Saturday, April 16, 2022

Thornton Doubles at Marshalltown at Frosty Season Opener

 So here's the way things currently are in my world. Yes, I wanted to attend a race on Good Friday, April 15th. However, when I got up early on that morning, here's what my world looks like. Nineteen degrees, Two inches of fresh snow on the ground and winds gusting to thirty miles an hour. Forty miles of slick and treacherous highways and I had to bust through a couple of three foot snow drifts. Clearly, I wouldn't be racing anywhere in my home area this weekend. 

Fortunately, there were some bold and adventuresome promoters and track organizations wanted to race on this weekend and I found one of them on Friday in the person of the Marshalltown Speedway and promoter Toby Kruse and Track Manager Jerry Van Sickel. I probably drove JVS mad as I kept checking with him on both Thursday night and Friday morning, just to ascertain that they hadn't regained their sanity and chose to spend a quiet weekend indoors  instead of working in that would be a very cool April evening in central Iowa. But when I found that they were determined to get a show in on this Friday, I was all in and made the drive down. 

They had been battling their own weather issues on this weekend too as their King of the Highbanks Stock Car special, scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week, had to be postponed because the conditions were just too difficult on Thursday. But being the aggressive and determined promoters that they are, they quickly put together an alternative program, a one night show aptly names the 2022 Season Preview and featuring extra money for their IMCA classes of Modifieds, Stock Cars, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts with the Mod Lites also racing. And clearly, the drivers wanted to race too as nearly one hundred and thirty of them signed in to race including drivers from Wisconsin, Minnesnowta, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska plus those from California residing and racing in Iowa. 

Marshalltown Speedway is looking sharp for the 2022 racing season. The bleachers have finally been finished up with the last of the new aluminum bleachers down East of the scoring tower and crews were rushing to complete the assembly of the hand rails and marking off the aisles, which of course were ignored by the first folks in to plop down in their seats. The old bathrooms are long gone and what an eye sore they were, to be replaced for the time being by portables. The new lights are spectacular and now Marshalltown is one of the best lit tracks around.  The only "downer" was that the scoreboard wasn't working and I really like that to keep up on the laps. 

JVS has taken on an expanded role at Marshalltown as he is now the Race Director and basically running the show on race night. He conducts the driver's meeting and runs the raceceivers while Toby is still around but stepping back from many of the things he was responsible for previously. JVS couldn't handle his new duties and still announce so a new father and son team of announcers has come on board. I am drawing a blank and apologize as I can't remember their names( I should have written it down but it was so cold I didn't write down a lot of things I normally do) and while they had their expected gaffs with mispronounced names etc, I think they will be fine in the long run. However, there is only one JVS and I will also miss his voice in the tower. Upon further review I found out that the new announcing duo is Rodney and Cade Tomlinson. 

The biggest field of cars was in the Modified class but all classes had solid fields of cars with both of the open wheel classes needed B Features on this night to cut them down to a twenty four car starting field for the mains. Racing would start very close to the advertised start time of 7:30 pm and then it would be about three and a half hours of nonstop racing. On this cold and blustery night, there would be no driver interviews or other pomp as the plan was to get through the program as quickly as possible, a sentiment shared by the huddled mass of tough and faithful spectators gathered. 

When I say there was a double winner on this night, names like Logue Jr, Berry Jr, Brown, Murty and Kuehl might quickly pop into your head and perhaps not quite as quickly for Dylan Thornton, one of the invaders who lives in California but spends the Summer living and racing with Shawn Ritter. But on this night he was supreme, taking a wild Stock Car main and then dominating the Modified finale. 

There was a bit of controversy in the Stock Car feature as a new tough policy on drivers taking out other drivers was in force on Friday. Minnesnowta driver Jeff Larson took the early lead but contact from behind spent him spinning in turn four early in the race. Michael Jaennette was judged to be at fault and sent to the pits while Larson reluctantly went to the tail of the field. This gave the lead to Buck Schafroth but he had Dusty Vis all over him. 

Meanwhile, Thornton, from thirteenth, and the Murty's were charging to the front and they exchanged positions on the track nearly every lap. Thornton got his car working on the low side and he was able to dive under both Vis and Schafroth and take over the lead late in the race. At the end, he held off a furious charge by Vis with the Murty's very close behind, with Dallon getting by Dad late for third. It was a typically exciting Stock Car feature. Only two yellow flags and while Thornton came from thirteenth, Dallon came from seventeenth, Damon from tenth and Jay Schmidt from twenty third to round out the top five!

The Modified feature would find Thornton dominating as he started on the pole and simply drove away from the field. Jacob Hobscheidt looked like he might challenge but he broke early and that gave Thornton some racing room. With only one yellow and that early on lap two, there was a lot of green flag racing and the only thing that slowed Thornton was lapped traffic, which gave runner up Austen Becerra a chance to catch him. However, once Dylan cleared that traffic, he would again pull away and not be threatened the rest of the race. 

Becerra would finish a strong second with Tim Ward charging up to third ahead of Drew Janssen and Tom Berry Jr. 

The Sport Mod feature would be another tight one altered by an early race incident. Jessiah Taylor would be the early leader with a pack of cars close behind him when he would spin in turn two, collecting Colton Livesey who was challenging and would go off on the hook. 

This gave the lead to Tyler Soppe and one would expect that would be the end of the story but not on this night as Dylan Van Wyk would charge up from the fourteenth starting spot to drive under Soppe in the late laps and take the lead and the win. Soppe tried his best to fight off the challenge but Van Wyk was just too strong for him and would pull away on the last lap for the win. They were followed by the Olson team with Kyle, who quickly charged all the way up from row ten, taking third ahead of Tony while Janae Gustin would round out the top five. 

Young Minnesnowta visitor  Blake Luinenburg would lead from start to finish to take the Hobby Stock main event. He would receive plenty of pressure from veteran John Watson but Luinenburg would not make any mistakes nor give Watson any openings. 

After each yellow, of which there were three, Watson would attempt to get under Blake but Luinenburg would pull away each time and drive on for the win. Luke Schluetter would finish third, ahead of Solomon Bennett and Joren Fisher. 

It looked like another Minnesnowta driver would take the Sport Compact feature with R. J. Esqueda taking the early lead and looking strong up front. An early grinding collision on the front chute badly damaged the car of challenger Kolby Sabin and eliminated his chances. 

However, following that restart, Christian Grady would move to the outside and with a show of power, drive past both Bake Driscol and and Esqueda to take over the lead and once in front, he would not be caught. One late yellow would pack the field but Grady would drive away from the other two for the win. Ashton Blain and Tyler Fiebelkorn would complete the top five. 

The track was very smooth for opening night and while it started out a little top side dominant and slimy on the low groove, it eventually slicked off top to bottom and the cars were racing all over the track come feature time. 

I want to thank Kruse Motorsports for toughing it out and having the determination to put this show on, even though it was less that a perfect night. They knew coming into the event that there would not be an overwhelming crowd in the grandstands but they chose to race anyway. Thankfully, the racers supported them big time with lots of people in the pits so they probably didn't lose their arse too bad but hopefully for all, next Friday night will be eighty degrees, sunny and with no wind! 


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