Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Berry Smokes Modified Field at Clay County Opener

 It is a bit of an oddity for Monday night racing, particularly in early May with school still in session and the fields full of workers preparing the soil and then starting the planting. But somehow, this has been the formula for success for the Clay County Fairgrounds Speedway in Spencer Iowa for the last couple of years and they continued that plan with their season opener on Monday night, May 9th. 

The last couple of years, the folks at Clay County have had a number of high level successes with their racing programs while many other tracks have struggled. They went against the grain just a bit a couple of years ago but met with immediate success and they have continued with that business plan here in 2022. 

Racing on a Monday night. Most unusual. But they make it work. For the second straight year, most of their shows are on Mondays and all are during the week. While many other tracks have switched to racing their specials on weekends and then banging heads with other tracks, Spencer has embraced their Monday night shows and the big crowds in the gigantic grandstand here in Spencer are testament to the fact that the fans approve. 

They also go against tradition by paying the same top prize to their top four classes and make it five on this night at IMCA Racesaver Sprints were added to the show and they also raced for a grand to win. While the lower classes see a slighter bigger falloff in their purse as the positions drop, essentially all classes are racing for the same money. Is it successful? Would one hundred and fourteen cars on a Monday say yes? I think so. Add another dozen Sprints and we are pushing a field of nearly one hundred and thirty race cars. 

Adding a sixth class of cars for this night. Not sure if that was advisable but they made it work and while it did get a bit later that one would hope for, it seems like many in the crowd stay until their time limit has been reached and then they drift off into the night, seemingly not upset if they don't get to see the whole show as so far, they have been shown to support the efforts here at Spencer, event after event. 

Trent Chinn is on board once again as the Race Promoter here in Spencer and his success of late has turned him into a very busy man as he will once again promote the action at Buena Vista Raceway in Alta and has also added the track in Britt to his schedule this year. 

The season opener on this night would be called the Frost Buster but with the day's temperature at ninety two degrees and a hurricane force wind blowing, there was not much chance that there would be any frost in the track or anywhere else for that matter. With the high winds, strong sun and low humidity, it was a beastly task trying to keep moisture in the racing surface and it turned into a wind swept slick track almost immediately. One nasty by product was when the wind switched at race time from the Southwest to the Northwest, turning things much dustier than normal for the fans, even though they sit back quite a distance from the track here. 

Racing would begin at 7:40 pm after it took over a half hour to hot lap all the race cars, a strategy that could use some revisiting in my opinion. Reducing the number of classes allowed to hot lap or perhaps even dropping hot laps, as a larger and larger number of tracks are doing, would ensure that they could get started just a bit earlier because after the first green flag waves, track officials do a great job of keeping the show moving.  And once racing began it was nonstop all the way with there being just a very brief break after all the heats were done to line up the first feature race. The one spin rule and a wide and forgiving race track keeps the yellow flags to a minimum and remarkably, even with such a large field of cars and some drivers unfamiliar with the track, there was only one race all night that saw as many as three yellow flags and that was the Hobby Stock feature. Once they get started here, they really bang off the program and the only fly in the ointment has been the late time that the first race hits the track, something that has carried on from last year. 

Even with the big field of cars, no B Features were held with everyone running allowed to make the mains which meant that a couple of the feature races had some large fields of cars but again, everyone seemed to navigate the situation nicely. 

Four of the six feature races on this draw/redraw night were won from the front row and perhaps there is something to what many of the drivers say that on this big track, it is key to get to the front early as "clean air" (and I hate to even use that term) makes it hard to pass once things get rolling. 

Sport Mods would run their feature first  and they would show their meddle, running off a nonstop main event. However, it would be the two cars starting in the front row that would run away from the field and fight it out for the win. Putting Matt Looft and Colby Fett on the front row was bad news for the competition and they carried on a battle for the lead, but far removed from the rest of the pack. 

On this night, Looft didn't appear to have the fastest car but he hung in the groove and blocked any attempt by Fett to get by .Colby tried different lines but just couldn't quite get past Looft and settled into second, waiting for a mistake. Of course, Looft doesn't Make many of them and despite a last lap attempt to drive high in turn three and make the pass. Fett would come home second to Looft. Nearly a full straightaway behind, Dyllan Ricks would finish third. 

Much to my surprise, the Sport Compacts had the most competitive feature race with the five hundred dollar top prize bringing out a larger and stronger field than usually the handful that race at Spencer. And we would see three different leaders in the eight lap main. 

Nate Coopman would start on the pole and take the early lead. However, local favorite Kaytee Devries would come roaring up  and would dive under Coopman to take over the top spot. Coopman looked surprised and tried to fight back but Brandon Hartmann was suddenly faster than both of them and as they split Kaytee and dropped her back to third, Hartmann pulled into the lead. 

The battle was then on and coming to the white flag, Coopman would make a pass and take back the lead. He would stretch it on the final lap as Hartmann started to slow and Devries would nip him at the line for second as Coopman would add another trophy to his collection. 

The Racesaver Sprints were a part of this weeknight series for the first time and they had eleven.  cars for their main. A familiar racing name to fans from Western Iowa would end up in victory lane in this event. The Rosenboom's have been a part of just about every track in this part of the state and on this night it would be Jody that would dominate the main event. 

Joe Miller would be the early leader but Jody quickly moved up from the second row, got to the outside and blew past Miller down the front chute to take over the lead. Once in front, he extended it considerably in the nonstop main and ended up winning by nearly a half lap over Monty Ferriera and Andrew Sullivan. 

The largest field of the night was in the Stock Cars and twenty eight of them would start their feature race. Local driver Cody Nielsen would take the early lead, much to the pleasure of the fans on hand. However, Chanse Hollatz was very fast and he quickly moved in on Nielsen and then made the pass for the lead down the front chute. 

After that, Hollatz would lead the rest of the event which was stopped twice early on and did provide one of the few grinding crashes of the night. While Hollatz was comfortable up front, there would be quite a battle for second and Nielsen would eventually get tracked down and passed by both Jim Horejsi and and Elijah Zevenbergen. They would battle for second  but Hollatz would lead the rest of the way for the win. 

The other racing Nielsen, Brandon, would help satisfy the local fans as he would lead from start to finish to take the Hobby Stock feature race. He was challenged early by Corey Gronewald until he spun at the top of turn three which triggered the other grinding crash of the night and eliminated several cars. 

Once racing resumed, Nielsen would pull away and take the win. A couple of drivers made impressive charges in this race with Dylan Nelson coming from eleventh to make a late race pass for second and Des Moines veteran John Watson came from twelfth to finish third. 

And probably the biggest spanking of the night was provided by Tom Berry Jr in the wrap up event, the Modified feature. He started on the pole for what turned out to be a nonstop main event and he simpley disappeared into the Iowa sunset, building up a lead that hovered near the half lap margin and far enough that second place finisher Ricky Stephan couldn't even see him. Berry was incredibly fast and his only problem proved to be lapped traffic, of which there was so much with his big lead. In fact, he put six lapped cars between himself and Stephan at the finish. After a good battle, Jesse Regotzke would claim the third place finish over a charging Tim Ward. 

It's always a bit hard to figure the crowd size in the cavernous Spencer grandstand, but it looked like a lot of folks were on hand for this season opener, even with so much else going on. 

Regular announcer Chad Meyer was absent on this night, preparing to call the action this week at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway but a more than adequate replacement was brought in as Jerry VanSickel motored over from the Capital City to help call the action on Monday night. 

Clay County Fair Speedway will be at it again, in two weeks again on a Monday night with a five thousand dollar to win Stock Car feature the special attraction that should be a dandy while the other four classes that normally race here will be in action also. 

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