Thursday night, August 18th, the MARS Racing Series, under the direction of Tony Izzo Jr, made a stop at the Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway in Dubuque Iowa for the first of three nights of a swing that will see them race in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin but never getting very far from the roots of this organization. Along with the Super Late Models, the IMCA sanctioned Modifieds and Hobby Stocks would be running a special higher paying program.
It was a beautiful late Summer night for dirt track racing with it being warm but not too hot, humid but not unbearably so and the thunder storms stayed away until well after the racing program was done. A very late arriving but decent sized crowd would eventually show up including Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer Ed Sanger who is frequently seen at this track.
The MARS series is always just a bit hard to predict as some of their races are feast and other famine as except for few loyalists, you just never know who is going to show up to race on that night. Thursday night the top four in points(Feger,Unzicker, Wenger and Gardner) were all on hand but then you had to drop all the way to thirty fourth to find the next driver in points to be on hand. Twenty three drivers in all signed in to race with many of the open motor drivers from the Iowa area on hand with the field being rounded out by the local, spec engined drivers, many who race with SLMR and IMCA.
Qualifying, three good sized heats and a forty lap main event would be the MARS portion of the program. McKay Wenger, the twelfth driver out for time trials, was quick qualifier with a lap of 14,492 as the track had plenty of bite for the time trials. The hackneyed old formula of straight up heats and straight up for the feature from the heat finishes cut down on any drama but the lineup would be slightly unusual when both Ryan Unzicker and Bob Gardner had trouble in their heats and would have to start deep in the feature lineup.
The forty lap main would see Chris Simpson lead all forty laps to get the win but the race was much better than that brief summary would indicate. There was plenty of hard racing, starting when Simpson and Spencer Diercks fought and rubbed on the opening lap before Simpson would claim the spot. Diercks, Tyler Breuning and Jason Feger all raced very hard in the early going with plenty of different lines used on the track.
An early surprise was the charge of Australian driver Kye Blight up to second before he faded back in he later going, perhaps having overworked his tires early. I must admit I had never heard of him but he was not shy about mixing it up with the front runners. Bruening hammered the wall several times which ultimately resulted in a flat tire, triggering a lap fifteen yellow.
The restart was exciting as Chad Simpson went to the top side of the track, went three wide down the back chute and raced up to second where he then chased his brother. Meanwhile, Diercks and Feger still hung around when suddenly it was Unzicker that was on the move. He found the low groove to work for him and he drove up into the top five and just kept right on charging with second place his ultimate place.
Through all this battling and through three yellow flags, Chris Simpson had always been able to distance himself from the action but the leaders started to get into traffic and things were looking very interesting when a late yellow with only six laps to go changed all that.
The final laps would see Chris pull away again by a few car lengths and the final tally would see Unzicker settle for second over Diercks who nipped Chad for third after Chad tried to go top side at the end and steal away the win with Feger rounding out the top five.
However, while unreported at the track and also on the Dirt On Dirt story, My Race Pass shows Diercks as being disqualified and finishing last so some clarification is needed there. Chris Simpson is getting good results out of that new car that he debuted last week at CJ. Unzicker came from seventeenth to second and Breuning from the tail to fifth following his flat tire.
Eighteen Modifieds would take the green flag for their main event, scheduled for twenty laps. The first few laps were wild indeed with four different official leaders in four laps! Jamie Pfeiffer would lead the opening lap before he was passed by Mike Burbridge for the lead. A hard charging Cody Laney would come storming up then and pass Burbridge on lap three but then Laney jumped the healthy sized cushion in turn four and Ryan Duhme would take the lead over from him.
After that, everyone would be chasing Duhme for the lead. Laney would fight his way into second at the halfway point of the race but the driver on the move was Jason Schueller. He started eighth and by the halfway point was up to third and he kept charging. He got to second but that was where he got stuck and Duhme was quick on the bottom lane and Schueller just couldn't quite get to him to make a challenge.
Duhme would maintain a slim but steady lead and would drive on for the win over Schueller, Laney, Jed Freiburger and Ryan DeShaw. Talk about confusing trying to keep everyone straight. There were two #21T's and two #12T's in the field and while they didn't look the same, it was hard to keep them straight. A little duct tape to help out wouldn't have been too much to ask for, would it?
The Hobby Stock field numbered seventeen and that number would likely have been higher except that many of the same drivers that race at Dubuque also raced at Lancaster the previous night and they certainly wrecked a few of them in that wild first lap crash.
Things didn't start too smoothly on Thursday either, as pole sitter Mark Neis got together with another car barely twenty feet past the flag after the green flag, eventually spun in turn one and was slammed into by Caden Helle who would go off on the hook.
The next attempt saw Scott Wetter stall and then the third trial saw Randy LaMar, challenging for the lead, hammer the wall, then blow a tire and spin where Jimmy Doescher would run into him as many of the top drivers would have their share of difficulties.
After that they raced fourteen green flag laps with Nick Schliem leading. Just at the halfway point, David Crimmins, who started eighth, would drive past Schliem and take over the lead and he would go on from there, leading all laps and taking the win. Schliem would hold on for second but could never mount a charge to take his top spot back again while Wetter, who went to the tail after stalling on the track, would work his way back up to third ahead of Andrew Burk and Kyle Jared at the finish.
This was a smoothly run program as most at Dubuque generally are, especially being a Thursday night show. With the help of the MARS officials when the only glitch was in the heat race running order that was quickly rectified, it was nearly nonstop racing from start to finish. The whole show was done in two hours and fifteen minutes with the final checkers waving by 9:30 pm, great for all those that had to be to work early on Friday morning.
Series announcer and publicist Tyson Graves and "Big Boy" made a very good announcing combination, giving us the information we needed as well as being entertaining without being overbearing. They will apparently be working together later this same weekend, if the weather cooperates.
Thanks to everyone at the Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway and the MARS Racing Series for a good smooth night of racing. I almost made it home before bar closing time and that doesn't happen too often!
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