The twenty fourth year in operation of the United States Modified Touring Series (USMTS) opened up with a weekend of racing in Texas but it was Tom Berry Jr., an Oregon racer transplanted to Des Moines Iowa, and racing in his first full USMTS season, that would be the surprising winner as he held off the late charge of Terry Phillips to secure the victory.
Rocket Raceway Park near Petty Texas would be the site of the season opening events as the drivers of the USMTS rolled into Texas as a a part of the 13th annual Summit Spring Nationals. It would be a challenging weekend of racing for all as the Spring weather threw a monkey wrench into the racing plans of many for this weekend as all had to adapt to the rapidly evolving schedule changes the weather conditions required.
Originally scheduled to be a three night show, the heavy thunderstorms of mid week that hit North Texas quickly messed that up. Following a huddle between USMTS officials and Rocket Raceway Park owner Kevin Sustaire, a new plan was put into place. Racing would be held on Saturday and Sunday with Saturday night's highest paying show being run as scheduled with the Friday night program moved to Sunday afternoon and the Thursday night show scrapped.
The track itself had already had a practice session on it, so it would be in the best of shape of any of the grounds with the pit area and parking areas being of the most concern. In fact, no one was allowed on the grounds before Saturday morning so they didn't get stuck in the soft parking areas. The racing rigs holed up at area big parking lots like the local casino, Wal Mart etc. and when the pits was finally opened up, USMTS President Todd Staley sent them texts and they arrived at the track in waves. When I arrived around Noon on Saturday, the track looked good but the pit area left me wondering if I had made a trip all the way to Texas in vain. However, the heavy equipment on hand did wonders with the mud and at 1:25 pm the Modified team of Scott Bryant became the first to be parked in the pits. The crisis had been averted and racing would indeed happen.
Rocket Raceway Park was also showing some updates in the second year of operation by Sustaire. A new billboard sign heralded arrival to the RRP, but it is placed on the back wall of turn four and still can't be seen from the highway. It still remains a driveway very easy to miss and with traffic on highway 82 flying by at 75 mph, it still is a tricky place. They also have a new scoreboard but unfortunately that didn't work and was soon shut down for the weekend. However, they have a very large main grandstand for the spectators and a high rise pit grandstand, both of which were very full as a giant crowd was on hand for the USMTS, as well as track opener.
And besides the spectators, clearly the racers were ready to start their season too as a pit area packed with race cars would be the result. Eighty six Modifieds(we can't count Al Hejna as even though he was on the entry list for points purposes, he was still in Iowa this weekend) and a total of one hundred and eighty two cars were jammed into the pits with racing in five divisions. Speaking of that and knowing that a large field of Modifieds would be on hand based on last year's entry list, they probably could have done with just a few less classes racing this weekend, or at the minimum, split them over the two nights of racing. With three classes of Modifieds and two of full bodied cars, it was just a bit much to expect track officials to run that many cars and races off in a prompt manner. To be fair, once they got going the entire show, which consisted of thirty one races, was run off in five hours flat which was very good as they pushed things along well and expected the local classes to move when they spun which speeded things up greatly. Still, it was a long evening of racing and many of the folks on hand gave up and headed home before they saw the main events as a strong Texas wind made it quite a cool evening.
There were about a dozen more Modifieds on hand than for last year's show but the car count in the other classes was all very close to last year's numbers so it should have been fairly easy to predict just what the weekend would bring in terms of entries.
Twenty of the top twenty five in 2021 USMTS points returned to race with the series again but somewhat surprisingly, series points champion Dustin Sorensen was not among them. I was led to believe that he would still be racing a Modified for at least some shows while focusing on his Late Model ride as the hired driver for Jimmy Mars Racing but he was not on hand for this weekend.
The USMTS format remains unchanged from last year with all cars group qualifying by heat with the top six in time trials in each group inverted for the heat races. Passing points are then used to determine who makes the feature with the top eight redrawing for the main. Everyone else goes B Feature racing with the number of B's and how many move up depending on the car count. They also have some provisional starters generally also.
"Big Daddy" Joe Duvall was quick qualifier with a lap of 15.437 seconds which got him the third row for his heat race and he had to make the show as the third place finisher in one of four B Features.Eight heats and the four B's would set the field of twenty seven for the feature race so a lot of quality cars were left sitting in the pits when the racing began.
The feature race would be cut from fifty to forty laps due to some ruts that started to develop around the track which was still soft from the recent rains. It would be a challenge for the drivers for sure as a great top prize of ten grand awaited the winner but in order to win it, the car must still be running in forty laps and a dozen didn't make it that far.
As far as the Modified feature race itself would go, it was slowed multiple times by yellow flags as the yellow waved eight times for various spins but there were no major wrecks. Tom Berry Jr. would start on the outside pole and would lead all but one lap of the race, fighting off early challenges from Zack VanderBeek, Gary Christian Jr and Tyler Wolff. The many yellows kept the field bunched and Berry Jr had to be sharp on every restart as he chose a line halfway up the track that he was comfortable with but that left the inside lane open for who ever would like to try it. That lane, however, was also much bumpier with some troublesome ruts particularly in turn four. Those tripped up Wolff as he drove into second but caught one of them and spun and tore the nose off his car, ending his night.
Veteran racer Terry Phillips managed to find a smooth line on the bottom as he worked his way up from the fourth row and he became the main challenger to Berry Jr at the end. The last ten laps of what was a stop and go kind of feature suddenly got much better as Phillips put the pressure on, with his slipping into the lead briefly for a lap with just ten to go.
The last ten laps would see the two race side by side with Phillips on the bottom and Berry Jr racing off the top side. Terry would make a hard push at the end but somehow Berry Jr kept his car off the wall and still in the lead. The last corner of the race would see Tom zing his car off the concrete, setting off a shower of sparks that enveloped the flagman as he waved the checkered over Berry Jr who nipped Phillips at the line. Berry Jr. had shown in New Mexico in January that he would be tough in open motored racing and he proved that again to be the case on Saturday.
Christian Jr, who also ran well in New Mexico, would be a constant challenger on this night and would finish in the third spot with Jason Hughes and Darren Fuqua completing the top five. Fifteen cars would complete the distance with all on the lead lap.
Factory Stocks are a popular class in the South with just about every track running them. They look like Stock Cars or Street Stocks and run the wide Hoosier slick tires that are "pull offs" and I'm told come dirt cheap and equalize the competition. About two dozen of them were on hand with Brandon Brown coming home the winner. He started in the fifth row of what would be a feature slowed only once by the yellow flag.
The flagman made it clear early on that for the support classes, if they spun they must move, something familiar with Iowa and Midwest fans but not often seen down here. It surely helped move the show along as witnessed in this class. Trey Stevens would lead the early part of the race but Brown would work his way forward and take the lead near the end. He would pull away from Rodney White and Jesse Freelen to take the win.
USRA sanctioned Stock Cars are a fairly new class down here and it is taking some time for the numbers to build up. Last year saw only about a dozen car race this event and this year there were fifteen to take the green for their main event. They did, however, put on an excellent feature race that saw four different leaders at one point or another. Jeff Tennant was the early leader until he was passed for the top spot by Michael Riskey.
However, Riskey couldn't hold off Brandon Rowland who took over the lead but Riskey still fought hard for that position. They were joined by Cole Deming at the end and the New Mexico driver would steal the win on the final corner with a bold pass for the top spot. Riskey would settle for second over Rowland.
Limited Modifieds are another popular class in this area with just about every track running some version of this class. Over thirty of them were on hand, making for four heats and a B Feature to find a winner.For this event, the USRA B Mods were allowed to run with the Limited Mods and there would be drivers from South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma that would bring their B Mods to race.
This feature would be a dandy, stopped just once when young Carson Bradley would turn his car over in turn three. He would drive away from the wreck despite flipping his car all the way over.
Tyler Johnson would lead most of the race with challenges from Jimmy Day and Talan Willis. Willis would prove to be the biggest hurdle to overcome and on the final lap Willis would drive under Johnson to take over the lead. However, Willis would catch the rut in turn four and his car would be turned sideways. Johnson would drive past before Willis could be straightened out and the South Dakota driver would take the win. Willis would have to settle for second with Day third.
Lots of luck telling the Eco Mods from the Limited Mods but both were racing in action here, even though it looked like one class to me. In any event, the Eco Mods weren't very equal as Trent Gibby started on the pole and ran away from the field for an easy win. Bradley came back from his flip in his other car to finish second with Bryce Pritchett third.
The support classes should be congratulated as under the gun from the flagman, when they spun they moved immediately and thus the number of yellows for the support classes was very small and helped keep their part of the program moving well. In fact, there were more yellows for the Modified feature than the other four support classes all together! For that we can thank both the drivers and the hard line rules that were enforced. Still, with so much racing it made for a long night and I hated to see so many people get up and leave early, either when they got tired or perhaps cold or maybe even, both. The final checkered waved at 1 am and it was a long inght of racing for everyone. Perhaps track management under estimated how many people were going to be on hand watching as they had only one ticket seller for the grandstand and at one time, the line to buy a ticket was longer than a football field in length! Also, there was only one line for concessions and before they ran out of just about everything, their line challenged the ticket line too. They do everything bigger in Texas and that would include the lines to wait.
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