After over a three week break due to scheduling and the many rain outs that have occurred, the United States Modified Touring Series was back in action on Friday night, May 24th at Bob Timm's Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City Wisconsin.
And Friday night's show was in doubt for much of the day too. Just like most of the Friday night tracks in the Midwest, rain had moved through over night on Thursday and into the day on Friday. While many of these tracks were forced to cancel, MTS was able to fight through the adversity and get their show in. Perhaps if it was just a regular Friday night show, they might not have put so much extra effort into getting the program in, but with the USMTS making only one of their two stops this year and drivers obviously towing long distances to get to Fountain City, they made a tremendous effort to get the show in.
When I first arrived at the track just when the gates opened, I was dubious to say the least when I saw what the track looked like. However, one of the heavy equipment operators who works for the track and was taking a short break, told me that it was a lot better than it looked. There was lots of "frosting" (what he called the slimy top layer of the track), but he said that as soon as they were able to move that, that the surface (or "cake") was hard and firm underneath. And that is exactly what did eventually happen. They moved a ton of dirt to the inside of the track(there would definitely be no cutting of the corners on this night!), and the solid racing surface was revealed. The track would remain smooth and blinding fast all night except for one persistent dip going into turn three that has been there all season so far. The racing would be good in all four divisions on hand this night and while they did get about a forty five minute delay, racing would indeed take place.
Twenty seven Modifieds would sign in to race on Thursday with three conspicuous absences in the top ten in USMTS points in Terry Phillips, "Big Daddy" Duval and Tyler Wolff. Phillips was later observed running his Late Model in Missouri this night so apparently he isn't going to follow the tour as religiously as he did last year. Some solid local and area drivers filled in the gaps and three full heats and a B Feature(of which everyone made the main) set up the grid for the forty four lap feature race to honor Chris Bruns, a racing fan that passed away recently. The field was down to twenty five before they even started racing as AJ Roschen(Craig Thatcher's son-in-law) broke in hot laps and Adam Kates was a "phantom" entry in Jake O'Neil's back up car after Kates' rig broke down in Des Moines.
To look at the statistics, it would show that Waits led all forty four laps and you might think that the race was not a good one. However, that would be far from the case as Waits was under the gun for nearly the entire distance as drivers took turns putting heavy pressure on him, but the veteran southern Minnesota driver absolutely refused to make just even one mistake.
Waits got the jump from the outside pole and the top side quickly was established as the fast way around the track, just as it was several weeks ago when Jake Timm shocked the Late Model field that night. Timm moved into second but he was challenged by Ryan Gustin, newly sponsored by "Spike" energy drink and they produced some of the best racing of the night as they slid back and forth for position and then both moved in to challenge Waits for the lead. Things were really busy up front as the top three diced it out.
They continued this for the first seventeen laps until Timm stopped with a flat tire and now it was Gustin that was the primary challenger. However, both O'Neil and Dereck Ramirez had moved in to challenge for the lead. O'Neil, who started fourteenth, showed as much daring as Gustin as he tore to the front with the crowd "wowed" by the wild slide jobs taking place.
Gustin got into the wall and dropped a couple of positions and then it was up to O'Neil alone to unseat Waits. Jake did get past in turn one on a brief occasion but Waits turned right back under him to regain the lead as O'Neil tried everything he could but Waits just refused to make a mistake.
A yellow with six to go gave O'Neil one last shot. He backed off just a little and then made one last charge low in the corners on the final lap. He got a good run off turn four but came up a half car short as Waits drove on for the win. Rodney Sanders drove a steady race and gradually moved up as he finished third while Ramirez blew a tire in the last corner and lost several spots. It would have been a classic race except that it was slowed six times by yellow flags but was nevertheless a very good contest.
Three USRA classes were on hand also to round out the program. The Hobby Stocks fielded twenty three cars as this class has certainly taken off at MTS the last year or so after being added a few years ago. Fourteen year old Triton Krause fought off several challenges to take his second feature win of the year here as he held off Travis Krause and Nick Schwebach for the win. There was a lot of nice racing in this feature with much side by side action and jockeying back and forth before the youngster took the win.
The B Mods fielded twenty cars and it was a night of Dan Hovden and Ryan Olson battling it out. They raced hard in a heat race for the win until Hovden moved to the top side of the track and blew past in the late laps for the win.
The same scenario took place in the feature race where Olson started on the pole and built up a good sized lead until Hovden broke free and started to track him down. He was closing in when the yellow waved for the only time in the feature race.
Hovden opted for the top side on the double file restart and on the green got a big run on the cushion in turn one and blew past Olson to take over the lead. Once in front, he pulled away for the win over Olson with Shaun Walsky a close third.
USRA Late Models wrapped up the night with sixteen of them on hand as new drivers continue to show up for this class almost weekly. Running one of three engine options, most drivers either use a B Mod motor or a 604 crate motor and they get around this track quite well and like the Hobby Stocks, they have gained in both number and quality of cars in the last year or so.
Friday night, point leader Lance Hofer drew the pole and that took the drama out of this event. He pulled to a big lead until a yellow bunched the field up just past the halfway point but then he proceeded to pull away again as he took an easy win over Shaun Mann and Justin Sass. he was receiving one hard challenge from Alex Williamson but Alex dropped out of the race under yellow and that gave Hofer breathing room.
What looked like it was going to be a night of futility instead turned into a fine night at the races with good action in all four classes and by keeping the intermission as short as possible, they caught up on much of their late start and the final checkered flag didn't fly too much after 10:30 pm. It was a good job by all involved.
The crowd is always deceiving at MTS because they all come at the very last minute but it looked to be a good crowd but perhaps not quite as big as for the Late Model show previously. It's hard to believe but this is now the tenth year that Bob Timm has run this facility that was on its last heart beat until he and his partners purchased the place and turned it around.
It was good to run into Bryce Hall again tonight. Hall was "the voice" of the USMTS in recent years until he took a job as the promoter at the Salina Highbanks Speedway in Oklahoma. He is now back working for Todd Staley as he is running the USRA side of things as Todd focuses on USMTS and Hamilton County Speedway.
For any Late Model fans reading this, I learned Friday that Jake Timm, fresh off his Dirt Kings win several weeks ago in his first ever Late Model race, has purchased a wide bore Pro Power motor and plans on doing some open motor racing as well as spec engine racing and the Dustin Sorensen Racing Team out of Rochester, who run MB Modifieds, has purchased the equipment of the Mike Stadel Late Model team out of South Dakota which includes both spec and open motor cars and that their equipment is currently at Mars shop in Menomonie Wisconsin being upgraded.
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