The Late Models had not made an appearance at the Clay County Fairgrounds Speedway in Spencer Iowa since 2009. That absence ended on Thursday night, June 13th as the Tri State Late Model group made an appearance at the historic fairgrounds oval on a special Thursday night of racing.
The Tri State Late Model group is a group of drivers from the eastern South Dakota and eastern Nebraska area, that without a lot of tracks to race at locally and with Late Models that they wish to keep racing, have gotten together to put a series in motion that will visit a number of tracks, many that don't run Late Models, as a traveling series that can provide a solid field of cars to a promoter.
Let by Marty Myers from the Sioux Falls area, they are now starting to get more bookings for their series but this night would be their first ever visit to Spencer. They often race at I-90 in South Dakota along with tracks like Jackson MN, Aberdeen and Miller South Dakota, Rock Rapids Iowa and Minnesota tracks in Jackson, Fairmont and Montevideo. They run a mixture of rules that I believe pretty much match up with the SLMR rules which allows open motors, WISSOTA spec engines and I believe crate engines also although I can't be certain on that so If you have a desire to race this series, check on their website. They do also run a hard Hoosier 55 tire.
The drivers do seem very supportive of the series as I believe they understand that their racing opportunities could be severely limited without this series to help them find dates. For instance, Rich Thomas pulled over 250 miles from Aberdeen South Dakota to race for a grand on this night and many of the drivers that regularly support this series come from the Sioux Falls area and from eastern Nebraska. For the first time ever, one of the Kosiski brothers was on hand for a series race as Andrew brought his #53 car from Omaha. This would be the first night of an attractive three night stand that also takes them to Jackson Minnesota and then I-90 Speedway in Hartford S.D.
A solid field of twenty two Late Models signed in to race on this night with the majority of the drivers from South Dakota and Nebraska but there were also a few drivers from Iowa and also Minnesota. Along with the Late Models, three other divisions of racing were also on hand but we'll leave mention of them until later.
The Late Model drivers drew for their heat races with the finishing order setting up the main event with the top two drivers in each heat redrawing for the main. All twenty two drivers would start the feature after Blair Nothdurft and Thomas fixed mechanical problems that had developed for them earlier. In fact, Blair was scheduled to start on the pole of a heat but missed that race after he had problems in hot laps. He would later put on a show as he charged up through the field during the twenty five lap main.
Normally the track in Spencer gets very slick top to bottom and slows down quite a bit but whether it was the cool temperatures, an extra dose of water or the lack of support class tires racing the track, on this night the track had a healthy cushion and while it did start to dry out in the groove as the feature progressed, the track remained very fast all night.
The cushion was also a bit treacherous as Doug Tomka found out. Nine laps into the main, while racing in heavy traffic, he hooked the cushion, the car dug in and he went for a wild ride, flipping high out into the air and going over several times. He was OK but the same couldn't be said for the car.
Tad Pospisil had dominated the opening event for the series and after drawing the pole for Thursday night's race, it looked for all the world that he was going to run off with another victory. He was able to maintain a comfortable margin over Jordan Heiman for the first twenty laps of the race until a stalled car triggered a yellow flag with just five laps to go.
No sooner had the series announcer reminded us of the fact that Pospisil was on his way to leading start to finish in both races so far when all hell broke loose. Pospisil took the field to the green, only to sever a left rear wheel off the car and roll to a halt in a stunning development. This gave Heiman the lead but on the restart he badly buzzed his tires when the flag fell and he dropped back as cars went tearing by him on both sides.
Brown Jr and Kosiski then went back and forth for the lead and while Brown Jr was scored the leader of each remaining lap, Kosiski was actually in front just as much as Brown Jr was. But Andrew got just a bit high in turn two with a couple laps to go, Brown Jr jumped him to pull into a slight lead and he held off Kosiski by a couple car lengths for the win. Nate Beyenhof surged up to third at the end ahead of a disappointed Heiman and Nick Beyenhof. It was a surprise finish to what had been a pretty staid race up to that point. The Late Models put on a good show at Spencer and it seems reasonable to assume that it won't be ten years before they make their next appearance. In fact, with the huge facility that Spencer offers and the fact that the World Of Outlaws Sprint Cars have raced here a number of times, I am surprised that the WoO Late Models haven't dropped in here as of yet. In fact, they have missed the boat on this one for years.
Now let's talk about the three support classes. Earlier in the week I saw a face book post that stated that there would be no points for the other divisions on this night and that the rules would be transitional USRA rules. Now, being stupid, I never even gave it a thought until I reached the track that this was an IMCA track and what were they doing running USRA rules on this night? And in fact, head tech man for USRA Darlo Mulder was on hand to do the tech work on this night and the starter and all other key officials were wearing USRA shirts, not IMCA shirts. Is there a revolution going on behind the scenes here? I just assumed that the no points night was because it being a Thursday, that Algona was also racing their regular night and they were too close to allow Spencer to run for track points. But maybe that wasn't all of it. I did talk to a USRA official earlier in the year about their weekly series, and he told me that several tracks in northeast Iowa were not happy with the way things were going this year with car counts and other issues they were having with IMCA. Of course, this was just one side of the story and I'm far too far away from these tracks to know what kind of political issues are going on behind the scenes, nor do I really want to know.
But if this was a test of the waters, so to speak, I'm afraid that a failing grade would be the final answer on this night. Only eleven Hobby Stocks, five Sport Mods(or should I correctly be calling them B Mods this night) and one poor lone Sport Compact(or Stinger) made up the field. This was not the show that I'm sure the fans were looking for although I didn't hear any outright complaints from the grandstand, the spectators couldn't have been too happy.
So whether it was just that drivers stayed home because no points were offered, or they didn't want to run under the opposing sanctioning body or what, but many of the weekly racers were not to be found, even though the Sport Mod(or B Mod) feature was advertised to pay $600 and additional money was being offered to the Hobby Stocks too.I did not, however, see that many of the locals that normally race at Spencer had instead gone to Algona, even though they were paying a grand to win the Hobby Stock main there on this night.
In fact, the car counts were so small that I was slightly afraid that track officials, upon seeing just how small the car count was, might cancel the show but since the Late Models were the premier division and they had a full field, the show would go on with no hesitation.
As far as their actual races go, they didn't do a bad job of putting on a show despite their small fields. The Hobby Stock main found Drew Barglof and Daniel Smith(always at least one Smith no matter what), battling it out and they did more than a little leaning on each other before Barglof drove past Smith into the lead and held off all challenges.
Brady Joynt lead from start to finish in the Sport Mod(B Mod) feature although once Colby Fett broke free into second, he closed on the leader at a dramatic rate and if the race had been just a couple of laps longer, we might have seen a change of leadership. Both mains went nonstop and took just a few minutes to run. In fact, the entire program clicked off at a quick pace and all racing was done well before 9:30 pm which is always a good thing on a week night.
Rod Olson and the staff at Clay County Fairgrounds Speedway were accommodating and helpful as usual and it was an enjoyable night of racing with the Late Models far overcoming any short comings produced by the light fields in the other classes. Clay County remains one of the finest facilities for racing in the entire state and for those fans who have never been there before, a trip should be on your list of things to do.
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