Night number two of the Midwest Madness Tour through the state of Iowa would find the racers at the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer on Monday night, June 27th. After the opening night on Sunday at the Worthington Speedway across the border in Minnesota, the racers will now spent the next four nights racing at a variety of western Iowa speedways, starting here on Monday at Spencer.
The Midwest Madness Tour has been organized by the Western Iowa Racing Results face book page and is now in its fourth year of operation and has now reached that point where it is an annual event that is looked forward to each year by racers in Iowa and far beyond. In fact, participating in Monday night's race were drivers from eleven different states. Drivers from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Arizona and California were all on hand to race, with some of the drivers from the far West making a purposeful trip back to the Midwest just to be a part of this five night series.
I spoke with a couple of the drivers from Arizona on hand, where their racing season is now on hiatus until September because it is just too hot to race this time of year, so that gives them the perfect opportunity to pull back East and do some racing in this area.
It was a large and strong field of drivers that assembled in Spencer on Monday night with one hundred and thirty nine drivers signing in to race in the five IMCA classes that would be racing on Monday night. This is one of those interesting shows in that four of the five classes race for the same purse with all classes but the Sport Compacts racing for a grand to win. There is also a point fund for the five night run and many of the drivers are here for the duration, hoping to reach the top of the points and collect some extra bonuses.
The format for all five classes for this series would be the draw/redraw format which can sometimes make for more exciting racing and sometimes not so much but it is probably as fair a way of lining up the races as is possible except for maybe using passing points but that seems to be a foreign and unknown topic for IMCA racers.
There would be plenty of racing to get through on Monday night with sixteen qualifying heat races to start off the program. the car count size would require a pair of B Features for the Stock Cars and Modifieds while the other three classes ran everyone in the main events.
A quick hot lap session for all cars and racing would begin just before 7:30 pm. The heat races would go very smoothly with sixteen heats clicked off in just over one hour and only five yellow flags in those races altogether which was quite remarkable, considering how hard everyone was racing and the fact that for so many drivers, this was the first time they had been on this track this year or perhaps, forever. Four more B Features, more like many features, would qualify the remainder of the fields and it would be time for the main events.
The evening would be marked by several quick track work sessions to try and keep the racing surface wide and prevent it locking down or rubbering up with so many cars and so many laps of racing.
And quite frankly, it would turn out to be one of those nights where there weren't a lot of battles for the lead as it seemed that there would be a dominant car in each class that once in the lead, would not be moved out of that position. There were plenty of drivers that put on big charges though and also a wholesale number of big battles in the pack with much two and three wide racing through the fields.
Sport Compacts would be up first and after Tyler Fiebelkorn would lead the first lap, Nate Coopman would come barreling up from the ninth starting spot and take the lead on lap two. Once in front, he would control the rest of the nonstop main, always seeming to keep just the right amount of gap between himself and Caine Mahlberg. Whether or not it just worked out that way or Coopman had so much speed that he could essentially "play" with the field, we will never know but he crossed the finish line with that same gap over Mahlberg and third finishing Fiebelkorn.
All twenty three Sport Mods that were on hand would start their twenty lap main event. Colby Fett would redraw the pole and that was bad news for the competition as he would take the immediate lead and keep that spot for all twenty laps. There would be three yellow during this contest so that would require Fett to be on alert on the restarts but each time he would hold off Matt Looft who chased him for the distance.
Fett would move around on the track, always searching for the fastest lane with turns one and two approached totally different than three and four with many of the drivers finding the low line best in one and two while pounding the cushion and hopefully, not the concrete wall in turns three and four.
Looft moved around too, trying to find that line that would give him an edge but on this night Fett had the field covered as he would drive on for the win. Tyler Watts, the Kansas driver, had a nice run as he came from seventh to finish third.
The Stock Car field was the biggest and perhaps most balanced of any of the classes and they produced a good feature, marked mostly by good battles for second and back as Dallon Murty dominated the top spot.
However, it was a shocking development that allowed him to claim that top spot and then control the field. Veteran Randy Brands would get the jump on Bo Partain to take the initial lead and he seemed to be in control early. However, suddenly and without warning, he would loop his car exiting turn four and the miracle was that he didn't get clobbered by the pack bearing down on him. However, he did call it a night and that gave the lead to Dallon Murty, who would lead the rest of the contest.
There was a dandy battle for second behind him though with much three wide racing and jockeying back and forth before Dallon's dad, Damon would take over that second spot. A late yellow, when Jim Horejci, shockingly also spun out of a top five spot, would see Dad put the pressure on Dallon one last time but he couldn't make the pass on the outside and the Murty's would come home first and second. Kelly Shryock, who always runs good here, started seventeenth on the grid but he would complete a late race charge by driving past Jeffrey Larson to take the third spot so while there wasn't a lot of lead changes, there was certainly plenty of passing and racing going on.
Twenty four Hobby Stocks would take the green flag with the top two in this event starting on the front row and finishing there too, a rare occurrence in this class that seems to feature plenty of balance. Dylan Nelson would take the initial lead and he would have John Briggs chasing him for eighteen laps but never able to catch him. They seemed to maintain the same distance, even as they endured through three yellow flags. Briggs would try to pass but each time, Nelson would pull away by about six car lengths and that is where it would stay throughout the race.
However, as in most of the other features, there was that one driver that made a big charge and in this event it would be Jay DeVries. He would start twenty first in the field and make steady progress toward the front, using the yellows that bunched the field to make passes and when he found a fast line on the top side of the track he really started to advance.
Using a late yellow, he would pass both Drew Barglof and Josh Sidles and get to third at the finish. One could only speculate what might happen if another yellow would fly but that didn't happen.
An impending great battle in the Modified feature was disrupted by the only yellow flag in that race and that ruined what might have become an epic struggle for the lead. As it was, the early race provided plenty of action as Tim Ward took the early lead from the pole and looked to be in charge. However, Tom Berry Jr was able to find a line that worked for him and he showed great speed as he blew past Ward and took over the lead.
At this point, it looked like Berry Jr was going to run away with the lead as he built up some distance on the field with the race remaining under green. However, Ward didn't give up and his searching around on the track allowed him to find another line that worked for him and he quickly started to reel in Berry Jr. once again.
Ward pulled up beside Berry Jr and they raced side by side for a couple of laps but just when things were getting good, the yellow flew and that small edge that Berry Jr had on the previous lap would be huge for him as when they took off again, Ward couldn't find that same rhythm again and Berry Jr would pull away, leading the rest of the way for the win.
Shryock would be the driver to watch again in this race, as with a late charge, he would move from eighth to overtake Josh Rogotzke for third, ending the night with two race podium finishes. Only four of the twenty four that started the event would fail to finish.
All racing was complete by about 11 pm and no one in the crowd could say that they didn't get their monies worth of racing on this night. As usual, thanks to Trent Chinn, his staff and the staff of the Clay County Fair for their great work on this night and throughout the season to date. Tomorrow night, it's off to "The Beaver" for another of Chinn's many far flung promotions. It was noted that his mentor, Mike Van Genderen, was on hand to help with track prep on this night also.
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