The Midwest Madness Tour moved on Tuesday night, June 28th to the big half mile at the Buena Vista Speedway in the heart of Alta Iowa. This would be night number three of the tour and would feature the Kyle Suter Memorial celebration, the biggest race of the year for promoter Trent Chinn and the folks at Buena Vista.
All five classes that are a part of the tour would be on hand again for a full night of racing and just for fun the local Bomber class got to race on Tuesday night too as I guess we needed a couple more races as a part of a jam packed night of racing. However, the Bomber class is a local favorite that has been brought back to life this year at Alta and as a sort of rolling demolition derby, it certainly seems to appeal to the local interests as the crowd seemed to have a ball watching the hijinks that this class provided.
The car count was one hundred and fourteen cars in the six classes, down somewhat from the earlier races this week but still more than double the count for a normal Wednesday here at Alta. There just aren't as many local weekly racers here to supplement the travelers who are with the tour all week, so the count was expected to be somewhat smaller on this night although there were still enough cars to provide four Modified heat races and a B Feature while the other classes ran just heats and main events.
The main events on this night would provide an interesting variety of outcomes with three of the main events seeing one driver lead from start to finish while the other two provided a mad scramble with a variety of leaders while I'm just not sure how to accurately describe the Bomber main except to say that it was different.
The normal format for this series would continue with all mains lined up on the draw/redraw format with the Stock Cars and Modifieds doing that redraw at center stage on the track. A number of Modifieds were left sitting in the pits come feature time with their large field of cars while everyone still running could start the other main events.
There were only six cars for the Bomber feature and likely the same six that started the season and will be there every week all season. This is the same thing that happened to this class here years ago when the number always remained the same and no new cars ever joined the class. While this is their first year back again at Buena Vista, things look very much like a repeat performance to this point. Their main would see just about every car spin at least once and several made multiple trips in the wrong direction around the track. At the end, it was young driver Wyatt Johnson that collected the glory.
The Sport Compacts had a nice field of fourteen cars and it would be Trent Reed that would take the green flag from the pole and lead all laps to earn a pretty easy win. However, in post race technical inspection, Reed's car faired to uphold all the rules and regulations as prescribed by the International Motor Contest Association in their rule book and he was then disqualified from the event. As I left the grounds, runner up and surprise winner Tyler Fiebelkorn was at the stage to collect his trophy and the check as the winner. The change in standings elevated Kaytee DeVries to second and Cody Gordon to third.
Perhaps the most dominating run of the night was provided by Sport Mod driver Jake Sachau who blitzed the field in that class as he led from start to finish and built up nearly a full straightaway lead over the field and at the big track here in Alta, that measured out to be quite a large distance. He took the lead from the outside pole, the perfect starting spot on this night and simply pulled away from the field.
Rusty Montague had worked his way into second but then he suddenly slowed and pulled into the infield, giving second to Carter VandenBerg who had started on the pole. With only one early yellow flag, the field got strung out and there was quite a long period of green flag racing. Sachau would hold a big lead at the finish as he used the high side successfully to win over VandenBerg while Connor VandeWeerd would make a nice drive up from ninth to finish third.
The other feature that saw one driver lead all the way was in the Hobby Stock main where Luke Ramsey would start on the pole and hold the lead from green to checkered. And while he would be scored the leader of all laps, he did have plenty of pressure on his rear bumper with Jay DeVries being his number one challenger. Early on there was some mad scrambling going on behind him with drivers using all of this wide track as they sought a line that would work for them. Behind Ramsey, there were at least six cars that jockeyed for position but by the halfway point, DeVries had settled in as the main challenger.
Lap after lap, Jay would try to get to the outside of Ramsey but Luke was keeping his car very straight in the corners and no amount of sliding by DeVries would allow him to edge past for the front. This prevailed right up to the end of the race with Ramsey winning by a couple of car lengths over DeVries and Justin Frederick would finish a solid third.
The Stock Car feature would be a mad scramble as we've grown to expect in this class with all twenty three cars on hand taking the green flag. Trey Klein would draw the pole but before a lap could be completed, Justin Nehring would take a wild slide off the end of the track, necessitating a restart. The second try would see Brian Blessington take the initial lead with immediate pressure coming from Randy Brands, Dallon and Damon Murty and Devin Smith.
Blessington was flying on the high side of the track but he couldn't shake Brands and Damon Murty who had fought off his son to secure the third spot. Brands would sneak past Blessington to lead a lap but then Damon Murty would find an opening between the two of them and blast into the lead, an advantage that he would never relinquish the rest of the race.
Both Blessington and Brands would continue to hound the leader but Damon would always maintain a small but stable lead from that point on. They would cross the finish line in that order, with Damon a couple car lengths in front at the finish. Quite a drive was executed by David Smith who would start twenty second on the grid and wind up fourth.
The Modifieds would wrap up the evening with a good main event, one that was led for many laps by Drew Janssen before he was passed by Kyle Brown, who would go on for the win. The early laps of this race would also see a group of drivers, perhaps as many as a half dozen, battling for position behind leader Janssen who showed strength early as he fought off challenges from Cody Laney and Jacob Hobscheidt in the early going.
Brown started third on the grid but slumped back as far as fifth following an early yellow and then worked his way back up toward the front. Laney was the price challenger for the first half of the race and nearly drove the top side to the lead but Janssen was able to fight him off several times.
As the scrambling continued, Brown started to show more strength and following a restart, he got a great run off turn two and drove past a surprised Janssen to take over the lead. Once in front, he was able to put just a little distance on the pack as the battle turned to the second spot where Janssen was now under the gun from Chris Abelson.
Abelson had started tenth but was progressively working his way to the front and with his preferred high side open, he drove past Janssen in the late going to take over second. However, he had nothing for Brown who drove on for the win. Lucas Lamberies was the hard charger of this event, coming from twentieth to crack the top five late.
The groove was a little narrow early and it took some caressing from Chinn and his staff on the track to get the best out of it but come feature time, it was slick top to bottom, had a cushion to work off of and the drivers were using every inch of its wide surface to race on. All this and dust free too.
All racing was completed around 11 pm and a very large crowd was on hand in the mammoth covered grandstand at Alta. Thanks to all the workers for a good job as the track prep crew especially fought the sun and wind to keep the racing surface good while at the same time tending to the pits and drive ways of the facility. It is a never ending job and not exactly a glamorous one but certainly one that is critical to the success of the night. And one that you couldn't pay me a million bucks to do, but thankfully there are people out there willing to do it or we wouldn't have a show.
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