Friday, August 9, 2019

Harris Clash To Arneson and Carter

The 28th annual (but second at Deer Creek) Harris Clash was held on Tuesday night, August 6th at the Deer Creek Speedway. The winners were Austin Arneson and Brayton Carter, both in exciting main events that featured a lot of hard racing, very few yellow flags and few drivers that didn't finish either event.

The Clash drew a huge field of cars with ninety two Modifieds and fifty two Sport Mods signing in to race for this huge event. Politics and racing make for strange "bedfellows" sometimes, and this event is among the strangest when it comes to that. In its second year here at Deer Creek, the event seems to be at its strongest that it has been for quite some time, with lots of cars and lots of people in the stand watching. But how it came to be held at Deer Creek is somewhat strange indeed.

Deer Creek is a track that is sanctioned by both USRA and WISSOTA. Deer Creeks runs two USRA classes weekly and three WISSOTA classes. They don't have another IMCA sanctioned event here all year, yet somehow this race came to this track and it's not even in the hotbed of IMCA racing in Iowa but over the border in Minnesota to a region in Minnesota that is not an IMCA hot bed at all. But when you can put on a show like the folks that Deer Creek do, I guess everyone would like to race at your facility. Where as most tracks are actively engaging various sanctioning bodies to put on events at their track, Deer Creek seems to be just exactly the opposite with the sanctioning bodies lining up and hoping to get dates at their track. Lucas Oil, World of Outlaws(Late Models), IMCA and USMTS as all desirous of bringing racing to this track. Only the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars tried to dictate when they would come to Deer Creek and they no longer have a date at the track.

But when you can deliver great racing and big crowds in the stands, I guess everyone wants to race at your track, despite the letters in your sanctioning name and no matter what other groups are also racing here at some point.

While there was a good group of local fans that turned out for this race, many just out of curiosity because from their conversations I could tell that many were unfamiliar with the drivers, there was a huge contingent of Iowa fans on hand, following the drivers that they knew well. So while the crowd wasn't probably quite as large as the one for the Gopher 50 for WoO Late Models or the Fall Jamboree for the USMTS, it was still very large indeed.

Despite a reported three inches of rain the day before the race, you wouldn't have noticed it as neither the pits nor track seemed to show it except for the infield track that had standing water. Wet pits and drainage issues used to be a problem here but they took action and now they are one of the few tracks that can usually withstand a hard soaking rain and still be able to get a race in.

Despite having to sign in all the race cars, tech them all and have some hot laps, racing still started within a few scant minutes of the advertised 7 pm start. Eight heats for the Sport Mods and twelve heats for the Modifieds set the majority of the starting field with a few B Features to finish off the qualifiers. My only question was with the size of the heat races as they chose to run no more than eight cars in a heat with my thinking that they could have consolidated things just a bit tighter with a few more cars in each heat, something that would not be a problem for this track. The one spin rule was a great help also to keep things moving.

The racing action was very good in the heats and B Features and a lot of excellent race cars were on the sidelines when the finals started. The Sport Mods went twenty five laps with twenty four cars starting the race. After one yellow with a lap completed when contender Jared Boumeester stalled, the rest of the race went nonstop. Brayton Carter was scored the leader of all laps but that was somewhat misleading as he was under the gun for the whole race, being challenged constantly.

Near the end, Colby Fett found a line that was very fast up against the wall and he closed rapidly on the leader as the last few laps were ran off. They drew side by side and the finish couldn't have been much closer, with electronic timing and scoring declaring Carter the winner by .019 seconds. Logan Anderson ran third nearly the entire race.

Did anyone else wonder what happened to current national point leader Cody Thompson after he won a B Feature and then didn't race the main, being replaced in the lineup by Kyle Bentley. It turns out that Thompson was disqualified from the B Feature for having a metal mud plug which has been ruled illegal for safety reasons. Fortunately for him, the DQ wasn't for a more serious issue that could have threatened his national points.

The Modified feature was a dandy race also. Again, with only one yellow flag, the last seventeen laps ran off nonstop and really made for an exciting finish. Cayden Carter and Tom Berry Jr were battled for lap after lap and for a time it looked like the Carter family was going to have an unprecedented sweep of the evening's proceedings. However, Berry didn't want to relinquish his challenge and the two continued to go at it for the lead.

Suddenly, sixth starting Austin Arneson became part of the lead pack after spending most of the race banging off the walls and sending sparks off into the Minnesota night on lap after lap. When Carter and Berry Jr left a hole, Arneson somehow found the room to put his car between the two others, and he raced into the lead. However, Berry Jr wasn't going to give up and the last lap was a classic as Berry Jr threw the "mother of all slidejobs" at Arneson in turn three, slipped past but then Arneson did the classic cross over maneuver and passed Berry Jr on the front chute to take a thrilling win. Carter had to settle for third in a most exciting event and a great climax to the evening.

Chad Meyer and Todd Narveson called the action and they did a great job keeping us all informed on who was who and what was what. Narveson did his home work as he doesn't get to see these guys race too often but you wouldn't have known otherwise. Meyer has really worked his way into the elite group of announcers in the Midwest, working a number of the biggest Modified races around and his subtle yet cutting humor made me laugh at various times over the course of the night.

The final checkered flag didn't wave until just before Midnight but I have no complaint as they had a huge show to run off with almost countless races to be run. There were very few yellows, and the only down time was for track prep and introductions. The crowd seemed happy and the drivers I believe like the track so I see no reason other than the shifting sands of racing politics that would keep this race from returning here next year.   

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