I was pleased to be able to arrange my schedule so that I could attend the Dale DeFrance Memorial Race on Thursday night, May 10th hosted by his hometown Marshalltown Speedway.
With the Iowa High School State Rodeo competition taking over the fairgrounds on Friday and Saturday, this forced racing to be held on Thursday night but this actually worked out just right as promoter Toby Kruse hosted this Thursday night special and the DeFrance family lined up a whole series of sponsors that helped out both the racers and the fans as while a number of drivers got extra cash and product, their were also a large number of various giveaways for the fans too. And all this was able to be accomplished while not raising the admission prices to attend.
Speaking of attending, there were plenty of race car drivers that marked this date on their racing calendar as I had one hundred and thirty two cars signing in(plus the Mod Lites that numbered near twenty) with drivers on hand from ten states according to Marshalltown mouthpiece Jerry VanSickel. It certainly did help that the huge Modified event was being help at Farley this weekend and many drivers opted to race rather than practice on Thursday which both helped the Modified field numbers and gave it much diversity.
I can not pretend that I knew Dale DeFrance well but since I attend a considerable number of Deery Brothers Late Model races, where Darrell DeFrance is guaranteed to be on hand, I ended up talking with Mr. DeFrance a number of times over the years, to the point that I think he recognized me when I walked by their car. Generally I would get a wave from him or a "hello", and if I stopped, we would talk about Late Model racing in general and probably chat about the weather. One time at West Liberty when he found out that I had driven all the way down from Wisconsin for the show, he went back in that old yellow hauler that they used and he came up with a #99D can Koozie that he gave me and I still have it. All the nice things that drivers, family and friends had to say about Dale speaks tons about what kind of person and family man he was. What better legacy could a person ask for?
Jerry Mackey did an absolutely marvelous job delivering a remembrance about Dale to the crowd before the start of the show, something I assume that Jerry wrote himself. Denny Grabenbauer came out of retirement from announcing and did the winner's interviews and I'm not sure if he still stays current on the sport but his interviews were better that 75% of the current announcers today.
There were also a number of racers that were on hand to honor Dale's memory and provide support to the DeFrance and Gustin families.Gary Webb made his first racing appearance in central Iowa in a number of years, primarily because he considers Darrell DeFrance to be one of his closest racing buddies. Also representing the "old guard" was Blooming Prairie Minnesota's Mark Noble who can still hustle a race car around the track as his top ten finish in a power house Modified field gets testament to. Modified rides for all four of the racing Gustins, Ryan, Richie, Jenae and Jimmy made it an ever more special night.
After a beautiful day the weather turned a bit sour but all the rain stayed off just to the North of Marshalltown which allowed the program to be completed. However, that darn North wind that has plagued Marshalltown this year returned once again, and it was howling right into the grandstand once again. This made watching the show and somewhat uncomfortable and dirty proposition. However, this did not deter the crowd who, while a late arriving group on a Thursday night, proved to be large in number.
As far as the racing action itself was concerned, we did not see the back and forth battling for the lead in the various features like we often do here as each one of the featured five classes was marked by some pretty dominating performances with only a car or two able to even stay within striking distance.
In the Hobby Stocks, the early season "wars" between Eric Stanton and Shannon Anderson did continue as they battled for the win. On this night though, Stanton got to the front quickly even though he started tenth and while Anderson could keep him in sight, he was never able to make a big challenge. The race was just the right length for Stanton as he had a flat tire by the time he pulled into victory lane.
The Sport Mod feature saw Austin Luellen get by Jared Van Deest early in the pass of the race and they then spent the next twenty laps racing away from the rest of the pack, with Van Deest never able to recapture the point.
Putting Damon Murty on the point of the Stock Car feature, especially on a special night like this, was tantamount to telling the rest of the pack that second would be the best they could do. While Jeff Wollam and Todd Reitzler raced their hardest, Murty was just cruising on the cushion as he took an easy win.
It was a power house field of twenty four Modifieds that took the green flag for their main but Terry Phillips ran away from everyone for a flag to flag win. The outside pole was perfect for him and his strong drive left the field in his wake. The only driver that could stay remotely close was Johnny Scott but Phillips make some nice moves in traffic to pad his lead near the end. Local and area Modified drivers were "torched" quite badly on this night as USMTS regulars took three of the top four spots, with only Tyler Droste breaking their stranglehold on the top finishes.
Ryan Dolan secured the big win in the Late Model main. As he has been this year so far, he was very fast but unlike the Tipton Deery show, his car did not go away from him near the end of the race like it did that night. He was able to work his way through traffic and keep his patience a couple of times when things got a bit tight. The track took rubber early in the Late Model feature and the most difficult chore of the race was to get by the lapped traffic without getting out of the racing groove.
For me, the most impressive part of the whole program was the smoothest with which everything ran off and the impeccable driving shown by the large group of racers. On a night when twenty five races were held, including several B features, a grand total of only nine yellow flags were waved all night! Part of this is that because of the one spin rule if you don't move you're done, but much more was how well the drivers raced against each other without wrecking and crashing.
The Modified and Sport Mod features went green to checkered, the Late Models and Hobby Stocks had only one yellow and the Stock Cars only two. That means in one hundred and twenty laps of feature racing, the yellow waved only five times! Outstanding.
We did get out money's worth on the first yellow of the night, though, when Ben Newhouse glanced off anther car right at the starting line on the green, shot into the infield where he drove right through several of the advertising billboards and then crashed very hard into the antique firetruck that sits by the infield scoring tower. Fortunately there were no injuries but it was a wild moment.
Thanks for the welcome from Toby Kruse and the other officials at Marshalltown. Sorry about this late report but after a late Thursday in central Iowa, I spent the next three nights at races in North Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota respectively. Not much time to write while spending twenty two hours on the road chasing racing following Marshalltown.
