After a three week delay, racing action at the Humboldt Speedway kicked off on Thursday night, March 21 with the fifth annual Battle at the Bullring for B Modifieds plus the tenth annual King of America for the USMTS Modifieds. The "Hummer" will be a busy place for three straight nights as a huge field of cars from as far away as California, New Mexico, Mississippi, North Carolina and Ontario Canada were on hand to race for the very large purse that is being offered by the Whitworth family here at Humboldt.
The Battle at the Bullring was of course snowed out several weeks ago so management and the promoters of this event opted to combine the two specials together, making for a huge incentive race for both divisions of open wheel cars.
The first chore this year is just getting to the track as major road construction has forced the population on to back roads of all sorts in order to land in Humboldt and then find their way to the track. There were reports of big rigs accidentally ending up on one lane dirt roads attempting to get to the track but in the end, all arrived and there were no SOS messages needed.
The three night format for this event is identical for both divisions with both Thursday and Friday night racing presenting double heat races in each classes with drivers racing in various spots in each event. Passing points are the order of the night and the total points accumulated in each driver's best three of four events will set the lineups for Saturday night's big finale with the B Mods racing for $8,500 to win and the Mods ten grand. I believe the top twelve in total points will be locked in for Saturday while everyone else will race through "the ladder of events" to try and get in to the field.
But the first order of business was getting through the tech line. I liked very much that they opened up tech at 10:30 am right on the dot and with a line already formed, got drivers through that test in an orderly fashion, not waiting until the last minute to do so and thus holding up the start of the show, as we have all seen happen from time to time. And nothing is more maddening than having to wait for the start of things after everyone sits around all day and then tries to tech ten minutes before the scheduled start of the races.
And for a number of the drivers, it was a good idea that they started the process early, as quite a few had to make multiple trips through the tech line to get the OK from the inspectors. The Mods seemed to slip right through but the B Mods were having a difficult time with the slope of the roof seeming to be the biggest issue. Shims and bolts were in high demand as drivers and crews worked to make their cars race legal. In the end, however, everyone made it through OK and no cars were sent home.
When all was said and done, ninety six B Mods and seventy two Modifieds had successfully signed in and were ready to race. This is a drop of over twenty cars in the B Mods from last year and just a few less Modifieds. I'm guessing that the significant drop in the B Mods is mostly due to the fact that the race had to be rescheduled and this left some drivers just unable to return for the make up event while the Modifieds tends to vary a bit from year to year anyway.
The track was just a bit slimy at the start of scheduled racing so the B Mods had to come out and blow it off just a bit before racing could begin. This backed up the original scheduled time by about twenty five minutes but after that it was nonstop racing with eight B Mod heats followed by six Mod heats with most heats having twelve cars in them. A very brief break followed to do some track prep in corner three and then the same fourteen races came out again, with shuffled lineups from the first set.
A number of the heats had some real close finishes with some last lap passes for wins and some exciting slide job conclusions. The biggest charge of the night saw Ryan Gustin come from ninth to win a heat race while surprises included both Darren Engesser and the ageless Tim Donlinger win B Mod heats. There was heartbreak too including Willie Gammill almost winning a Mod heat and then forgetting to go to tech, thus forfeiting his great run totally. Blown engines likely side lined Brantlee Gottschall and Ethan Dotson for the rest of the weekend while Brandon Givens was among those that pounded the first turn wall, missing his second heat and likely ending his weekend. Jason Hollis came all the way from Alabama with his B Mod, only to end up on his roof on the back chute. As always, crews will be busy on all day Friday trying to put their cars back together for another night of racing.
I could not find a points list after the completion of the first night but the usual suspects looked fast including Gustin, Sanders, Hughes, Thornton Jr and Strickler while invaders McKinney, Wallace and Harrison struggled some.
B Mod winners included Dan and Dustin Daniels, Jake McBurnie, Randy Zimmerman while others that looked fast included J.C. Morton, Kale Westover, Kris Jackson, Jason VandeKamp and Tony Bahr. Obviously, much more will become apparent after the second round of qualifying on Friday.
The track was black and slick all night but it remained racy throughout the night with drivers able to work multiple lines and little if no dust. The crowd was also better than I remember for most opening nights but perhaps part of that might have been the extra B Mods folks on hand that normally aren't on hand for the KOA.
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