Saturday night saw the wrap up of the IMCA Southern Stampede at the Southern Oklahoma Speedway near Ardmore. The biggest money of the weekend would be on the line in Saturday night's feature races. The finale also saw by far the best weather of the week with near eighty degree temperatures, sunny skies and the strong winds even subsided somewhat. Announcer J-VAN broke out the shorts once again only this night it didn't storm to wrap up the racing.
The format for the three classes racing on Saturday would be the same except for one obvious difference. The Modifieds would be starting their main event in three wide formation with thirty cars to take the green flag. All three classes would run extra distance races on this night and all would receive bigger checks for their efforts.
The late afternoon race would start out with a special presentation as the Tulsa War Birds made an impressive fly by during the National Anthem to honor the event. with smoke trailing from them, they made a series of tree top fly by passes to give the event a great start. To add to the celebration, all the crews and drivers assembled on the back chute promptly at 5 pm which was the scheduled time for the fly by. The planes were on time and the program got started just at the advertised time. Unfortunately, once this was completed, the water trucks came out, slopped up the track and the first race of the night didn't take to the track for seventy one minutes.
My only criticism of the entire event was that none of the three nights of racing started anywhere near the advertised time. Once the races got started, they did a nice job of keeping things moving along with one race right after the other but for some strange reason, the starting time seemed to have no relevance to those in charge, which was very puzzling.
Moving on to other things, a big field of forty nine Modifieds was on hand to try and get into the thirty car starting field. Five heats and a couple of Jeff Broeg sized B Features would set the field with no provisional starters on this night as you either raced your way in or watched from the side lines.
This track has taken a lot of laps over the last three nights of racing in an area that seems to be quite dry this Spring and before the Modified feature took to the track, they opted to re water and pack the track and on this night, it worked beautifully to restore what had been a narrow, bottom only groove track to a wide racing surface that promoted lots of exciting slide jobs.
And it would be a couple of Iowa drivers that would lead the charge toward this kind of excitement as Ethan Braaksma would take the early lead from the outside of the front row over Matt Bonine and Wesley Veal. Ward would be the sandwich meat in the middle of row three but would quickly move to the front, moving into second by the time the red flag flew after Brent Hardwick, runner up on Friday night, got into the front stretch wall and flipped on to his roof. OK but steaming(the driver, not the car), the race would restart with Ward chasing Braaksma.
Ward was the one instrumental in widening out the groove as he pounded the cushion early and when a few other drivers joined him up there, they blew off the crumbs and the racing got hot. Ward would throw a slider at Braaksma to take over the lead but one lap later, Ethan would return the favor and take the point. However, Ward was not done yet and he tried once again and this time was able to clear Braaksma and take over the top spot.
The last nineteen laps of this race would go nonstop as the drivers did a great job running with their big field and the wide surface at SOS certainly helped. Ward would pull out to a big lead and navigating his way through the traffic, he would not be challenged as he drove home for the win over Braaksma. A last corner pass by Jeff Taylor over Bonine for third kept it from being a top three sweep for Hawkeye drivers. There apparently is no racer's tape in Arkansas as Taylor ran three nights with a plain white car with no numbers on it but the transponders knew who he was as he edged out Matt for the "show" spot. Bonine would later get the "real racer" of the weekend award as he would be the only driver that would venture up to Beatrice Nebraska to race after spending most of the weekend in Oklahoma. He would make the feature in Nebraska, only to scratch out of the main with some type of mechanical problems and head home early after taking a rather long detour.
Local favorites would keep the big crowd happy in the other two classes as William Gould and Bo Day would top the Stock Car and Southern Sport Mod feature respectively.
Gould would fight off heavy pressure from Friday night winner Blake Clark to take the Stock Car main. Justin Whitehead would take the early lead and in fact, would run in front for most of the track. Gould moved to second and was following in the tire tracks of Whitehead as this race was run right on the bottom and before the final track prep was done. Whitehead was in "prevent mode" as he held the lower line with about five cars stacked up behind him, each looking for that one mistake to gain a position or more.
Whitehead started to struggle more and more and when he finally slipped off the bottom, Gould was right there to jump into the lead. Whitehead got hung out to dry and and faded back a number of spots, as Clark was able to move into second and put the pressure on Gould. Clark began to pressure Gould just as William was earlier. Clark appeared to have the faster car but found no opening. On the last corner he went for broke but found the second groove to be way too slow as Gould drove on for the win with Clark's bold attempt costing him second as Brandon Taylor would drive under him for the spot.
Day didn't show up to race until Saturday but he took the Maples Motorports car to victory lane after starting thirteenth on the field. Pole starter Jeramie Cox would lead nearly the first half of the race with Jeremy Henry and then Friday night winner Tim Hamilton pressuring for the lead. This race was a tedious affair for most of the going with seven yellows, most during the first half of the race, keeping the field bunched and allowing Day plenty of time to gradually work his way forward.
As spins and collisions took their toll, Day would eventually get up to second as Hamilton pressured hard for the lead but then started to fade. And when Cox slipped off the bottom, Day was right there to take over the lead.
The late going saw Kyle Robinson put plenty of pressure on Day but Bo held his line and would drive on for the win over Robinson and Alex Hickham. The toll in this race was high as only ten of twenty four starters were around at the finish.
Thanks goes out to all the track workers who had a long and challenging week of racing and especially to track owners and promoters Nicki and John Webb. I talked to several drivers who made long pulls and by passed other races to travel to SOS and they said that much of the reason they were there was because they had good things about the management, the track and the pay. All of these seemed to be on display during this weekend.
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