Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Larson Dominates FLO TV Late Model Opener at Eldora

 On Tuesday night, April 26th, I was in Rossburg Ohio at the Eldora Speedway for the opening night of the FLO Racing in America tour for Late Models on the high banked speed palace that is the Eldora Speedway. This race had been postponed from a previous date scheduled a couple of weeks earlier due to wet grounds, miserable weather conditions and questions arising over the new racing surface put down at Eldora. 

The race needed to be run this week but unfortunately, most of the questions came up again as conditions didn't change much over the past couple of weeks. The track suffered through a steady but light rain all day on Monday, the new surface still hadn't seen a racing event on it as the scheduled practice session had to be canceled due to wet weather and race day conditions weren't any better than earlier with it being cloudy(up until just before race time), windy and cold. All of this helped to make it a tv event. However, there were some people on hand to watch it live and really, more than I thought would show up on such a miserable night. Still, the crowd was more like a few peas rattling around in a full size can but to their credit, the track had all their services up and running just like they were expecting a World 100 size crowd. 

To say it has been quite a while since I have been to Eldora would be an understatement as it was before the Tony Stewart era when I last saw a race here and that was one of my motivating reasons for coming as I thought I should see the place at least once more. Obviously, much has changed about the place and there are more new and different things about the facility than there are reminders of the old days. The most prominent hold over is the main grandstand with the weird, home built bleachers that likely are most enjoyed by Rico Abreu. However, the new scoreboard, VIP building, all the additional bleachers, great track and spectator lighting and many other things  upgrading far overwhelm any concerns about the main grandstand and many people prefer to sit in lawn chairs on cement slabs around the track anyway. 

With this being one of the last tests before the huge races upcoming at Eldora are held, along with the prestige of running at Eldora and not overlooking an excellent purse that would feature over twenty two thousand dollars to the winner, the field of Late Models entered was a power house one indeed. Perhaps not all but certainly most of the top drivers in the county in Late Models were in the house and forty nine of them signed in to race. Interestingly, there were a couple that took a look at the heavy track with two hundred and fifty loads of fresh clay not raced on yet and decided that discursion  was the better part of valor as both Johnny Scott and Scott James opted not to race.

The track turned out to be blazing fast and choppy and several drivers had fenders and noIt se pieces ripped loose as the cars bottomed out and hit big clods of dirt. Kyle Bronson lost a motor in time trials and then broke his second car in his heat race while Austin Kirkpatrick, all alone with no crew, had a flat tire during hot laps, nearly missed his qualifying effort and shortly after called it a night. Frankie Heckenast even had a hood fold up in his face, costing him a chance to make the main. 

The Late Models would qualify and start heats straight up and with big twelve car heats, just making the top four was a struggle for many. The challenging conditions made it even harder and nearly half the B Feature scheduled fields opted out and loaded up. And surprisingly, with such a large field, only twenty two cars would start the main, originally scheduled for fifty laps but mercifully cut to thirty. As it was, only half the starting field was around at the checkered and only six on the lead lap. 

However, that was largely due to the efforts of Kyle Larson who literally destroyed the talented field on this night. It was too bad that with such a great group of drivers on hand, they really couldn't race the way they would have liked but the conditions didn't seem to bother Larson who raced high and low on the track, as needed, to pass cars and pull away from the field. 

He didn't get the greatest of starts as he fell back to third in the early going with Jonathan Davenport grabbing the early lead and Brandon Overton passing Larson for second. However, once Kyle got down to work, he drove past Overton and caught Davenport within a few laps. On lap six, just a lapped traffic was upon them, Larson blew past on the outside and disappeared into the Ohio sunset. He built up a lead of nearly a full straightaway as no one could stay with him and cars started to drop out. It was telling when Mike Marlar and Tim McCreadie, with starting spots in the third and fourth rows respectively, opted to start in the back, take the green and then park. 

A late yellow with just two laps to go could have been problematic for Larson, but he just mashed the throttle on the green and pulled away one more time from Davenport as he made the track work for him. Overton would settle for third with Brandon Sheppard and Ricky Thornton Jr completing the top five. Interestingly, while most of the teams quickly unload and then cover up their cars from preying eyes, the Rumley team unloaded their car from a simple box trailer and it sat unguarded and uncovered for a considerable time in the pits  before they pushed it too their stall. Whatever their secret is, they apparently have nothing to hide from the public. 

Along with the Late Models, the UMP Modifieds and local Super Stocks would also be racing on this night. Interestingly, while the Late Models ran their portion of the program straight up, the Modifieds and Super Stocks inverted four for their heats. Of course, they did also have to qualify but they did it group style during hot laps so that went quicker. 

A strong field of twenty nine Modifieds was on hand but through attrition there were only twenty three to run the feature race and no B Feature was needed. Austin Holcombe, who pulled all the way from North Carolina to race for grand top prize, would start on the outside pole for the twenty lap main and lead all the way to get the win. He was dogged all the way by David Stremme who just couldn't find an opening to make the winning pass. 

The Mods raced after the Late Models were done and by that time, the low line was the smoothest way around the track with everyone pretty much migrating to that line to save their cars. Venturing any farther up the track just didn't seem to work for the open wheel cars. 

So Holcombe held his line, Stremme waited for an opening but when it didn't happen, Holcombe was the pleased winner of the event. Rick Eckert would drive a conservative race and let others take themselves out and he would move up to third at the finish. 

The heavier Super Stocks actually managed the track the best of any of the classes as they were able to move around the track more and not seemingly bounce around near as much. They had sixteen cars start their main event with Gabe Mueller taking the early lead. Craig Dippman would run second briefly before Nick Bowers would take the spot and then close on the leader. 

The lone yellow of the race flew just at the halfway point of the fifteen lapper and on the green for the restart, Bowers would drive right by Mueller with an impressive move and then drive away from the pack. With the rest of the race staying green, He had no challenges as he drove on for the win over Mueller and Dippman. 

The show got done about 11:30 EST and by that time the temperatures were dipping into the 30's so it was a frosty night in western Ohio. It was good to get back to Eldora once again and to see what a palace that Tony Stewart and his people have turned this farmland in Ohio into. Thanks to new G.M. Jerry Gappens and the whole crew at Eldora who are a top notch crew and very professional. 

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