Pennsylvania's Drake Troutman went fishing for victory on the opening night of the Modified Winter Nationals that are a part of the twenty fourth annual Winter Nationals at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, just South of the Tampa metro area. Modifieds, Late Models, 360 and 410 Sprint Cars and several other classes of competition will all be a part of the month long frenzy known as Winter Nationals but this week it is the UMP Modifieds that are on center stage.
For Troutman, he would catch his limit as not only was he fast qualifier among the fifty eight drivers that took time, he would then win a heat race and follow that up with a victory in the twenty five lap main event that would complete the evening's racing action.
Nearing the end of its racing life, East Bay Raceway Park is currently hosting what will be its second to last Winter Nationals, at least according to official announcements. The planned schedule will include a full season of racing here in 2023 and one last Winter Nationals in January and February of 2024 and then racing will cease here. Not surprisingly, rumors continue to swirl about the facility including stories that racing might continue in February only for a time or that the sale of the property is under fire due to environmental issues with the mine next door that wants to buy and use the property for storage, but only one person knows the answer to these rumors and that is track owner Al Varnadore and he is not talking right now. So until he hear otherwise, we must assume that this is the second to last year of EBRP and that we better enjoy the racing here while we can.
East year this track seems to get flatter and flatter as the racing surface gets tossed over the wall and new dirt isn't put on to replace it, but if you were in the owner's shoes, would you spend a lot of money, knowing that everything is scheduled to get bulldozed in just over a year? In any event, at least for the Modifieds the track still races well and it is still one of the most difficult tracks for the drivers to read in the country, given the way the tides change how the racing surface reacts and sometimes it changes totally in just a moment or so during a yellow flag even. It is a unique place, no doubt about that.
As they do every year, the Modifieds are racing under UMP rules and while UMP still tries to reign in the Mods after letting their rules get totally out of hand, tech inspection is a long process with the lines of cars waiting to get examined growing very long. The result also is that many teams are sent back to their pit with tin snips and body brace adjusters in hand to make the changes demanded. Meanwhile, the motors are still mostly wide open and the more "beef" under the hood, the better the chances here this week.
The Mods here this week will qualify for the first four nights of this five race series with total points earned over those first four nights setting the heat race order for the all important final night of racing. The top six in points will be locked in with everyone else racing to get into the seventy five lap finale. Previously, a spin of the wheel would determine the invert order for the heats but after last year when the invert was zero for all three qualifying nights(there was one rain out last year), they said the heck with it this year and just will start every night straight up off time trials, thus making their Modified procedure mirror the Late Model program, where we all know just how much passing gets done in heat races. Thus it should be no surprise that seven of the eight heat races were won right off the front row with only Illinois' Allen Weisser winning from farther back than the front row. This makes the time trials super important as a bad pair of laps can wreck the most promising of nights.
Generally speaking, just about sixty cars show up for this event and it would be very close to that number once again as fifty eight would take time trials on Tuesday while the Monday night practice session put a couple cars on the side lines with motor issues and their return the rest of the week questionable. To make the heat races just a bit smaller and try to minimize the wrecks early in the week so that the cars will last the whole week, eight heat races were run instead of the six that the car count would demand. Four B Features were then run along with the feature race. Two drivers would qualify out of every heat and B Feature and there were no provisional starters so you at least had to race your way into the main.
There was plenty of hard racing in the qualifying events as drivers fought each other and a changing track. It should be noted that once the first car hit the track for time trials, the track was not touched after that which is a refreshing thing after seeing lots of graders, water trucks, track scratchers and the like so far this year. However, to be fair to those other tracks, they don't have the unique situation and surface that East Bay does.
The eight heat winners would redraw for their starting positions in the main event and Troutman, who turned the quickest lap in qualifying at 17.269 seconds, would redraw the pole position for the main. However, that didn't assure him the win as he was beaten to the front on the green by Tyler Nicely who would use the high side to grab the early lead. Kevin Adams would side into third with Ray Bollinger, Weisser and Devin Dixon fighting it out behind them. Adams used the very high side to almost get past both the drivers in the front row but a yellow for a spinning Travis Varnadore would slow the action.
Back under green, Miles Cook II would spin and we would be still stuck with just one lap in the books. However, after that, the race would go nonstop with the final twenty four laps green to checkered. Nicely would continue to lead but Troutman was nibbling at his heels, looking to set his hook and make a pass. He tried both high and low, but Nicely was able to hold him back until lap eight, when Troutman showed him his gills high, then dove low across Nicely's bow in turn three and slid up into the lead. After that, Troutman would show the field his rear fin as he pulled away from the pack, eventually pulling to nearly a full straightaway over the school of racers behind him.
Adams would eventually track down Nicely for second, making a low side pass out of turn four with ten laps to go. However, by that time Troutman had swum away from the field and with no yellows to slow the field, he would drive home unchallenged. Adams would push as hard as he could but there would be no cutting into the Troutman lead and he would settle for second. Troutman would hit a school of slower cars near the end but that wouldn't hold him back as he would successfully navigate through them for the win.
The battle for third would get intense at the end as both Weisser and Bollinger would catch Nicely, who was fading badly at the end. Weisser would nip Bollinger on the last lap and get the third spot with Brian Skaggs slipping into fifth as Nicely's fade continued. Only four starters would not still be on the track at the finish.
Former Ohio racing journalist Larry Jewett, who now lives in the Tampa area and is the track announcer here, called the action and did a fine job even though a speaker right in front of the main grandstand annoyingly cut out from time to time. Chris Stepan was functioning as Race Director on this night and all did a very good job of keeping the show moving. The time trials took just a bit more time that was budgeted as is almost always the case no matter who or where it is being done, but once the first heat rolled out, it was almost nonstop action, even with just the once class program as the race teams had to be on their toes to make sure they got their driver's to the line and not miss their event. The whole show, from the first heat to the final checkered in the main, took just two hours and the early, 9:30 finish is one thing that East Bay is famous for during Winter Nationals.
Racing will continue on Wednesday night with the same program and format planned. Not to gloat but the temperatures are expected to be once again in the mid eighty degree range under partly cloudy skies and even Arizona couldn't come close to producing those kinds of temperatures this year.
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