Friday, March 8, 2019

Smooth Jason Hughes Tops Opening Night at SOS

Greetings from Oklahoma. To be specific, the town of Ardmore Oklahoma and the Southern Oklahoma Speedway for the second annual IMCA Southern Stampede.

The trip down on Wednesday could not have provided a more stark visualization of the extremes of this crazy, so called early Spring that we are going through. When I left my home on Wednesday morning, it was minus eleven degrees and I have so much snow in my yard, I'm running out of places to put it, all at a time of the year when we should be seeing much melting and the first mud puddles of the year. The entire state of Iowa is still snow covered and one must get into Missouri to see bare ground. But then it quickly changes and by the time I am in Kansas, the ground is bone dry and the temperatures are in the sixties, straining to reach seventy. And before this weekend is over, in the overnight hours we might be treated to a severe thunderstorm here in Ardmore. Crazy would not be the word to describe the current situation. The way its looking, I'm sad to report that if any racing wheels turn in either Wisconsin or Minnesota before the first of May, I would be surprised which means that we are losing a full month, and normally a very profitable month, from many of our race tracks. And this would mark the second straight year where the weather has hindered the opening races of my area tracks by almost a month. Not good for the bottom line of some tracks struggling under the best of circumstances.

But I digress. Let's focus on the positive. And I'm positive that the weather is nice enough for racing in Oklahoma. Southern Oklahoma Speedway, under the direction of Nicki and John Webb, is in an interesting situation. This is a USRA sanctioned track but they also run around eight IMCA sanctioned events during the year. Tell me another track that runs what would be considered a full year's worth of programs under two different sanctioning bodies, with two different sets of rules and between two different groups that don't see eye to eye on much. I can't think of one either. But they make it work here and much of that is due to the huge fields of cars, from the two different sanctioning bodies, that are within a reasonable driving distance from here. There are tons of open Modifieds in the region but also IMCA type Modifieds too and the same goes for the support classes, so what they get is two interesting and divergent groups of drivers, depending on what sanctioning body they happen to be racing under for each event.

It is IMCA this weekend, and the featured classes are sanctioned Modifieds, Stock Cars and Sport Mods plus they threw in the SOS Econo Mods just to get more of a local flavor. IMCA TV is even here to broadcast the show with Bucky Doren on hand for that.

I have been to SOS a couple of times previously, all for open Modified shows but it has been at least a couple of years since being here. This Spring they made more improvements to the facility including adding some more track lights(likely to aid the TV broadcast) and put up some more speakers in the pits where I can tell you that the pa can be heard well all over the spacious pit area. About the only amenity the track is now missing is a scoreboard.

  SOS is listed as a three eighth mile track which seems about right, is very wide and medium banked. Scotland County Speedway in Memphis Missouri always advertises how wide their track is(and they are correct), but I believe SOS to be even wider and they race every single inch of the track here. they prep it to go slick early and it does, but smooth as can be, and there were multiple grooves for racing throughout the night. In fact, I would say that the heat races en total where perhaps the best I've seen in a long time with much three and four wide racing(and I'm not exaggerating) and several photo finishes.

There were drivers on hand from twelve states to race for the very good purse and the attractive three full nights of racing. Several that would be known in the Positively Racing.com area would include Kyle Falck, Blake Adams, Andy Altenburg, John Oliver Jr, Jesse Sobbing, Bone Larson, Cory Sauerman, and  Ricky Thornton Jr. The Sport Mods were Southern style so no northern drivers were on hand.

I did get a chance to talk to Sobbing who was driving a car out of the local area for a friend. He tells me that his back is as good as its ever going to be but that he runs some risk every time he gets in a race car because one bad crash could have some catastrophic results for him. He said his wife keeps asking him if he has ordered a new race car but so far he has not as he tries to distance himself from the sport, something which is brutally hard for him, given that he was one of the most prolific racers in the entire county at one time.

I also talked to new Stock Car driver Blake Adams from McIntire Iowa. Previously he had raced a WISSOTA Street Stock and he still intends to do so but the fact that so many tracks close to him race Stock Cars, he felt he needed to get one also so he will be racing under both sanctioning bodies with two different, but similar looking full bodies cars. He's got his eye on the Street Stock Little Dream race coming up the end of July at the Rice Lake Speedway in Wisconsin, where for its twenty fifth anniversary of the race, it could likely pay twenty five grand to win!

Car counts for the opening night of racing for the weekend were fourteen Econo Mods, thirty one Southern Sport Mods, sixteen Stock Cars and forty five Modifieds. The Stock Car field seemed just a bit short but the other classes were fine with more cars expected as the weekend starts. And keep in mind that they do not race Stock Cars here weekly so all the competitors must be travelers from other areas.

Race Monitor went out on them so they had to generate their own lineups, the announcer had to "wing it", which he did very well at by the way, and there were no official results so we were all scrambling just a bit. The absence of Race Monitor, however, did cause the only delays of significance all night as it took them a few extra minutes to establish lineups for the heats and then after the heats, the lineups for the B Features. Otherwise they were "spot on" as far as starting the program and keeping things moving.

Despite the fact that it was the first race of the year at the track and much was on the line for the drivers and they were racing extremely hard in the heats, those races went remarkably smooth with only one yellow flag in twelve qualifying races! That does not happen very often, even with the one spin rule which I believe was in effect. The B Features had only a small number of yellows to and three of the four main events were completed with only one yellow per race. Only the Stock Cars got a little more physical, triggering a few more slow downs.

The Econo Mod feature saw Trent Gibby get to the front quickly and he then led the rest of the way in  dominant performance. He was followed by Chase Vineyard, Mark Marr, Mitchell York and Jim Fowler.

The Stock Car feature was a wild affair. Oliver Jr took the early lead but then was passed by Falck for the top spot. Following a restart, Falck pushed badly up the track and clipped Oliver Jr which spun him out. Oliver Jr was out of the race and Falck had to go to the pits for a tire change.

Jeffrey Abbey then took over the lead and maintained it for the rest of the race. However, in the late going Gary Williams found a fast lane extremely high on the track and if the race had been a couple more laps in length, I believe he would have blown right by the lower running Abbey. Dean Abbey finished third, Falck fought his way back up to fourth ahead of Kyle Pfeifer. J. Abbey must have been in some tough races already as it is just the first week of March and his car already could use some new sheet metal as the number is almost impossible to read, due to damage and being straightened out.

The Sport Mod feature saw a great battle for the lead. Twenty four cars started the main and only one yellow was needed despite the fact that there was much close racing. Near the end of the race, Jared Baird drove past Justin Whitehead to take over the lead and he held on for the win. Don Reid Jr ended up second as Whitehead faded to fourth behind Kyle Robinson with Nathan Sexton completing the top five.

The Modified feature was a dandy with only a lap three tangle to slow the action. In the beginning, it was Jared Hoefelman and Jason Hughes throwing slide jobs at each other as they fought for the lead. They must have exchanged the top spot at least three times before Hughes settled into the lead. By the Modified feature, the top side was the dominant place to race but Hughes felt it was getting a little slow up there and he started running a lower line in turns one and two which seemed to gain him just a bit of an edge. Unnoticed by many was the charge of Ricky Thornton Jr. He started tenth and in all the other races, no one had made a move to the front as significantly as he was able to do and after fighting his way past Hoefelman and Chris Elliott, he closed on Hughes. With twenty two cars still on the track, as the race reached its closing stages, the two leaders started to get into lapped traffic which was problematic as the other cars were running the same line as the leaders. By Hughes used all his veteran experience as he made some outstanding moves to slip up under the slower cars and not give away track position as Thornton Jr hoped for a mistake. Ricky made one last power move around the bowl on the final corner but he came up several car lengths short as Hughes drove on for the win. Elliott finished third with Hoefelman and Anthony Roth completing the top five.

The final checkered flew at about 10:15 pm, even with the computer issues and a couple of tangles that took considerable time to clear. In fact, in one of them they actually had to remove the left rear wheel from Jeff Taylor's car to part his machine from that of G.W. Egbert.

I thought the racing was very good from start to finish with many close, exciting races and a top notch program from start to finish. I was very impressed and can only hope the rest of the weekend can stay at this level. We will have to squeeze in the Friday night show to beat some incoming weather but , cross your fingers, hopefully I will have more to report tomorrow.


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