Despite the weather doing all it could to ruin things, track officials and a great number of cooperative drivers all helped to make the return of the IMCA Deery Brothers Summer Series to the Fayette County Speedway in West Union Iowa a successful night on Wednesday night, July 25th.
The weather forecast was grim and track officials were aware of it as they made contingency plans with officials of the sanctioning body should weather become a factor. Plans had been laid earlier but the overwhelming feeling from the meeting was that the track officials would be doing everything in their power to get the show completed, including changing the order of events and whatever track work was necessary should it come to that, which, by the way, it did. Track officials plus the local fans were very excited for this show to take place and that would later be reflected in a packed grandstand despite the less than chamber of commerce weather.
This was another race in cooperation with a Fair, this time the Fayette County Fair as my list of attended Fairs for 2018 continues to escalate. Despite it being Fair time and all the changes that occur as a result of that in regards to the racing , everything went smooth early with the pit gate open early, the drivers entering and the track receiving its last minute prep as the skies began to darken to the Northwest.
There was still much talk in the pits by those that were in attendance the previous night at the Dirt Knights Modified race at Britt Iowa and the unbelievable sight of the Sport Mod feature winner's mother "flipping off" announcer Chad Meyer, right in front of the entire crowd, apparently because he failed to interview her son in victory lane. It was one of the most bizarre and strange things that I have ever seen and one that none of us on hand could fully either explain or comprehend. But it was indeed one for the books.
Fortunately, except for the weather, things were proceeding much more smoothly in West Union despite the fact that it was a strange and unusual alliance of sanctioning bodies on hand Wednesday to put on the show. Even the folks from IMCA agreed it was a very unusual circumstance that saw the IMCA Deery Brothers Late Models share the pits and the track with three USRA sanctioned divisions for a sanctioned show at a USRA track. Both the IMCA and USRA officials were clothed in their garb but from what I could tell, both groups were happy to be at West Union and seemed to work well together, at least from everything I could see and tell and no inside remarks or "cutting" actions were taken by either side as the Deery Brothers cars were invited to race at West Union and they were pleased to be back there after a long number of years having not raced there.
Things started right on time and we were eight races into the program; actually the third and final Late Model heat, when the laden skies finally started to "leak" and the track quickly became too wet to race on. The cars in that final heat were stranded in the infield while the heavy equipment came out on the track to start repacking immediately, even as the rain continued to fall during this "sun shower."
It took awhile and they had to blade off a considerable amount of dirt but they eventually won the war after fighting the good battle and racing returned. Interestingly, the stranded Late Models remained in the infield while a couple of Hobby Stock heats were run off to help rework the track, then the Late Models returned to the track to finish off their heat race.
A special mention should go out to the track announcer who did a great job of helping "kill time" during the track delay by hosting a "dance off " competition on the stage in front of the crowd. It really made the time go by much quicker and kept the fans entertained during what could have been otherwise a very restless time for them.
There was then no delay and they moved right into the main events and quite frankly, other than the considerable lost time reworking the track, the rain was the best thing that could have happened to the track all night. Previously to the shower, everyone was hanging on the bottom and the track was very one grooved. However, after the rain it was a totally different track with the high side fast, drivers racing all over the track and the fast lane moving so much during the Late Model feature that it was hard to keep up.
With Bryce Carey blowing up in hot laps and both Tyler Breuning and Tim Simpson missing their heats due to mechanical issues, there was no need to run a B Feature and all Late Models made the main, although only Carey didn't start the forty lap finale.
The Late Model feature was an excellent race with Chad Holladay using the high side to move out to a big lead early. The top side was very fast and he stretched his lead to nearly a full straightaway at one point before he started to get into lapped traffic and a few of the others started to catch him. Todd Cooney and Denny Eckrich were battling for second and as usual, Justin Kay was slowly creeping up as he was one of the few to use the lower groove.
They made eighteen laps before the yellow waved when Jeff Aikey rolled to a stop and under the yellow, Eckrich developed a flat tire which he changed but was never a factor after that. The race turned into a three car battle between Holladay, Cooney and Kay.
A couple of times, Kay was just ready to drive under Holladay and take over the lead and then the yellow would wave as it was apparent that the outside was slowing down and Holladay was just holding on for dear live.
Things changed once again when the yellow waved with only nine laps left and on the final green, Cooney came roaring up on the outside and blew past the other two to take over the lead. Now it appeared that the inside was worn out and the top side of the track, which had been abandoned earlier, was again the fast side.
Cooney held on for the exciting win while many in the crowd cheered on the efforts of Breuning, who started twenty third as the flag dropped and gradually worked his way to the front. He really picked up the pace following the late yellows, and ended up passing Holladay for third near the end. Darrel DeFrance also had a nice run to finish in the top five.
I was surprised to see that Rob Moss was fielding a car on Wednesday after his bad wreck at Columbus Junction. He went with a new color combination as he was using a different car, a Barry Wright chassis that Precision Performance helped him put on the track. But Moss' bad luck continued, as a tangle on a restart saw him crash and tear the front end of the car all up once again.
While the Late Models put on a fine show, the other classes were definitely not "second fiddle" on this night either. Many in the crowd were very interested in seeing how the local mains came out and they put on an excellent show too.
The B Mod feature saw the Maitland brothers battling it out with Dalton Simonsen and Dan Hovden for the win. The two brothers had quite the battle for the lead and then on the last lap, Simonsen made a bold cross over move that found him to the inside of Brandon Maitland where they raced to the line, with Brandon winning by a nose in a race that had only one yellow flag.
The Stock Car main went nonstop and Stock Cars generally are, they were running in a big pack as they battled for the lead. Mitch Hovden found a fast lane around the top side and he drove into the lead and then pulled away from Tom Schmitt and Kyle Falck at the end for the win.
Hobby Stocks wrapped up the night and they finished things off with a thrilling feature that saw the leaders three wide on the final corner and while Joshua Ludeking made a fearless attempt to slide into the lead, Justin Lichty held him off for the win with Brady Link a close third.
Despite the long rain delay, the final checkered flew before 11:30 pm as all track officials worked very well at moving the program along. If they would not have had the delay, the program would have been done at an early hour as the drivers didn't require a lot of yellow flags and they flowed from one race to the next in very short order. It was a well received program and I would be shocked if the Deery Brothers is not back at West Union again in 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment