Tuesday night, June 14th, The Bank Midwest IMCA Series made their season debut at the Jackson Motorplex in Jackson Minnesota. An earlier event last month at this track was rained out so this would be the first event in the series for 2022. Featuring an all IMCA show, the Modifieds, Stock Cars, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks would all be racing for a grand to win, a formula now used by most of the tracks in northwestern Iowa and southern Minnesota for their special events that seemed to have gotten its start after such shows have had much success at the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer. Sport Compacts would be also on the card, running for something less in their pay envelopes.
For the second straight night it was hellishly hot, with temps well up in the nineties and a strong breeze also which did help to move the stifling air around. The one large difference was that there was not the humidity in the air as there had been on Monday night. This made all the difference in the world when it came to track prep and track success. Monday night the track remained tacky and while some might have said perhaps too much so, a perfect race track is seldom in the cards. On Tuesday night they dumped truck load after truck load of water on the track but with the low humidity it got sucked into "the cloud" almost immediately. The track dried out quickly, the outer groove was mostly nonexistent and most of the drivers were religiously protecting the inside line.
While they had enough cars for multiple heats in all divisions except the Sport Compacts(which is par for the course), there wasn't that really big field of cars on hand like there was for the opener at Jackson last year when the car count was a knockout. Perhaps there has just been too much racing going on in this area where a driver car run three nights a week without towing too far and that's before the weekend even arrives often! That is a lot, especially in this heat and perhaps the expenses of traveling and tires are starting to cause reality to break out.
This is one of the few tracks that still hot laps all the cars in all classes that chose to do so but they do it early enough that they can still touch up the track if needed before racing begins. And speaking of the racing , they have perhaps the latest starting time of any track around as they don't throw the first green flag until 8 pm which is a formula for a real late midweek race night. However, with no B Features to run and a very crisply run show, it would not be a late night at all.
Early track action would somewhat alter the events of the night as veteran Robb Nutt would break in hot laps and be done for the night while Jim Horejci, one of the top running Stock Car drivers in this region so far this year, would scratch out of a heat race and have to start at the back of the feature.
As I said, once they got started they rolled through the program quickly. Ten qualifying heats took only thirty six minutes to run and then after a very short break, it was time to roll out the feature events. Only six cars took the green for the Sport Compact feature and Jaeden Erickson would come from the third row to lead lap one and would then proceed to drive away from the field, earning a very easy victory. The nonstop race saw Erickson win by a wide margin over Nate Coopman and Logan Kelly, driving here instead of waving the flags like he does at many area tracks.
Fireworks started off the Hobby Stock feature and got at least one of the drivers and a few fans in a dither almost before the green flag flew. Pole sitter Cory Probst was spun by another car in the first corner, creating a bottle neck and requiring a yellow flag. Probst was sent to the rear and neither he nor his vocal fans, were very happy about it. Of course, it would help to know just what the rule is on this sort of thing at Jackson because some tracks punish those dead on the yellow and automatically send them to the rear while other tracks hand out punishment to offending drivers and give drivers harmed their spots back. It would seem that Jackson favors the former although I'm sure the starter didn't appreciate the abuse heaped in his direction.
It did chafe that the driver that clearly was guilty then would start on the pole but he faded quickly as first T.J. Twedt and then Blake Luinenberg held the top spot. But it didn't take too many laps before a strong running Malik Sampson would take over the lead. The entertainment was watching Probst as he tore back to the front of the pack, using up a few drivers along the way as his adrenalin was clearly pumping.
Probst was able to get back to the second spot and actually closed some on Sampson but Malik had too much of a lead and drove home for the win with Drew Barglof finishing third. Probst should not complain too much however as he clearly jumped two full rows on the restart green but somehow that starter that couldn't give him any justice also apparently looked the other way when he committed a clear jump..
Jared Boumeester would lead from start to finish to win the Sport Mod main event. Matt Looft would do a good job getting to second as he had to slalom his way past Jeff Carter, and John and Justin Klynsma to get to second.
By the this time the track had narrowed up and the inside line was the way to go. Looft was up right behind Boumeester following a lap ten yellow and they would battle for the last half of the race. Looft appeared faster but Boumeester was guarding the inside line and wouldn't give Matt the opening he needed. Late in the race, Looft would get a shot off turn two but Jared would slam the door, nearly sending Looft hurtling over the infield berm but all straightened out and they would finish first and second. A late scramble would see Dyllan Ricks get to third.
The Stock Car feature would see rookie driver and part time Late Model driver also Dylan Fitzpatrick take the early lead and hold the top spot for six laps. However, he was really slow as he tried to protect the inside line and Jeff Larson powered around him to take over the point.
Once Larson was in front, he was gone and pulled out to a big advantage. The entertainment was provided by Derek Green, who feared to treat on the outside line where mere mortals were unable to advance. Starting tenth Green had little to lose so he gave it a shot and he was persistent about it, not giving up when it didn't work right away and eventually, the combination of him picking up speed and slow cars blocking the inside line allowed Green to drive all the way up to second. He gave it a shot but he had nothing for Larson who took the win. Colton would round out the podium.
Brandon Beckendorf spanked the Modified field to the tune of an eight second win! He started right up front, took off like a rocket and was only seen by the rest of the field when the yellow brought them back to him.
But no matter, each time he would pull away once again and at the finish he had nearly a half lap on the field. The battle was for second in this race also as Matt Bonine had his hands full with several competitors that all wanted to pass him for that spot. He fought tooth and nail and refused to give in, battling off competitor after competitor as a few tried to drive around him on the outside but to no avail.
At the end, he held off Trent Loverude and Don Gerritsen Jr to take second.
For a full five class program, this had to have been one of the quickest races of the year. The final checkered waved at 10 pm which meant that the complete fifteen event program was finished off in two hours flat! Great work by the speedway staff and good driving by the competitors certainly helped. The Jackson Motorplex is such a beautiful facility and certainly one of the finest in the Midwest. Hopefully next time the weather will cooperate a bit more so they can get that multiple lane racing that I saw last time I was here back again.
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