On Thursday night, May 5th, the first of three nights of the second annual Dairyland Showdown was held at Bob Timm's Mississippi Thunder Speedway just North of the quaint little Mississippi River town of Fountain City Wisconsin. Timm has been working toward this day for a number of years as he has gradually built up this facility and increasingly has booked bigger and bigger shows for this track. However, this would be the first time that the United States Modified Touring Series(USMTS) had booked a doubleheader event with the World of Outlaws Late Models so this would be a historic weekend and a power packed one with Saturday night's finale to the three nights of racing paying a whopping fifty grand to the Late Model winner and ten grand to the top Modified driver. Quite frankly, before Timm took over this track to even consider that this facility could support shows of this kind would be considered preposterous, that's how far Timm has elevated this facility.
And the work continues, even as the race cars were pulling into the track on Thursday. He has acquired thirty acres just South of the pit entrance to the track that was to be used for camping. However, a snafu with zoning prevented that from happening this year so a scramble was on to find space for all the campers. They managed to do so but it made for a bit of a cluster in the parking lots but all worked out. To free up more space, new fencing was put up and a new pit road built so the the pits was expanded but in the opposite direction of where it had been, thus freeing up more space for campers.
No support divisions would be involved, just the two main classes of WoO Late Models and USMTS Modifieds, making for a power packed lineup and a nice tidy show that allowed them be done by 10:30 pm. A big crowd was on hand and that crowd is expected to swell even larger as the weekend approaches and the bigger money races are on the line.
The WoO produced a field of thirty eight drivers with more expected if the rumor mill is correct as other series fell victim to weather issues and drivers were preparing to make banzai runs to the Dairy State. All of the top ten in series points were on hand with the WoO now a scramble with Brandon Sheppard's exit from the series. With powerhouses like Brian Shirley, Stormy Scott, Jimmy Owens, Chris Simpson, Jimmy Mars and Jonathan Davenport added to the regulars, it made for an "anyone's guess" kind of weekend as to just who would sparkle. It was good to see Justin Kay make a late appearance after all the SLMR races for the weekend were rained out.
This would be the first race of the season at MTS, their opener falling victim to rain last week. However, Timm, who is a stickler for track prep, had the track in fine shape, both smooth and fast and while he threw a little water on the track from time to time, no big farming projects were necessary on this night.
Obviously the track was in tip top shape as Dennis Erb Jr. broke the track record with a lap of 13,440 second for the third mile. The four heat races were especially entertaining on Thursday with more battles and side by side racing than is often seen in the heat races using this fast cars to the front format. Of great significance, Davenport was disqualified after a heat race win for a too tall spoiler which threw the main event wide open.
However, Bobby Pierce would start on the pole and there would be no one that would have anything for him in the forty lap main event. He moved to the lead quickly as Ryan Gustin tried to stay with him by pounding the cushion but he would fade back into the field. There were only two yellow flags during the main for minor issues and following each one, Pierce would again pull away. The yellows were also perfectly timed for Bobby as each time he got close to lapped traffic, the yellow bunting flew.
He did have to deal with some late race slower cars but he was able to move all over the track and they would provide no problems for him. Clearly, he was the class of the field on this night. Stormy Scott would make a nice drive up to second and Mike Marlar would finish third. Davenport would work his way up to mid pack before a tire issue would send him to the infield and out of the race while bad luck would strike Mars when brake issues caused him to pull off the track just before the green flag waved. Cade Dillard probably passed the most cars, with his new Black Diamond chassis as he came from ninth to finish a strong fourth .
The USMTS Modifieds would supply a gigantic field of cars with seventy three signing in to race on Thursday, including twenty five of the top thirty in the current point standings along with a strong field of local and area competitors ready to take on the travelers.
I'm assuming that due to time and tv constraints, the regular format used by the USMTS this year of group time trials and then inverting the top six in each heat and using passing points was changed to the old format of a straight draw for the heats and then racing for passing points. I'm hoping USMTS and other tracks noted this as the heat races, with a mix of cars starting throughout the field produced the best heat races of the year in my opinion and also allowed the whole program to start within scant minutes of the scheduled time instead of the routine thirty or more minutes late start for USMTS based on the fact that time trials always take longer than time budgeted for them.
seven big heat races of more than ten cars per race and three B Features that were normal feature size fields made for some spectacular racing in the early going. Disqualifications were also a story in this class with heat winners Brandon Davis and Keith Foss both DQ'd for technical issues. Later Davis would be trying so hard to overcome his earlier issue and try to make the feature that he would flip his car after hitting the wall during a B Feature.
Lots of provisional starters would swell the starting field to thirty cars of which twenty three would still be running at the finish. Lucas Schott would lead all thirty laps to take the win on Thursday after starting on the pole. For most of the race he would be in control, however at one point current series point leader Dustin Sorensen would put some pressure on him.
In fact, Sorensen would be close to making a pass for the lead when the yellow flew for a slowing Jake O'Neil, ending his strong run and negating Sorensen's efforts. Because on the restart, Sorensen didn't get away well and ended up losing two spots in the closing laps as Schott was able to open up his advantage once again and would drive home unchallenged.
Rodney Sanders would drive up from ninth to take the runner up honors but he had nothing for Schott at the finish while Carlos Ahumada Jr had a nice consistent run for third. Sorensen and Zack VanderBeek would trail.
For VanderBeek, it was a good finish to what had been an awful start to his weekend when he hit a deer on his way to the track and while they managed to get the trailer to the grounds, his toter had to get some major repairs and extract "Bambi" from the radiator of his truck.
It was a smooth run show and I would suppose a combination of the best of both worlds with the top drivers in both Late Model and Modifieds in action. The next two nights are expected to pack even larger crowds into the facility.
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