Friday night, October 26th marked the first of two nights of racing at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City Iowa as Todd Staley and the other folks that run the speedway this year make an attempt to return the Fall Futurity to the scheduled of racing events in the Hawkeye State. Originally scheduled for several weeks ago, the entire weekend was frozen/rained out and in a bit of a bold move, rescheduled for the last weekend of October. The weather this late in the season can be a bit of a crap shoot as you just really don't know what kind of weather you might see, but the odds are almost as good that it will be sunny and mild as it might be extremely cold and windy. As it turned out, it was somewhere in the middle as it was cool but certainly not intolerable and promises to be even better on Saturday.
The Futurity is a historic race in Iowa racing history that was somehow lost over the course of time and Staley is trying to restore this event as a cap to his season of promoting at Hamilton County. All six classes that routinely race at Webster City would be part of the fun with liberalized(I hope I'm not in trouble here for using that word!) rules in play so as to gather as many racers as possible that would like to squeeze in one more weekend of dirt track racing.
The car count for the opening night stood at one hundred and eighteen cars with more expected on Saturday as while the Friday night show was a full show in all classes, only the top eight are guaranteed starting spots in Saturday's higher paying main events and Saturday only competitors are welcome to come and join the action.
Each class would participate in heat race action with the draw/redraw used to set up the lineups for the six main events. As is often the case, there is some car swapping going on here as drivers pick up new rides late in the season, test out other cars in the process of buying them etc. A couple of the notable changes I saw included Matt Ryan driving the #15k Modified normally steered by Justin Kay and Ryan even using Kay's transporter to haul both that car and Ryan's Late Model. Mark Elliott was also racing the Modified that Minnesota's Jake Timm had raced this year on occasion and it was the IMCA car, not the open car that Timm also races on the USMTS circuit.
There were a number of travelers on hand with drivers from Minnesota and South Dakota also joining with the more regional drivers to spice things up. Tuner drivers even pulled all the way from Minnesota to race and a couple of the cars in that class were seen all the way up in East Central Minnesota racing last weekend so the late season traveling is not just limited to the higher class cars.
Overnight rains caused the track prep crew to put in a full afternoon of track prep before the racing could begin and with the moisture already in the track plus it being a rather gloomy day, only a couple of loads of water were necessary to get the track ready. And with that being said, the track was extremely fast to begin the evening although it did dry out some and slow down some as the night wore on. I did not know that Todd was a track prep guy, having only seen him occasionally on the water truck from time to time at various tracks he might have leased for shows, but he spent virtually the entire afternoon riding the grader this Friday. The track, by the way, was fine for racing action.
And even though they were hustling to get the track ready, the show started right on time and was moved along at a quick clip, with only a slight break after the heats to set the lineups for the main.
All car running were allowed to start the mains but the top eight would be the only ones to lock into the mains on Saturday with everyone else slated for B Feature action. The B Mods had the biggest group of cars and twenty five of them started the main event with the field split between B Mods and Sport Mods, with the big spoilers the identifying mark. This race would be a long one with six yellows for various spins and collisions slowing the action. However, through it all, it was local racer Ty Griffith who led from start to finish with challenges from various drivers. Dan Hovden was probably his stiffest challenger but when Hovden went for broke on the last corner in an effort to gain the win, he got into the wall and took himself right out of the main. These results are unofficial but also qualifying was Jared Boumeester, Jake Sachau, Nate Whitehurst, Rocky Caudle, Hunter Longnecker, Brandon Toftee(from twenty third) and Jared VanDenBerg.
Late Models were up next with eighteen of them on hand including a number of IMCA cars, a few SLMR cars from western Iowa and Nebraska and a lone WISSOTA driver in Lance Matthees. The Winona Minnesota storied veteran showed the field the way home, as he quickly moved up from the third row, blew past Darrel DeFrance and Jason Hahne and then led the rest of the way. However, he was challenged hard by Tyler Bruening who moved up from the fifth row as the track was racy and wide and he put a heavy challenge on Matthees toward the middle of the event. However, Bruening, who was driving harder than I ever rememeber him running before, got into the third corner too hot and plunked the wall and ended his effort. After that, Matthees was home free as he cruised to the win. The top eight included Scott Fitzpatrick, Matt Ryan(from eighteenth), DD, Billy Leighton Jr, Charlie McKenna, Ryan Griffith and Justin Zeitner.
The Modified of twenty four had the fewest cautions and perhaps the closest racing action as the brothers Gustin, Ryan and Richie, went at it for the win. Richie started on the pole and led the early laps with Mike VanGenderen, Matt Ryan and Mark Elliott challenging. Soon Ryan G. moved up from the fourth row, the top two separated themselves from the pack and went at it for the win. They traded the top spot back and forth several times before Ryan finally took over and then in the closing laps, put some distance on the field. Despite the efforts to "even out" the field, the open Modifieds certainly still have the advantage and it almost appeared Ryan waited until he needed "to go" and then he put his foot down. Undoubtedly, he will be the car to beat Saturday night. behind Richie and qualifying was Kyle Brown, Ryan, Jeff Aikey, Nate Hughes, Joel Rust and Elliott.
The Hobby Stocks had some close racing in the early going with Kevin Derry, Myles Micheli, Tyson Overton and Dustin Gulbranson fighting for the top spot. They were joined quickly by Eric Stanton and after Gulbranson slowed with a flat tire, it was left to Stanton and Micheli to fight it out. That ended when Micheli lost a wheel with an axle in it in turn two which flew well into the woods and opened things up for Stanton. He then drove home for the win with Brandon Nielsen putting on the pressure. They were trailed by Gulbranson(from the back after changing a tire), Jeff Fink, Overton, Tracy Halouska, Bryan Derry and K. Derry.
Kevin Donlin led from start to finish to win the Stock Car feature. He was challenged by Craig Berhow early and then it was promoter Staley who put the hardest pressure on Donlin. Lap after lap, Staley would push the high side and nearly steal away the lead but Donlin had just enough to hold him off. A late yellow set up a two lap sprint to the finish and Staley changed up his tactics, driving to the low side of the track. However, he pushed up the track and gave up second on the final corner to Kyle Falck. Also qualifying were Darrin Korthals, Derek Green, Mark Elliott, Berhow and Joe Schmit.
The Tuners wrapped up the evening with their main event. They are scheduled to start up to thirty six cars on Saturday night, three wide, for the Tuner Nationals. However, they are going to have to send out a search party to round up a whole bunch of cars as there were only fourteen that signed in to race on Friday. Their main event was actually a good one as Josh Uhl and Steve Struck battled it out for the win, going side by side for much of the race before Uhl edged ahead on the final corner for the win. Denny Berghahn was considered a price contender for the win but he plunked the turn two wall right at the start and limped to the infield. Since there were only eight cars running at the end, Chris VanAusdle, Jeremiah Anderson, Seth Scholl, Justin Anderson, Brad Mayland and Jacob Witte all qualified for the main.
All racing was done shortly after 10 pm and while some then headed for the party, others headed for their home and some warmth including "Crazy Martin" who was dressed up like it was a hundred degrees below zero!
For those of us that travel Iowas from North to South a lot, it was a shock to see that the Boondocks Truck Stop in Williams had closed. I think the first time I traveled through Iowa I stopped there and of course I had to buy a hat to let people know that I had visited the Boondocks!
For those fans looking for more racing action in the weeks to come, despite the fact that for some reason it has been removed from the USMTS website, the two day show at 81 Speedway near Wichita is still on for the second weekend of November. If the weather is good, that could be a very interesting race.
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