
By my count, there were ninety four cars that signed in for the five IMCA sanctioned classes at the track with no B Features required but a couple of fully stacked main events. Once again Don Burkey had the track in fine shape, although it was considerably drier than for the Frostbuster and gave the drivers quite a different look. While the technique to get around the track quickly was somewhat different than for the Frostbuster, there was plenty of side by side racing and both a strong low and high side to race on. Most did choose the top side to race on but the way the track was racing, it provided the opportunity for some aggressive "slide jobs" in the corners and these little nuggets of racing excitement led to both some bold passes and some bent up cars and hard feelings.
The Sport Mod feature was the first main to grid and this event provided the biggest field of cars with a full twenty four set to go for twenty laps. This was the one race of the night that had a tough time staying under the green as the yellow waved eight times, more than the rest of the night combined. However, with all the action going on trackside, it really didn't seem to drag out as much as you might imagine.
With many of the top Sport Mods in the area on hand, there was a front five rows of all star caliber including pole sitter Tony Olson. However, it was the outside row that moved at the start and Ben Chapman took the early lead. Olson, Dan Drury, Gage Neal and Tyler Soppe were all among those challenging. While Chapman continued to show the way, the battle for second went back and forth with Drury eventually taking the spot.
Then things got even wilder. Following a restart, Drury threw a wicked slider at Chapman in turn one and while it wasn't a thing of beauty, it allowed him to squeeze by for the lead. However, Chapman ended up spinning and being collected by Vern Jackson. Chapman was riled up and when Drury came back around the track, Chapman met him nose to nose, resulting in minor contact between the top. Chapman was sent pit side for his actions but Drury received no penalty for his part in the bruha, which didn't seem totally fair.
The scramble for positions saw Olson scored ahead of Drury but then, in another weird circumstance, Olson later broke under the yellow and needed a wrecker to be removed from the track, turning the lead back over to Drury. He held on the last few laps, beating home Soppe and Neal for the win. In victory lane he apologized for the "dust up" which probably didn't make Chapman feel any better as their were under currents of grumbling in the crowd.
However, this race just served as the warm up for the main event and that was the Hobby Stock main. Set to do battle were national champion Shannon Anderson and local power house, Nathan Ballard in a fifteen lap chain match to the finish.
Earlier, they had gone round one in a heat race with a spirited, side by side battle for the lead that saw Anderson get crossed up near the end and fall back three spots with possible contact between the two.
Come feature time, Anderson was the luckier of the two, starting from the second row with Ballard right behind him. Anderson quickly got to the lead but Ballard was glued to his rear bumper, and occasionally, checking the quality of its construction as he rapped on it. Nathan put extreme pressure on, but Anderson refused to yield. It was great quarter mile racing with plenty of spunk.
Ballard continued to dive inside Anderson in each corner as Anderson's car tended to push up the track slightly, but each time Anderson would have enough momentum for fight off Ballard. For the most part they raced each other clean, but one time Ballard got a bumper into Anderson and both fought for control before they continued on. Ballard could never make the pass as Anderson held him off for an intense win.
It was after the win that Anderson fanned the flames even more, as he conducted quite a blunt interview and lobbed a few insults in a "flame thrower" manner at Ballard. Most of the Benton County crowd, that was cheering for Ballard, really let Anderson have it after he piped up on the microphone. Not knowing Anderson, I don't know if he was sincere in his comments or just going for "good theater." In any event, I suspect that we have not seen the end of this rivalry but Anderson was coy about revealing whether he would return to Benton County next week.
A nice field of sixteen Sport Compacts was on hand and Ryan Havel was the class of the group, coming from the fifth row and dominating the class. What most people in the crowd didn't know was that the fourth place car, misidentified all night even when he won a heat race, was Zach Jackson, from Bemidji Minnesota. For hundred and seventy six miles from home, he also raced earlier in the weekend at Eagle Raceway in Nebraska.
Eighteen Stock Cars were on hand but the nearest thing to a guarantee, that Damon Murty would win, was fulfilled. He started on the outside of the second row, took the lead early and ran away for the win. John Oliver Jr made the long pull again and finished second ahead of Paul Shepherd.
Focusing on his Modified to this point, Jeff Aikey won his first main event of the year in the open wheel class. He started on the outside of row one, rode the high side all the way and won over Ethan Dotson and Joel Rust. While the race was in doubt to the checkered, Aikey maintained a smooth line and took the win.
Other than the Sport Mod main that had more than its share of yellows, the rest of the late afternoon into the evening ran off very smooth. The races went off like clock work and there were no delays except for some clean up some of the three roll overs. This is the way to be successful on a Sunday night program with the final checkered flag waving before 8 pm. It was a good, entertaining program.
No comments:
Post a Comment