The MLRA wrapped up their opening weekend of racing for the 2023 racing season on Saturday night, April 1st at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland Missouri. For Late Model winner Jonathan Davenport it was a walk in the part as he dominated the forty lap main event, leading from start to finish and never being seriously challenged from start to finish. The support classes on this night were the USRA B Mods and Stock Cars and both needed support as David Hendrix and Kris Jackson were winners in races that were less than memorable with both the drivers and track officials needing support after their display of unsportsmanlike racing and generally unstable officiating.
After Friday night's power house field of forty eight Late Models, it would have been hard to expect even more but that's what we got as a few more drivers signed in and we had fifty Late Models on hand for Saturday night's show including one more power house entry in the form of Ryan Gustin. With fifty cars on hand, the format went from four huge heats to six but only the top three in each heat would make the feature.
Part one of Davenport's goals was accomplished when he turned the quickest lap of the night at 15.680 seconds which gave him the pole for heat one on a quicker track for Saturday night's show as the track crew have more success getting moisture into the surface with the strong winds finally settling down. In fact, as the sun set the wind actually ended for the first time in a couple of breezy Spring days. Davenport would also win heat one in a walk, setting himself up on the pole for the main event as he knows as well as anyone how the time trial races are won, as no matter how fast you are, if you don't qualify well you night is much more difficult. Actually, as the night would play out, only one of the nine Late Model events on the program would be won from anywhere but the front row and that would be Jeff Herzog who would come from the second row to win a heat race.
The forty lap Late Model feature would see Davenport almost shot out of a cannon at the start as he immediately rocketed away from Chad Simpson to grab the early lead over the twenty eight car starting field. In fact, it only took Davenport five laps to catch the back of the pack so most of his challenge throughout the race was working through the slower cars and he did a masterful job of that, never giving Simpson any hope and mostly maintaining a half straightway lead over the Iowa driver.
The race for third was a good one however, with Spencer Hughes, Logan Martin and Brian Shirley racing hard and close together as they swapped the third spot back and forth. Two drivers were making determined charges up through the field as Garrett Alberson and Bobby Pierce motored up through the pack, Alberson from the fourth row and Pierce from the seventh row. By the halfway point of the race Alberson had worked his way up to third while Pierce still lingered outside the top five but was ready to charge.
Davenport, meanwhile, just kept methodically putting drivers a lap or two down as the race remained under green and his lead never wavered. Pierce's continued charge coincided with Shirley's fade as he slammed a lapped car being over aggressive in traffic and began to back slide, eventually getting lapped
It was all Davenport who would motor on for the win as the Late Models would run their second straight nonstop main event of the weekend in a pleasant display of skillful driving. Alberson continued his charge and he very nearly caught Simpson for second but settled for third. Pierce really picked up the pace in the last ten laps and he would finish up fourth, making a late pass on Martin who would round out the top five. Thirteen cars would finish on the lead lap and only five would not be running at the finish.
From the professionalism of the Late Models, we would then sink to the "clown show" put on by the Stock Cars and the B Mods and to some extent, also the race management team. Fifteen Stock Cars were on hand and they were scheduled to run a twenty five main event. By the end of the race, there would be only three cars officially scored and the race had been reduced by five laps. But even at the reduced lap level, there were still plenty of fireworks yet to develop and mostly of the negative kind.
Rookie driver Darrin Schmidt would lead the opening lap until a spin would slow the field. Trying to restart the race, a car spun in turn four coming to the green which negated the start. Still, under yellow, the leader spun in turn one and several cars plowed into him hard, car after car Lemming like driving straight into the wreck. When they got everyone pulled apart, seven cars were eliminated from the race including the leader.
David Hendrix would inherit the lead at this point and he would be in a three car battle with Rob and Bryan White. With only a handful of cars left running, the top three managed to stay close together. Hendrix' car was getting tighter and tighter in the turns and he was on the brakes to make it turn, thus allowing both White's to catch him. Rob was particularly close and stuck his nose inside Hendrix in an attempt to take over the point in the late going several times. However, with only two laps to go, he got too low in turn two and nailed one of the dreaded infield tractor tires, wrecking his front end and finishing off his night.
However, this would set up a two lap dash to the finish with Bryan White now hammering on the back of Hendrix. On the final corner, White nailed Hendrix hard in the left rear, turning him sideways. However, White was not able to take advantage of his NASCAR like "move" as he, himself then lost control and slid into the infield. Hendrix would drive on for the win with White racing out of the infield and salvaging second. Then the nonsense began.
On the cool down lap in turn one, Hendrix would run into the back of White's car, apparently delivering the message that he didn't like the last lap tactics of White, even though Hendrix did get the win. White's response was even worse though. First he nailed Hendrix hard in turn three himself and then followed up by hooking the rear end of Hendrix' car, turning him sideways and pushing him all the way to the flag stand in an out of control move. The bad thing was that the rescue crew had already pulled on to the track in response to what was going on and White very nearly pushed Hendrix into one of the four wheeler rescue units that was racing down the front chute. It was a very near miss and one that could have had dreadful implications. Frankly, it was drivers behaving at their worst and an embarrassment to both drivers, their crews and their sponsors.
Hendrix tried to brush it off his victory lane speech, saying it had happened to him too many times last year and he was tired of drivers trying to "move him" on the last lap. Perhaps so, but the proper action should have been a discussion in the pits afterward, not using your winning car as a weapon. And White's action in totally unexplainable. White was disqualified according to My Race Pass but no announcement was made by a announcer, something that would have gone a long way in helping cool the situation. But with the potential very bad things that White could have caused, just a disqualification is not near enough penalty. And what of Hendrix. Where I come from, if you use your car as a battering ram, either during yellow or after a race, you are automatically disqualified. Both drivers should have been tossed because what kind of message are you sending otherwise?
With White's disqualification, there were officially only three cars left on the track at the finish, not the message the Stock Cars want to send to the world as they look to rain the classes' awareness here in the Ozark region.
The B Mods would wrap up the night with another head scratching performance but in this event it wasn't the drivers but the officials that seemed to have "stepped on it."
It started out smoothly enough as a twenty six car field would take the green flag with Mitchell Franklin taking the early lead. He was getting good pressure from Jon Sheets and Brice Gotschall in the early going and he survived several hard challenges to maintain the top spot. Eventually Bobby Williams would move into the second spot and he would become the main challenger for the lead. By the halfway point of the race, Franklin would continue to hold the lead over Williams and Gotschall but J. C. Morton was charging up and he was bringing Kris Jackson, who started ninth, with him.
Soon Morton had moved up to third and he found the top side of the track to be fast as he continued to reel in the leaders and on lap eighteen, he would blow by Franklin to take over the lead. The race had gone nonstop to this point but on lap nineteen, the yellow would wave for a spin in turn two and this would change the face of the race. Morton would still be the leader but Jackson had now moved into third and with the outside for the restart, he was primed for a charge. And so he did.
With a spectacular three wide move in turn four on the next lap, he would race around both Franklin and Morton and take over the lead. However, he would slip high in turn one and suddenly there was a three wide battle down the back chute for the lead. The track got too narrow for the three of them, there was some rubbing that I would call nothing other than a "racing deal" and after banging wheels amongst the three, both Morton and Jackson would spin out. The yellow waved and then things fell apart.
While Franklin was able to keep going, it was an easy call to make on Morton as his car was damaged and would need the wrecker's assistance. However, Jackson was the issue. He clearly spun and the yellow did come out. However, he didn't stop but kept going as the field avoided the accident and the question apparently was where to place him in the restart order.
I don't know the track rules so I don't know how they typically score such an incident, but apparently there was lots of confusion among the track officials. The cars circled the track for likely ten minutes under yellow and everyone waited to see how they would align the cars. There must have been some fast skimming of the rule book or perhaps some heated discussion in the tower but as we all waited, the time dragged on and nothing happened.
Finally, and again of course there was no explanation by the announcers who suddenly seemed tongue tied, the lap board was set back one lap and Jackson was inserted into the second place position behind Franklin. We will probably never learn the rationale for this so it's hard to say if they made the correct call or not, but that's the way they lined up for the restart and it then took Jackson just one lap to pass Franklin and then motor on for the win. Jon Sheets would come up in the late going to also pass Franklin for second.
I heard more than a few fans muttering on the way out that a million dollar facility like this shouldn't have to have two dollar and fifty cent behavior by the drivers and working officials. Make the call quickly and move on. Delays and hesitancy give the appearance of incompetency
Oh, and one other thing. Can't anyone read a watch around here? For the second straight night, racing started a full hour behind the advertised time. Even given a pass due to the high winds that made it tough to get moisture into the track on Friday and required extra track work, no such excuse existed on Saturday. Still, it was 8 pm before the first green flag waved. Of course, my old friend time trials always has something to do with that but a big time operation like this should be able to budget their starting time just a little better.
However, in all other ways this place is first class and a pleasure to visit. They have an outstanding facility here as most people know and always draw the top drivers for their premier events. Check their track schedule for a plethora of big races upcoming in 2023. .
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