While most of the Midwest is cool and very wet, I was lucky enough to find a haven, at least for one night, at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland Missouri on Friday night, April 22nd. As a bonus for me, it was also a doubleheader weekend for the MLRA Late Model group at the same speedway so I would be in for an additional treat.
I left Wisconsin which was enduring more wet and cool weather, and boy, did I go from one extreme to the other in less than one day. Conditions were at mid-Summer peak in Southern Missouri with temperatures in the eighties but as has been the case seemingly everywhere in the Midwest this Spring, a hurricane force wind came along for the ride, this time blowing straight out of the South and reinforcing the very warm temps.
Friday night's show would include a thirty lap, five thousand dollar to win main for the Late Models along with a full show of USRA Modifieds and the Show Me vintage cars.
Thirty six Late Models would sign in to race, a goodly number but one I would have expected to be just a bit larger given where we were racing along with the fact that many tracks to the North of us had rained out for the weekend.
There were a couple surprises in the Late Model field. Rusty Schlenk from Ohio made a rare appearance at Lucas Oil Speedway, ostensibly on hand on his way to Peoria on Saturday night. He would also drive a Modified on this night, one that he built for Jeff Cutshaw and was invited to drive on Friday night.
"Big Daddy" Joe Duvall would make a very rare appearance in a Late Model, driving a second car for the Mason Oberkramer team. He would have trouble immediately upon hitting the track with volumes of smoke rolling from the car when he took his first green. He was black flagged from the track by starter Mike Striegel, "The Missouri Outlaw", but that might have saved his evening as whatever the problem, they got it fixed and Joe was able to race the rest of the night although driving like it was a borrowed car that had to be returned in one piece at the end of the night.
There were plenty of issues early for the Late Model crew as Steve Stultz hammered the wall in hot laps and Dustin Walker did the same during qualifying. Walker would skip the rest of the night's racing except to take a provisional and return for the feature , minus spoiler. Dustin was also making a rare appearance in a Modified on this night and promised to have his B Mod to race on Saturday night too.
Dustin Bolster, making a run for Rookie of the Year, needed a push to get his car started for qualifying and then surprised by laying down a very good lap. However, whatever the problems, they must have gotten worse as he didn't race anymore on Friday, scratching out of very good starting position in his heat race.
One of the biggest stories so far this year with the MLRA is the miserable start to the year for defending champion Tony Jackson Jr. and things just got even worse for his on this night. He was battling for position in his heat race when he was the victim of a "dirty slider" by Logan Martin and Jackson Jr. ended up spinning. He and Martin then went at it under the yellow flag and after Jackson Jr didn't qualify for the feature, again at the finish line on the cool off lap.
Later, Jackson Jr would spin on his own in a B Feature, pull off the track and apparently he didn't even have enough MLRA points to take a provisional or emergency provisional as he didn't appear for the feature. shockingly the first feature he has probably missed with this group in years. He has had a lot of bad luck so far this year and now he appears to be pressing, which hasn't helped his driving either.
And on the other end of the success story, it appears that the Scott brothers have finally found a series that they can have success with driving their Late Models. Another very good night for them would see Johnny, currently the MLRA point leader, win another feature race while Johnny would finish a strong third.
Johnny would have a perfect night, qualifying quickest as the first car to hit the track, then winning his heat race and leading all thirty laps of the feature race after starting on the pole. And while that may sound like it was the product of a very boring Late Model feature, it was actually much better than it sounds.
Yes, Scott was way in front and not until the end of the race when he hit heavy lapped traffic did things get a big exciting but the battle for second and on back was a classic. Kolby Vandenbergh as also apparently found a series that he likes and has success with and he had a terrific race going for most of the contest. He was running second, racing the cushion, but eventually got caught by Jason Papich, Stormy Scott, Chris Simpson and Justin Wells and they had a battle for second that was dazzling. For several laps they were three, four and nearly five wide as they raced for that position, all the while threading their way through lapped traffic. It was spectacular when Papich made a banzai slide job in turn one and finally secured the second spot and then pulled away.
Papich was making a little time on the leader but to be fair, Johnny Scott was tiptoeing very carefully through traffic at this point. Papich closed to within a few car lengths on the last lap but Johnny would take the win. Stormy would drive through for the third spot ahead of Simpson and Wells. As for Vandenbergh, once the dike opened, he fell like a brick and ended up way back in ninth.
This thirty lap race would go nonstop and only one car out of the twenty six starters would not finish the race, that being Shannon Babb who appeared to pull off when he just wasn't making any ground up on the leaders.
A very surprisingly low count of seventeen Modified were on hand on this night, perhaps lower because some other tracks in the area were running their normal Friday night show while Lucas runs their weekly shows on Saturday and other drivers were committed to other tracks.
Unlike the Late Models, the Modifieds would draw for their heat race starting positions and then use passing points to line up the feature. It seemed like Matt Johnson, who had a strong run in his heat and would start the feature on the pole, would be the prohibitive favorite. However, McCowan , who started on the outside, would just drive away from Johnson and lead from start to finish. This race had only a single yellow so there ended up being just one slow down in the features altogether on a track that was smooth and slicked up from top to bottom. The track crew did a great job under such adverse conditions with I think the wind being the biggest enemy but there was very little dust all night.
While McCowan disappeared into the Missouri dusk, there was a good battle for second and after going back and forth, Johnson would hold off Principal Jason Pursley for second. Dustin Hodges and Kevin Blackburn would complete the top five.
It was a time trial show so it didn't get started anywhere near the advertised time with the first heat not hitting the track until nearly 8 pm but once they got going, it went smooth and fast with little in the way of delays and the final checkered waved just after 10 pm. It will need to be perhaps even more efficient on Saturday night as storms are in the forecast for the evening and in fact, track and MLRA officials have moved up the starting time by one hour to try and beat the weather. They also announced that it they have to run the full Late Model program before anything else races if the weather threatens, they will. USRA Stock Cars and B Mods are being added also on Saturday.
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