Saturday, April 22, 2023

Wolff Howls To 81 USMTS Victory

 It was night number two of the Ed Gressel Memorial weekend of USMTS racing on Friday night, April 21st at the 81 Speedway in Park City Kansas. Another large field of Modifieds would convene at the three eighth mile oval for a hard night of racing and for the second straight night, one driver would dominate the main event, leading from green to checkers. 

On Friday night it was Arkansas' Tyler Wolff who would make the move of the night on the opening lap when he rode the tall side of the track and swept past both Jake O'Neil and Thursday night winner Tanner Mullens in one big move to lead the opening round of the thirty five lap main event and after that, he would lead the rest of the way to pick up the five grand winner's share of the pot. 

Sharing the stage with the USMTS drivers on Friday night were the 316 Modifieds and the Super Stocks and the winners in those events would be Kendall Kemp and Chris Purkey. 

The USMTS count would be exactly the same as it was on Thursday night with fifty three drivers signing in to race. Two dropped out and two were gained to keep the sheets balanced from Thursday night. Included in those that returned to race was Kyle Brown who had to replace the whole right side of his car after his grinding crash on Thursday night but he got that accomplished and was able to make tonight's main with a provisional start, something that with the big and tough field of drivers more are having to rely on to get to race the mains. 

The program format would be the same for the Modifieds as it was on Thursday with five Modified heats, two Jeff Broeg B features of twenty or more cars and the main event, five laps longer on this night and two thousand dollars richer.

There would again be a dash for the top eight in passing points to set the front four rows for the feature. The ante to move back to the sixth starting spot was upped on this night to $1,250 and Dereck Ramirez opted to try it after the first choice, Mullens, said no thanks. This did make it more fun when someone did say yes and after all, that is what the money is supposed to do.

USMTS announcer Erick Chesterman and RacinDirt's Trenton Berry then turned the "bidding wars" on as they tried to raise money for the Saturday night finale and they did succeed in getting it up to five grand to move back in the field but the specifics of their rule changes will be revealed come Saturday with I believe there also being an additional five grand for the winner if he comes from that invert. All this will be clarified tomorrow night. 

After Thursday night's "rubber fest", things were considerably different on Friday. For one, they left the Sprint Cars home and they also were able to get much more moisture into the racing surface. This made the track more tacky, a bit more tricky with a number of drivers finding the outside concrete over the course of the night and did allow the drivers to move around the track more but still by feature time there was a distinct fast line that most drivers followed. 

After all the shuffling and battling was done and the provisional starters' honors were passed out, a big field of thirty drivers would take the green flag for the Modified main event. Mullens wanted the pole with Jake O'Neal outside him but with Wolff's big move on the high side on lap one, he would be the early leader. Mullens settled into second but was soon challenged by Cayden Carter for that spot as Wolff eased away from that battle. By the time the first yellow was triggered by Carlos Ahumada Jr, who had a terrible night himself causing more yellows that a main street stop light, Carter had moved into second around Mullens. 

Wolff would again pull away from the field while Mullens' good restart would get him past Carter for second with Ramirez and for the first time, Rodney Sanders showing in the top three. When Dan Ebert would slow with a flat tire, this would allow Sanders to get a great restart, riding the top side around the whole row of cars in front of him and taking over second. 

Wolff would then get his most severe challenge as Sanders rode him close, sampling the low side but finding it not able to withstand his passing attempt. However, he rode right behind the leaders, waiting for a mistake. Just as it appeared he might make a move around Wolff with just laps remaining, another yellow slowed the field with just two laps to  go. 

Following a poor restart when Carter was punted with no penalty assessed, the final two laps were completed and while Sanders rode close, Wolff would make no mistakes and would drive home for the win. O'Neil would make a late surge and get by Carter for third with Ramirez completing the top five as Mullens slipped back to sixth. Only four cars didn't complete the distance and all were on the lead lap at the finish. 

One of the support divisions on Friday night was the 316 Modifieds, a somewhat puzzling division to figure out. This class was actually running the exact same rules as the USMTS cars and in fact, one of Thursday night's entered cars in the USMTS ran instead with this class on Friday. Several of the drivers in the 316 Mods said they might race on Saturday with the USMTS, depending on how they were running. 

In essence, the 316 Mods are the same as USRA Mods but designated for drivers that are either young, inexperienced or for whatever reason not feeling they can keep up with the USRA cars. Their equipment seems just as modern and good as the USMTS cars but they opt  not to race with them. But here's the kicker, there were two dozen of them and if they were racing with the USMTS on this night, we would have had nearly eighty Modifieds in the pits! Drivers, owners etc. in the USMTS field couldn't figure out why drivers who have just as good of stuff as them would want to race in a downsized class. However, when the yellows started to fly and with some of the stunts pulled by drivers in this class did, the USMTS drivers were as a whole happy they didn't have to share the track with anyone in this class! By the way, the 316 designation for the class refers to the zip code for Wichita!

Their fifteen lap feature would see Kendall Kemp come off the outside pole to lead all  the way for the win in a race peppered with yellow flags, including a grinding first lap crash that saw a couple of the cars apparently welded together and much effort needed to pry them apart. 

Dakota Dale would ride close to Kemp but could never attempt a passing attempt with Brett Davis moving up from tenth to complete the podium. 

Super Stocks, which looked very much like the Super Stocks that race in my home area, were the third class on the card for Friday. With only fourteen of them, they ran a couple of heats and a main event. Their main event would be cut a couple laps short due to repeated spins that caused yellows. Jerrod Reimer would start on the pole and he built a full straightaway lead over the field until suddenly, at the halfway point, he slowed as the left front suspension on his car had collapsed and he was done. 

Apparently Reimer wins too much in this class as he was soundly cheered when he broke down and pulled into the infield. This gave the lead to Chris Purkey and he would hold off Robert Lamb and James Weve for the win. Purkey's pass when Reimer broke down marked the only lead change of the five divisions over two nights in feature racing so far as the dominance by leaders has been pronounced. 

All the yellows in the support classes bogged the show down and it got much later than on Thursday night for all racing to be completed on what was yet another cool and windy evening here on the plains. The scoreboard was back up and working on Friday night and you really don't realize how much you rely on the lap counter until suddenly there isn't one available so it was good that it was lit up and spitting out numbers at us. 

Saturday night's finale for the USMTS Modifieds will pay out ten grand to the winner with Stock Cars as the support class. RacinDirt will have the broadcast for those not in attendance. 

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