On Sunday, June 17th I was chasing the weather, much as I had been doing all weekend. Lots of heat and lots of storms were blanketing the upper Midwest and my success rate for the weekend was far from spotless.
Sunday was just another in a nearly week long series of challenges to try and find a race and avoid yet another rain out. With everything wet or likely to become wet before the day was over, I focused my attention to the South and I selected one of my favorite racing tracks, The Dubuque County Fairgrounds Speedway, to be my Sunday oasis.
While it was rainy and threatening to add more to the weekend totals, some of which in the area were ridiculously high, as I left home, by the time I got to Dubuque the sun was out and the heat was oppressive. My car indicated that as much as it was showing 97 degrees as I stepped out and headed toward the pits. Fortunately there was a strong breeze that was probably the saving grace between folks really being stressed and just somewhat miserable.
Dubuque had been fighting their own weather problems and they were coming off of a rain out that caused their Fan Appreciation night activities to be postponed for one week to Sunday. I caught a break on that as I partook in the half price concessions, eating and drinking my way to a comfortable state and even throwing in a little ice cream for desert on a day when ice cream tasted oh so good.
Dubuque is still in a transition state with their changing of the Late Model rules for their track which was huge news in the off season all across the Hawkeye State and while the middle of June is still way too early to be making any final judgments, so far the "new" Late Model class doesn't seen to have caught on with the enthusiasm that track owners might have hoped for. There were seven Late Models on hand Sunday and that has been around the number that they have been having so far with this being just the fourth race of the year at Dubuque due to their many weather issues. Farley has switched to a "specials only" schedule since the year started so no comparisons can be made based on what has happened so far there this year. So far the Late Model field is primarily just local drivers, ones who would have been racing at Dubuque no matter what and in some ways has seemed to even having driven off some drivers that were IMCA supporters in the past but are not racing at the track so far in 2018. So, time will tell how this grand experiment works out and perhaps it will be the fans in the stands, or lack there of, that drive any further change.
Dubuque is also experimenting with a small, by comparison to most tracks, program of just four classes in action on Sunday nights. To me this seems like a great way to go to help ensure that the program gets done early, always a key ingredient to the success of any program on a Sunday night. However, to make a show worthy of the fans' support on a regular basis, those four classes must have solid fields in them and Sunday, for instance, the fendered classes were not well represented with just thirteen entrants between the two Late Model divisions while the open wheel cars had thirty three cars between their two classes. It was a marked difference and it did indeed make a difference in the quality of the show.
For their part, the drivers did a great job of putting on an entertaining show despite their relatively small numbers and also having to fight track conditions that left a lot to be desired. I would have thought that with the high humidity the track would have held the moisture well on a night such as this but apparently the sun and strong wind trumped the sticky conditions and the track was extremely dry, blowing huge clouds of dust into the stands all the way through the night. And of course, the wind was in the direction that it blew into the crowded turn one section of bleachers full force, making for a miserably uncomfortable evening of straining to look for the cars through the clouds of dust. Truly, it might have been the dustiest that I have ever seen this track get. And guess who happened to be sitting right in the middle of that section of bleachers?
The dry material just laid in piles near the outside wall and except for one time at the break when they watered the whole track, they didn't touch the surface at all and I thought that a good misting of the top side would have served to help both the racing and the dust packed eyes of the spectators. However, none was forthcoming.
Here's where the drivers showed their mettle however, as they made chicken salad out of chicken ****, even when the track refused to cooperate. And the star of the show was Wisconsin's Jason Roth, who showed the rest of the pit area that there was a groove up against the wall, even if it didn't look like there was. After a series of nondescript heat races, the first feature was that of the Sport Mods and right away, Roth moved to the top side of the track, racing forward from his sixth row starting spot, emitting clouds of dust into the air until the top groove finally started to clean off some.
Early on, the Sport Mod feature was tedious with four yellows in the first five laps. However, after that they settled down and put on a good show. Roth continued to pound the cushion and move forward and pretty soon he had caught Tyler Soppe, Jerry Miles and K.C. Ansel, the lead pack cars who were mostly just hugging the bottom groove. A late race yellow gave Roth the chance to move up beside leader Ansel and he then drove by him to win the main and complete his good run. And just as importantly to the fans, he showed the rest of the drivers a line that allowed passing and widened out the whole track, making racing much more interesting. Ansel and Miles trailed Roth at the finish. Roth deserves the "Driver of the Night" award.
Despite having a meager field of only seven Late Models, Eric Pollard and Johnny Emerson managed to make their main event fairly entertaining. It took Emerson a few laps to work his way into second and then he trailed just Pollard, who was driving his car for everything it had in an effort to maintain the lead.
That's when things got interesting as Emerson started throwing slide jobs at Pollard, trying to get past him. After several attempts he was finally able to get past and after Pollard was able to retake him once, he couldn't pull off the maneuver again and then Emerson pulled away in the final laps as the point leader scored another win. Jason Udelhoven finished third as only three cars were on the lead lap at the finish.
The Modifieds had enough cars and enough good cars that they could put on a solid main event. It was Austin Moyer that got to the front early and he fought off challenges from Matt Gansen and Bryce Garnhart to get the win. After a smooth early part of the race, the yellow waved twice for top five cars that wrecked with Garnhart and Jed Freiburger both eliminated and Moyer having to fight off the field on two green, white and checkered attempts before the race was completed.
The scrambled finish saw Mark Schulte sneak into the top three and Jaden Fryer, who at one time was in the infield and headed to his pit area, somehow came back out and up to finish in the top five.
The only "stinker" was the Limited Late Model feature where words can not describe some of things that took place. With only six cars you have thought that things could have gone smoothly but that was not to be the case. Five yellows slowed the fifteen lap event including a spin by then leader D. J. Sweet. Pat Quinn spun three times all by himself but somehow managed to avoid getting sent to the pits(which would have been the proper call) and at the end, actually had a decent chance of still winning the race which would have been a travesty of justice.
The only good thing about the race was that winner Mike Mills, apparently returning to racing after having been sidelined for a period of time, was a very grateful winner. If this class is the future of Late Model racing in Iowa, God save us all as this event would have to rank as among the worst seen all year to date.
Announcer Jerry Mackey was a busy "voice" of the speedway on Sunday as he was in charge of organizing the candy toss and kids door prize drawings at the break. You could tell that Jerry had experience as a "cat herder" from his years of driving school buses. He also had the experience to turn his back and head the other way once he gave the signal for the kids to go after the candy as there was no way he was going to get caught up in any "official rulings" when two kids started to fight over a piece of candy! A very smart man indeed.
Thanks to all the folks at the pit gate that helped me sign in. The track announced that starting next week that the hot laps would be pushed back one half hour to 6 pm with racing to follow in an effort to allow them to get more moisture into the racing surface and start the program when it will presumably have cooled off just a bit. They must be careful though, so as not to have this make the show run any later, as getting done early on a Sunday still should remain goal number one.
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