Tuesday night, June 11th, the Dynamic Drivelines Dirt Duel Stock Car Stampede kicked off at the Stuart International Speedway in Stuart Iowa. This event, featuring high purse offerings for Stock Cars, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks, also saw the Sport Compacts and Cruisers in action on this night.
For a number of days leading up to this race, the weather forecast was grim and did remain so as race time approached. I ran through several small showers on the way to Stuart but never any substantial rain and there was none in Stuart when I arrived. The forecasts were bouncing around more than a young child anxiously a waiting for his first appointment at the Dentist but the one that seemed most reliable indicated that we had until around 9 pm before any scattered rain would get more intense and longer lasting. And son of a gun, for once they were right as that's exactly what happened!
On the schedule for Tuesday night would be double rounds of qualifying heats for Stock Cars, Hobby Stocks and Sport Mods with passing points being harvested in each round and the totals would set the line ups for Wednesday night's action. The Sport Compacts and Cruisers were set to run a complete program also.
Despite the gloomy conditions, the race cars arrived in large numbers with the final field of cars including forty five Stock Cars, twenty nine Sport Mods, twenty one Hobby Stocks, fifteen Sport Compacts and four Cruisers. Drivers were on hand from Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri along with Hawkeye State drivers.
Holding tight to their planned schedule, hot laps started at 7 pm and just past 7:30 pm the first heat race took the green flag with the Hobby Stocks starting off the action. Despite several times when it was necessary to take a few extra laps to roll in the track, the heat races proceeded off smoothly. It would sprinkle on and off but each time they would wheel pack a little bit more and then resume the racing. They would complete the first entire round of qualifying and the Hobby Stocks would also get their second round in.
One Sport Mod heat in the second round was completed before it started to rain harder and more intense this time than at any other time during the evening. It only took a few minutes to determine that this time we wouldn't win out as the radar showed this batch of rain would last much longer and was heavier. The event was then called at this point, with the rest of second round qualifying to be completed on Wednesday, followed by the regularly scheduled Wednesday program which will also include a full program for the Modifieds. The Manufacturer's Race for the Stock Cars will also be run on Wednesday and that race looks to have two qualifiers as thirty three drivers have entered that event, which will be much like having one more feature race.
Despite the on and off sprinkles that fell throughout the heat races, the track remained in good shape and was lightning fast, resulting in some very hard fought events. The cushion was down a little lower than normal and in fact, there was a cushion which wasn't the case the last time I was here as the track held much more moisture on this night.
With passing points being paramount, the racing was very hard and there was plenty of sliding each other and more than a few "strong arm" moves to gain positions. Despite what a was large amount of action in a short period of time, there were very few cars that didn't finish their heat races and less than five yellow flags in the fifteen races completed. I must single out the Stock Cars as being especially intense with a first heat race that saw a pack of eight cars bunched up and swapping positions that saw Josh Daniels squeeze past Nick Strobbe on the high side for the win in a terrific qualifying race.
Especially intense was heat race number four that saw Ricky Thornton Jr and Luke Lemmens slam and slide each other both during the race and afterward during the "cool down" lap which was anything but cool as they took turns cutting each other off and rubbing as they headed to the pits. I can hardly wait for round two to begin.
I was shocked at how big they made the heat races for this event. Perhaps part of this was to try and get the show in and perhaps part was that they just run that many cars in each qualifying event but we saw the Hobby Stocks divided into just two heat races, the Sport Mods three and the Stock Cars were crammed into four heats, with eleven or twelve cars in each race. Put them on the tiny quarter mile at Stuart and make passing points the order of the night and you could expect nothing less than a lot of action!
The show will continue on Wednesday and while it is far too early to even establish favorites, the one thing that can be guaranteed is that there will be plenty of action and more than a few ruffled feathers before the evening is over! The Sport Compacts and Cruisers will run double features at their next regularly scheduled program to make up for their lost events on Tuesday.
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