Tuesday night, July 23rd, the Hancock County District Fair in Britt was just moving into full swing, and the entertainment on this night was in front of the grandstand, as dirt track racing on the four tenth mile black dirt, paperclip shaped oval was the featured attraction, with the Arnold Motor Supply Dirt Knights Modified Tour on center stage. Along with the Modifieds, three other divisions that race at Hancock County on a weekly basis, the Stock Cars, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks, would all be racing a full program.
The Dirt Knights Modifieds are in the midst of a very busy week, having raced already at Park Jefferson on Monday night with stops at both Alta and Algona yet remaining this week. The good thing is that all these tracks are quite close together so no UMP SummerNationals type of overnight banzai runs are necessary. For the other three classes, they are racing for State, Regional and National points as their Hancock County point season is already over as of last Friday night. Oh, and by the way, they are also racing for money too as the points themselves won't pay for a new tire for the race car!
In my pre race visit to the pits, I got the opportunity to talk to announcer Chad Meyer briefly. He is coming off the opportunity of a life time, having been asked to announce the Dakota Classic Modified Tour recently. So I had to get his thoughts on that and find out whether or not he enjoyed the experience. We also shared some stories on our experiences from doing that tour and particularly, the interesting but different way that things are up in Estevan SK. as opposed to what we are used to.
I also got to meet track Head Flagman Logan Kelly for the first time. I have admired his work several times in the past but had never gotten the chance to either meet him or even know what his name was. I like the way he doesn't let any jump starts take place and insists on good, fair starts in all classes for all races. He also puts a little "show" into his flagging which is sorely needed these days by a whole group of starters that don't understand that they are part of the entertainment and as such, need to show a little "flair" as they do their important tasks.
Thirty one Modifieds signed in to race on Tuesday night. They would be divided up into four heat races with the heat race winners guaranteed starting spots in the main event along with the other top eight cars in passing points. Five would come out of each B Feature with two provisionals based on series points to produce a starting field of twenty four cars.
The other three classes had more like normal Friday night fields, with fifteen Hobbies, sixteen Sport Mods and thirteen Stock Cars with the assumption that some of the Stock Cars stayed home on Tuesday to save their cars for the big money race upcoming this Friday here.
Racing started right on the dot at 7:30 pm with the heat races clicked off in very fast fashion under the direction of John Pletcher, the former star Stock Car driver at this track. The most significant development in the heats was the bad break suffered by Slippy Eye Minnesota driver Matt Speckman who was blistering fast in his heat race and was moving up to challenge race leader Kelly Shryock when he suddenly lost power and pulled into the infield. Thus his good starting position for the feature was lost and the rest of the night found him digging his way back up to the front.
The Modified feature came very close to producing a huge upset winner, particularly for such a significant series and one being played live on TV. Young Kollin Hibdon, not yet old enough to hold a legal driver's license, started on the pole and was the early leader. The Modifieds raced as the last race of the night and by this time, the top side was pretty much gone and everyone was hugging the tires on the inside lane. Hibdon continued to lead and indeed was slowly pulling away from the field as he continued to hit his marks on every corner and give no one the chance to close in on him.
Eventually, point leader Richie Gustin worked his way past Travis Hatcher and into second and slowly caught up to Hibdon. However, the Nevada driver refused to make a mistake and after "dogging him" for several laps, Gustin realized that if he was to win the race, he was going to have to find a way around the top side of Hibdon as Kollin didn't give the appearances that he was going to make a mistake.
So Gustin tried to roll around the top side of Hibdon and tried to do so for a number of laps but he just couldn't get it done. He came close a couple of times, but each time Hibdon would come off the corners strong and Gustin would lose several lengths. Eventually Gustin gave up and dropped back to the low side, but by this time he had lost some ground and appeared to have worn out his tires trying to work them so hard up top on the track.
Everything was poised to produce the upset for the youngster. I was ready for a headline for the driver from "over the hump to Pahrump" which is the saying they have for his home city, which is "over the hump" from Las Vegas while in actuality, the "hump" is much larger than any hill anywhere in the whole state of Iowa.
However, there was one more hurdle that Hibdon would have to overcome and that was in the form of three slower cars that he caught before the race was over. All three were running the same groove as he was, and something would have to give. Perhaps due to his inexperience, or whatever, he did not press the issue when he caught the lapped cars and shut down prematurely early going into the corners and chose to follow the back end cars in the low groove.
It only took Gustin a couple laps to catch back up and the veteran sized things up quickly, pinning Hibdon behind a slower car and drove around him to take the lead. Once in front, "G-Money" drove away to record his second win in two nights of racing action on the Knight's tour. HIbdon learned a valuable lesson the painful way as he settled for second while Jeremy Mills came home third. The only driver that was successful at working the top side of the track was Kyle Brown who came from tenth to fourth and only ran out of laps as he continued to move forward.
The Sport Mod feature produced a sensational five car battle for the lead spot. After pole starting Nicholas Carpenter, all the way from Kansas, spun on the first attempt to start the race, Johnathon Logue took the lead but was pressured by Alec Fett and George Nordman. Soon Colby Fett joined the show and then Nate Whitehurst became the first to find the outside groove that Brown would use later. Whitehurst was using a "diamond" move off the corners that was giving him great momentum down the chutes and he drove past car after car on the outside, soon catching Logue for the lead.
However, Logue wasn't born yesterday and he sensed that Whitehurst was coming at him hard and he started to let his tail end move up toward the wall on the chutes, effectively blocking Whitehurst's moves. This continued for several laps as Whitehurst tried to make his car narrower and slip past. Coming down the front chute the two leaders hooked together and as they fought to control their cars, Colby Fett made a great move to dive under Logue and take over the lead in a spectacular surprise. Fett then pulled away in the remaining laps to take the win, leaving the chagrined Logue and Whitehurst to follow him home.
The other driver to successfully move up the track was Derek Green in the Stock Car feature. Chad Palmer was the early leader in a car he hasn't raced in about a half dozen years but was forced to break out to race after totaling his car in a wild flip at Algona recently. While the car may have been dated, it was still doing the job as he was leading the pack until Green started to "diamond" the corners and found that it worked. He came up from the fifth row in an impressive drive and motored past Palmer to take over the lead.
Eventually the top side seemed to wear out for him, he felt himself getting slower and he moved to the inside line where his car was not near as fast. Palmer was slowly catching up to him, despite the fact that he was showing smoke off a tire where there appeared to be a rub going on.
Eventually the tire went flat while still running second, which was a tough break for him, but any sympathy was quickly outweighed when instead of turning into the infield, he "parked" in the middle of the back chute, triggering a yellow with a move that was so blatant that a disqualification flag was in order, I felt. However, none was forthcoming and he returned to race.
Green then held off the challenges of Kyle Brown to take the win, or so it seemed. But wait a minute! The official results as posted on MyRacePass showed that Green got disqualified for some sort of malfeasance, the specifics of which I am at this point uncertain, and Brown was awarded the win over Andrew Borchardt and Speckman who came from the back of the pack. Thank God for MyRacePass to remove the "egg" from my face if I declared Green the winner
The Hobby Stock feature was a brotherly show as Cody Nielsen topped his brother Brandon for the win. Cody found an opening early in the race that allowed him to slip into the lead and after that the two Nielsen cars seemed very equal with the distance between them not varying much as they pulled away from the pack. Tony Smidt finished third. Drew Barglof finished in the top five in what was reported by Meyer as his third car of the season already, as he has already wrecked a pair of cars. This one wore a "coat of many colors" and a taped on number but it did get the job done.
This well produced show, even with one extra distance feature as a part of it, was done in under two and a half hours and the drivers cooperated with few yellow flags on a smooth and slick racing surface.
The rest of the racing season at Hancock County is comprised of special events. This coming Friday night the Stock Cars are in the spot light with their main event paying over four thousand dollars. And then, from August 8-10, it is Hobo Days in Britt with Nights of a Thousand Stars, Ten Thousand Stars and All Stars going back, to back, to back in what is a traditional racing spectacular and one that all race fans will want to be a part of.
Thanks to everyone at Hancock County for a well run and interesting racing program.
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