Sunday night, July 3rd saw me head back into the state of Iowa for a first time visit this year to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton and the first time to see the 2022 version of the Sprint Invaders series, making a visit to the "Bullring" on this holiday weekend.
On tap would be all classes that race on a Sunday night at Vinton including the Legend Cars and with the Sprints also on hand, there would be a pit busting seven divisions in action. The overflow pit area would be used for the Sprint Cars along with those visitors that didn't have reserved pit spots in the regular pit area.
Satisfactory fields of cars would be on hand in six of the seven divisions with only the Stock Cars being a bit short on racers on this night while the Sprints had twenty two cars on hand, enough for three full heat races.
The hot laps were in progress when they were put to a suddenly halt by a nasty flip off the North end of the track by young Aiden Zoutte, apparently caused by a dip in the track entering turn three. Apparently a culvert under the track deteriorated and while they thought they had the problem fixed, it caused a dip to develop in that corner, giving the drivers grief with several of the Sprints flying off the end and in Zoute's case, he hit some Jersey barricades off the end of the track and then flipped, ending his night. The break was used to work on that end of the track and haul the barriers out of harm's way. This put them a bit behind schedule but the masters of the p.a., Ryan Clark and Sprint Invader guest announcer Jeff Broeg, waxed eloquent during this time, bringing folks of to date on racing information etc. Somehow I even got mentioned during this time, but it was mostly positive.
Once rolling though, the program moved right along as is the norm at Benton County and it was soon time for the main events. The Stock Cars would lead the way and even though there were only eight of them, there were three different leaders in the first three laps. However, once Kaden Reynolds took over the lead on lap three, he was gone in this nonstop race and he pulled out to a big lead before it was over.
He had a full straightaway lead at the end over Steve Meyer who took the second spot late with Shaun Bistline coming home third.
The Sport Mods put on a good show with a nice battle for the lead that saw three different drivers heading the way. Justin Wacha led lap one before he was passed by Sam Wieben for the top spot. Wieben was soon challenged by Dylan VanWyk, Ben Chapman and Kyle Olson. On lap seven VanWyk took over the lead but Wieben would fight back four laps later to retake the top spot as the leaders were sliding and dicing up front.
A grinding crash on the front chute eliminated four cars and triggered the last yellow of the race and back on green, it was VanWyk that would once more take over the lead. This time there would be no catching him and he would drive on for the win with Chapman nipping Wieben for second.
The Sprint feature would be next to race and twenty cars would take the green for their twenty five lap main event. It was a good race early with Luke Verardi taking the lead from the pole before he was overtaken by Devin Wignall for the point. However, following the lone yellow on lap nine, Verardi would repass for the top spot and then hold off all challengers the rest of the way. Even the heavy dirt of the "Bullring", which did seem drier than normal on this night right from the start, was no match for the wide soft tires of the Sprint Cars and the track started to take rubber quickly, leading most of the drivers to get in line and wait for any possible mistakes by their fellow drivers.
Verardi would smoothly handle the changing conditions and would not be seriously challenged as he drove on for the win. Paul Nienhiser would move past Wignall to finish second.
With three more features still to be run, the track was pretty much limited in where the racers could run due to that generous rubber strip on the track. Veteran Mark Schulte has seen this condition on a track or two over his long career and he knew exactly where to run on the track, especially after he started on the pole. He would lead the entire twenty laps including three early yellow flags, although he was challenged late by Ryan Maitland and Dylan Thornton who started ninth.
Start to finish, Bradly Graham would lead the Hobby Stock feature. Ryan Havel would run second from start to finish but just couldn't put together a strong challenge to the winner with Brett Vanous coming from the third row to finish third.
The Sport Compact feature would see Lukas Rick lead from start to finish. The first lap was a mad scramble and somehow Rick would come from seventh to first on the initial lap but after that he would be in control the rest of the way. Nolan Tuttle would come home second. There was some drama as there often seems to be in this class with one driver being black flagged for rough driving after turning another racer who was battling up front. Neither driver was happy after the race as I suppose one would expect.
The folks at Benton County were apparently anxiously awaiting the appearance of the Sprint Cars as there was a very large crowd on hand, despite it being a holiday weekend.
Thanks go out to Rick and Cory Dripps and the staff at Benton County for a job well done, especially working on a holiday weekend under rather extreme weather conditions.
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