Sunday, February 5, 2023

Lucas Lee Dominates For East Bay Finale Victory

 Saturday night, February 4th was the finale for the UMP Modifieds as a part of the twenty fourth annual Winter Nationals at East Bay Raceway Park. For Lucas Lee, it was an opportunity for him to show that he didn't need a post race call to ensure that victory was his as he dominated the seventy five lap feature race, getting to the front early and leading the rest of the way as he was clearly the fastest car on the track. 

The evening began with some disturbing news. It was reported directly to me that following Friday night's controversial finish in which apparent race winner Drake Troutman was docked two positions following what was called a jump on a restart with two laps to go and the victory was awarded to Lee, that the Race Director who made the call received a number of threats including at least two death threats on his life. 

Clearly something is wrong with us as a society when people feel that they can express their frustrations or disagreeing opinions on something that happened by threatening someone else's life is so disgusting that I can't even put properly describe it in words. This is still just a sport, no matter how much effort some people put into it and to feel that something that doesn't go their way gives them the right to make a threat against someone else's life disgusts me beyond words. People who do things like that deserve to be caught and prosecuted but lowlifes like that seldom are. 

Of the seventy two different Modified teams that took laps during this five night series, fifty three remained on hand for Championship night here at East Bay. The format would be changed up, for the better I might add, as time trials are eliminated from the program on this night. The points that drivers have been earning for the first four nights would be tallied with the top six in points not having to run a preliminary race while the rest of the field would have to qualify through heats and/or B Features, just as they did the rest of the week. 

Five heat races and a pair of Jeff Broeg sized B Features would set the field for the feature race with the top six in points just hot lapping, after which they would draw for the top six positions to take the green flag. 

The ruthless driving in the qualifying races that first cropped up last night would continue on into this night's program as the cautions were plentiful and some of the driving tactics on the brutal side as everyone apparently wanted to race the main really badly. One of the big beneficiaries was local driver Mavrick Varnadore who benefitted when a couple of other drivers running ahead of him engaged in the same kind of behavior that took place in the "Illinois Battle" the night before with both drivers knocking themselves out of action and Varnadore earning a feature spot. Both B Features continued the same kind of racing with more drivers not finishing those two races that did as the strategy must have been to either make the feature or take the car home in a basket. And some ended up doing just that. 

Finally it would be time for the main event. Twenty five drivers would take the green flag for the seventy five lap feature which would have a fuel stop near the halfway point. Scott Bane  would get the track provisional, having only finished twenty second in track points but everyone else in points higher than him either already in the show or not on hand as local participation in this event was not high this year. 

The feature event would be long and tedious; there would be no other way to describe it. The first thirty laps would go nonstop which was the good part but after the first yellow flew for debris, the yellows started raining down frequently with the longest stretch of green flag racing after that being the last ten laps of the race.

Drake Troutman would redraw the pole and he would lead the first six laps of the race with Lucas Lee quickly moving up from fifth as he would hug the inside line, a strategy that he employed all week. Troutman would pound the outside line but that groove quickly began to give out and on lap seven Lee would drive under him and take over the lead. After that, the battle would be for second and back as Lee was never really challenged from that point on. 

Troutman, Rodney Wing and Tyler Nicely would battle back and forth for second, trading that spot in what was an interesting battle but they were all well back from Lee who was just motoring away from the field. Following the third yellow of the event on lap thirty three, the fuel stop would be called for and all cars would stop in turn one. Only fuel and tear offs were allowed with any tire changing being done in the work area with that driver(s) forfeiting their spot in the running order. 

Shortly after that that halfway point would hit with Lee comfortably in the lead with Wing, Nicely, Troutman and Allen Weisser breaking into the top five. Then the yellows started to fly in rapid order. After the halfway point, the yellow would wave seven more times for a variety of spins, breakdowns and accidents as the field was rapidly diminished. 

On each restart, Wing, who had established himself in second, would try to roll through the middle groove and get up beside Lee but each time Lucas would pull away. Wing was about the only driver to try anything but the inside line except for Troutman who would give it a whirl for a few laps, give up and then drop back to the inside. Near the end of the race it really started to rubber up and it was risky to even more out of the preferred line although Wing was able to do it at least temporarily. 

As some of the challengers like Nicely, L.J. Grimm and Travis Varnadore either dropped out or back. others with dogged determination would work into the top five. Those would include Weisser and Kyle Hammer. 

Through all the yellow flag slowdowns, Lee would continue to be strong. Despite other drivers having problems with tires, Lee apparently was having none of that as on each green he would fire strong and pull away from the pack. Even the rubbered up track didn't slow his progress and all the yellow played into his favor in a way as he didn't have to deal with lapped traffic the second half of the race after having quite a bit of it to race through early. 

At the checkered, Lee would have a comfortable margin over Wing, who's return to a Modified driving for Jeff Mathews turned out to be most successful. Weisser finished up a strong run with a third place finish while Hammer put a cap on quite the night to finish fourth. Hammer was hauled off the track following a heat race wreck on the wrong end of the wrecker and he was lucky to get his car prepared for a B Feature. However, he won that race from ninth, started seventeenth in the main and worked his way up to fourth. Troutman would come from the back following a tire change to round out the top five. Only nine cars out of the starting field of twenty five would complete the race and many of them looked like they had been through a war. 

For Lee it was a strong statement to the rest of the field as he early in the week established what would be his best line on the track and he stayed to that, as he "cat fished" to a five grand victory. The crowd was very good on Saturday with this being the first night where the fans in the stands exceeded those in the pits. 

In summary, I wonder if perhaps the format for this final night of the series could use a  little updating. It seems to me that all the extra feature laps and a stoppage for fuel do nothing to make the program either more interesting or exciting. All the extra laps do is turn things into a "rubber fest" where tire wear becomes the most important aspect and these cars don't need a fuel stop to complete the laps assigned for this race. Modifieds were never designed for these long distance races and frankly, don't do so well at anything more than a sprint. 

I am also a little worried about what the track is going to provide in terms of good racing for the upcoming week of Late Model racing. This last night of racing typically produces a "cat fish" domination by the inside line of the track but in five nights of racing we never really saw one night where the top side would work for more than a few laps. When Travis Varnadore indicated in his victory lane interview that he was racing the low side because during the Crate Late Model week the top side was wearing out quickly and repeatedly every night, that is not a strong recommendation  for the racing moving forward. I hope things are better starting next Monday as there is nothing worse here than having the whole field fighting to get to the inside line if the top side just won't work. As the track gets flatter and flatter each year, one wonders if the impending closure of this facility is affecting the quality of the racing here. I guess that remains to be seen in the coming couple of weeks. 

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