Saturday, March 26, 2022

A Muddled Mess Marks USMTS King of America/Battle at The Bullring

 The annual King of America for the USMTS Modifieds and the Battle at The Bullring for B Mods/Midwest Mods/Sport Mods is always one of the more highly anticipated events that mark the start of the racing season. Held annually at the Humboldt Speedway just outside of Humboldt Kansas, this year's edition of this event, now in its eleventh year for the Modifieds and seventh for the B at The B, has been anything but smooth. 

The Humboldt Speedway is under new ownership for 2022 as F.O.E. Enterprises has taken over ownership of the track, buying the facility from the Whitworth family , two of which still live just next door to the track. J.R. and Kati Sartain, who also own the Eighty One Speedway in Park City, having purchased that track two years ago, are the principle owners of the track and they have named well known local figure, John Allen from nearby Chanute, as the promoter of the track. Allen also runs things at Eighty One. 

Unfortunately, their reign at their new purchase has had anything but a smooth start and has been railroaded by poor weather conditions throughout the month of March here in Southeastern Kansas. 

The Battle at The Bullring was supposed to have been held the first week of March but rain, snow and cold saw that event postponed until this weekend, to be combined with the King of America race for the USMTS Modifieds. This also happened last year as the weather has been unforgiving to this event in recent years after the first few years ran off smoothly and impressively. 

Combining the two races is challenging under the best of conditions with huge numbers of race cars and a massive number of races to be held in three nights. But when the weather doesn't cooperate, it makes things even more challenging. 

Rain and cold weather that made the track unpreparable served to postpone the opening round of action which had been scheduled for Thursday night. Now track officials were under the gun as they had to squeeze three nights of racing into two nights as they opted to run the Thursday night show on Saturday afternoon as the Modifieds were scheduled for three full shows while the B Mods had two full nights of qualifying for their big finale on Saturday night. Stock Cars were also racing and they were too scheduled for three full shows. 

The turnout of race cars was again impressive with eighty nine B Mods, seventy two Modifieds and twenty four Stock Cars signing in to race. One hundred and eighty five race cars jammed the pit area and the overfull pits also. Drivers were on hand from twenty three states plus the Province of Ontario, Canada. Drivers from there tell me that until April 1st, they must pass a Covid test to get back across the border. 

Because of the muddy conditions, haulers were staged at a quarry down the road from the race track and brought into the grounds in groups where they were then sent to their pit stations, hoping to avoid getting stuck while also utilizing every inch of the pit area. Even with best intentions, a few rigs managed to get stuck during staging on Thursday. 

They had every hopes of getting the first program in for the Modifieds and Stock Cars on Thursday, along with the first two rounds of qualifying for the B Mods  but after getting everyone parked, it became apparent that the race track was simply not going to be in shape for racing to occur with the cool and cloudy conditions just not favorable for track drying. Everyone that examined the track I believe agreed and as much as they wanted to race on Thursday night, they just didn't want to tear up a lot of race cars and the track. 

So the decision was made to postpone Thursday night's action to Saturday afternoon and run the show with the three full programs as planned, a trick that they have learned to do before and as recent as last year when they had to do the same things. 

Unfortunately, Friday's weather didn't give them any help when it came to drying out the track. The temperatures remained very cool, the skies stayed cloudy and even a little rain and sleet fell during the morning hours. However, none of this was enough to halt the racing and Friday night's program took off before 7 pm following Modified qualifying. 

Unfortunately, the track just wasn't ready to race on and quickly became very rough with cars getting airborne as they bounced through the bumps and ruts as the drivers held on for dear life. It was not a good scene and certainly not something anyone wanted or hoped for. Much equipment was damaged and wrecked as the qualifying events quickly became very costly. Also, the quality of the races suffered greatly, a shame when considering all the good drivers in attendance. 

One of the more disappointing parts of qualifying was the news that Drake Troutman, who pulled all the way to the track from Pennsylvania and won a Modified heat race, was then disqualified for an unspecified technical violation. Troutman, who normally runs UMP Modifieds plus Late Models, thus became another casualty of the seemingly timeless differences in rules between sanctioning bodies that make  real interaction between racing groups nearly impossible. Three other B Mods were also disqualified during opening night action including one heat race where both the winner and second place finisher didn't pass muster. 

Behind the scenes a plan was already taking place as it became clear that it just wouldn't be possible to run any main events on this night without tearing up more equipment and putting drivers at risk. So they soldiered on and made it through two rounds of qualifying for the B Mods plus the Last Chance races for the Mods. What they were left with was main events for the Stock Cars and Mods and that was put on hold for Saturday afternoon.  Twenty eight races were held before the plug was finally pulled. It was certainly the roughest that I had ever seen this track and veteran race fans that attend here weekly could never remember a time when they saw the track like it was on this night. 

The logistics was worked out so that the two leftover feature races will be contested on Saturday afternoon plus the third round of qualifying for the B Mods(shortened from four rounds originally planned.) Once that is over, a full show for the Stock Cars and Modifieds will take place on Saturday evening along with the Last Chance races and feature for the B Mods. 

Because three shows are essentially being combined into two races, prize money will be adjusted making the two features that are going to be run pay more for the drivers.  So racing action will continued for those still having equipment capable of racing and those willing to take another shot at qualifying. The one question remains that with the still not very cooperative weather, will the track prep crew, who have been working almost nonstop for days, be able to make enough headway so that the track will be raceable for Saturday? That question remains to be answered. 

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