On Friday and Saturday, the fifth annual Fall Nationals were slated at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland Missouri. The schedule would have two full shows for the MLRA Late Models with the title on the line between Chad Simpson and Will Vaught. Co-sanctioning the event was the COMP Cams Super Dirt Series with their champion Jack Sullivan already having wrapped up that title. Also on the program would be the first annual B Mod "Clash of Champions" that would pay the winner of that event $3,000.
I must say that I, along with many others, was very disappointed with the management of Lucas Oil Speedway after the events of Friday though. It started raining by 7 am and it rained all day. Not hard, but steady with some occasional mist and drizzle thrown in when it let up slightly. Any time during the afternoon, I expected the announcement of a cancellation which I would have understood 100%. Heck, it had been raining all day. However, the track kept posting through their face book page that the radar was showing that the rain would end by 5 pm and that they would still be racing.
OK, fine. They are determined to get this show in and would ride out the rain until it stopped and then race. I got to the track about 3:30 pm and it was still raining lightly with it backing off to drizzle quite often. Drivers and race teams were streaming in the gate, not being worried about the conditions because with the paved pit area at Lucas Oil Speedway, the concern about being stuck doesn't come into play.
Lo and behold, at 4:45 pm the rain stopped for good(they actually got a forecast right for a change), and pre race activities continued as the rest of the field showed up and signed in, the cars were unloaded and readied and the two drivers meetings took place.
The B Mods came out to roll in the track and then the Late Models hit the track. The first two hot lap sessions were completed and while the track was still slick, it was starting to come around. Just as the third session hit the track, it started misting. The mist lasted about a minute but as soon as it started, the cars were all ordered off the track and the announcement of the cancellation was made immediately, even before all the cars were off the track. No attempt was made to roll in the track or even see how long the precipitation would last. The cancellation was immediate and clearly pre planned as the announcer had been "keyed" to make the announcement. What was most galling was that after that sixty second burst of mist, it never rained again all night. I stood around in the pits talking to people for quite some time and never once did it start to precipitate again. Either they should have called the show when they legitimately had reason too when the rains continued or followed through of their pledge of trying to get the show in after the rain stopped. Waiting until everyone had purchased their tickets and pit passes and then calling the event after the first drop of rain just didn't seem right and not something I would have expected this track to do. After Friday night, I felt like Lucas "owed me one." The cancellation also pretty much took away any small chance that Vaught had of catching Simpson for the MLRA title.
Fast forward to Saturday and let's start over fresh. Saturday dawned cloudy and cool with some weather sources calling for a dry day and other predicting rain by late evening. My source said it would remain dry and unfortunately, they were wrong! But to that later.
Saturday's show was moved up by two hours and with the cloudy conditions and little wind, they could have easily started the show at 1 pm and have gotten the whole thing done early, but that's hindsight. Saturday would be a full day of racing though, with double rounds of heat races for the B Mods before they went into the "ladder" elimination to set the field for their forty lap main event. The Late Models would also be running a full show with a fifty lap, five grand to win at the end of their night.
Forty four Late Models signed in to race on Saturday with Kyle Schlotz not returning to race. Sixteen of the top twenty, including the top twelve, of the MLRA were on hand plus the top five in COMP Cams points were also in the house. There were drivers from as far away as Texas on hand for one of the last Late Model shows of the year in the Midwest.
Seventy three B Mods were also on hand for their part of the show. There was a bit of a snafu in this class as several drivers who had not been on hand for Friday night's portion of the show called and wanted to race and they were told that they could tag the back of heat races. However, when the nine new drivers arrived, they were informed that they would only be allowed to "tail" the back of the E Feature which didn't please some. Eventually this was settled after the track "fessed up" to a communications failure within the track and offered to refund pit fees to those affected drivers. Actually, all but one went ahead and tried to qualify.
Track conditions were brutal. That is the only fair way to assess them. However, to be clear, this was in no way the fault of the track. They did everything they could to try and pack down the surface but due to the huge amount of rain in this area, and really most of the Midwest, in the last few weeks, it was so soft in the corners that there was nothing they could do except pack and pack and watch the moisture seep up out of the ground once evening hit.
It was one of those nights that drivers just had to tighten up the belts and hold on for dear life. When they hit the corners, they often had no way of knowing which way their cars were going to go, and drivers were running over each other and flying through the air with regularity. Two of the B Mods managed to launch themselves up side down before the night was over. It was a very expensive night for them as shocks, frames, suspension parts, you name it, were all put to the test and many destroyed.
The Late Model feature was a very good example of this. Twenty four cars started and only eight finished and most of the eight that finished looked like they had lost a war. Cars were hurtling through the air and connecting with the concrete walls with regularity. Tony Jackson Jr was the early leaded until Jesse Stovall flew (literally) past him to take over the top spot.
Any chance Vaught has was ended when he got turned around on the back chute after Jackson got stuck in a whoop de do and Vaught had to spin to avoid him. The yellow flags were frequent and after Stovall led for a number of laps, a restart cost him when he got out of the groove and was dropped several spots.
Jack Sullivan grabbed the lead but then was passed by Simpson who had been biding his time but Simpson was then surprised by Logan Martin who blew past him to take over the lead. Martin had pitted early in the race and had worked his way back up to the front. By this time the race had been shortened by ten laps and it looked like Martin was going to get the big win. However, he launched himself off turn four into the wall with only four laps to go and Simpson inherited the lead.
He kept the car straight for the last four laps and won over Sullivan and Raymond Merrill. It was a great way for Simpson to go out as the champion and winning the race in the last appearance for him and the Brinkman Racing Team together as the owners will be retiring from racing and Simpson will be looking for a new ride in 2019.
As for the B Mods, their portion of the program was very much similar to the Late Models. Lots of wrecks and spins but with the one spin rule in affect, it kept the show moving. Each B Mod ran two heat races with the total of their passing points for those two events setting their running order for the Last Chance races. The top fourteen were locked in while everyone else raced like heck to try and be one of the other ten to make the show. The Last Chance races were run with a high number of laps so some of the competitors were putting in the equivalent of a month's worth of racing in one night!
Unfortunately, that "source" for the weather that I didn't consult turned out to be correct as nineteen laps into the B Mod B Feature it started to rain. I felt sorry for the fifteen competitors that were still on the track as they must have circled the oval for nearly a half hour, trying to keep the track from getting away from them as it continued to rain, harder for sure than it did on Friday to cause the cancellation. Eventually they were joined by heavy equipment as everyone kept rolling, trying to save the track. The B Mods were finally sent to the infield and eventually to the pits while they kept trying to fight the weather. If only a portion of the time and effort spent to try and keep Saturday's show running would have been devoted to Friday night's event, that show could have been completed and with half the program done, we would have been done racing before it rained on Saturday. Just sayin'.
When the announcement was made for the "locked in" cars to report to the tech shed along with the ten who had qualified out of the shortened B Feature, the die was cast. At 11:35 pm the announcement was made that the show was done.
Interestingly, I have been at a few shows over the years where the same circumstances came into play. With the main event never having started, every one of those shows took the feature pool of money and split it equally between all those drivers that had qualified for the main. Not on this night however, as they gave the winner's share to the driver that was scheduled to start on the pole, Andy Bryant, and went down the line from there. I had never heard of it being done that way, but they certainly have the right at Lucas to do it however they see fit.
Something I noticed about Lucas Oil Speedway that seems to set it apart from other race tracks. Even the finest of tracks, by the end of a long season, start to look a little "used up." The paint might be fading or the wall in need of cleaning or the restrooms showing signs of wear. But not Lucas. Even with this being the last race of the year, the place literally glistens. There is no place crying for a paint update, the bathrooms are so bright you almost need sunglasses to enter them and every blade of grass is in order. The place remains spotless. They must have an awesome maintenance staff here.
Well, it was not the greatest of weekends for Lucas Oil Speedway, in large part due to the bad hand they were given by the weather. However, we did get to see some racing and especially so for fans from Iowa and of the Simpsons, it was well worth it.
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