Thursday, May 25, 2023

Smith's Rule at "The Beaver"

 Wednesday night, May 24th, would mark the opening night for one of the longest standing tracks in Northwestern Iowa as the Buena Vista Speedway, more commonly known as "The Beaver", would, would start their racing season off on a spectacularly beautiful late May night. 

Under the direction of Trent Chinn Promotions once again in 2023, "The Beaver" would present a six division program with five IMCA sanctioned classes along with the local Bomber class, one of what are only a couple of tracks still running their own Bombers along with two other full bodied classes of cars. 

It has been a busy week for Chinn with a two night show just completed at Spencer, then the opener here and then back up to Britt for their second night of the season. He is one busy guy, very much following in the footsteps of his mentor shall we say, in Mike VanGenderen. 

When I spoke to Trent early in the evening, he was hoping that the wind would lay down as it was blowing in the wrong direction and making watering difficult. I could see exactly that as I crossed the track as it was quite dry for that time of the night plus he had a soft and powder like infield at this point of the year along with that. Two water trucks were working constantly doing the track, driveways and infield though and they were working as hard as they could to handle the dust problem before it got worse. Come race time, the track was quite dry on this night and for some reason it never did clean off with drivers racing very low in the corners throwing up the loose material on to the track and never allowing it to clean off and widen out the groove and quite frankly, it was not their best track by any means on this night. The wind did lay down but by the time it did, they probably could have used just a bit of it as during the last couple of events, the dust hung heavy in turns three and four and while he in the stands weren't eating it, it did make visibility a but on the tough side. 

Fifty four cars in six classes signed in to race on Wednesday with the Hobby Stocks having the largest number at fourteen. The open wheel cars were concerning with last than enough for two heats in either class. . While it is still too early to press any panic buttons, it would be tough to maintain a creditable program all Summer with these kinds of numbers and I must assume that all the racing earlier this week already would have put a crimp in the number of drivers racing on this night. There has already been three nights of racing in the local area and with the Memorial Day weekend upon us, certainly many more nights yet this week and sometimes drivers have to make a choice how many nights they can race in a single week. 

Racing started before 7:30 pm and they moved right through the program, as they always do here. With reasonable length heats since the heat races on this night with the number of cars were more a formality for most than any kind or real qualifying, it took only thirty three minutes to complete the ten qualifying events. More water was then poured on the track and it would be feature time. 

The extensive Smith family and the multiple divisions that they race in are always the drivers to beat here at what they consider their home track. Generally there is a full field of them on hand here with four racing on this night. They would produce two feature wins plus two second place finishes but it was the race that Mike Smith lost that was the race of the night. 

This was the Hobby Stock feature where Mike Smith started in the second row but with a strong opening lap move, he shot under the front row cars and would be leading by the completion of lap one. After that, he would lead all laps except the most important one, the final one. Justin Frederick had started seventh on the grid but had gradually moved to the front and by the halfway point of the race was up to fourth. He continued his charge and drove up to second and began putting the pressure on Smith for the lead. 

Frederick was stalking Smith who had slowed his pace and was protecting the bottom as the conditions had deteriorated  by the last race of the night with the track being pretty slick and dusty. Frederick was getting a good run on Smith off the corners and tailgating him through the turns. Then came the fatal final lap. Going into turn one, Frederick gave Smith a solid rap on the rear bumper at just the right time and moved him up the track just a bit. Frederick would then dive to the inside of Smith and they raced side by side into dusty turn three. Smith came down the track to try and block, there was plenty of contact out there but it was hard to see exactly what was happening. 

Out of the dust in turn four, Frederick would appear as the leader with Smith racing to catch back up but he came up a half length short and Frederick would take the win. Was it a sporting move? I guess there would be varying opinions on that, but when NASCAR encourages it, it's tough not to emulate what you see on tv. James Johnson would recover from an early spin to work back up to third. 

The youngest Smith, Will, would win the Bomber feature as he would take the lead on the opening lap and not be challenged, topping Corbin White and Max Pogeler. 

The class that they often dominate would see then pick up their other win with Devin Smith leading from start to finish for the Stock Car victory. A dandy battle for second would see David Smith and Tim Rupp exchange the second spot on several occasions before Smith would hold on at the line for second. 

The other three feature races would see dominating runs by drivers that would earn easy victories. In the Sport Mods, Dustin West would lead the first two laps before Rusty Montague would blow by him to take over the lead. He would prevail through two yellow flags and then drive away to a full straightaway win  over West and Jake Simpson. 

With only a five car Modified field and Chris Abelson on the outside pole, if you would have guessed Abelson the winner, you would have won a chicken dinner. He was on cruise control as he built a big lead over Dyllan Ricks and Matt Bonine to take the win. 

Kaytee DeVries would lead lap one of the Sport Compact feature race before she was overtaken by Levi Volkert as the front row starters dueled in the early going. After that though, Volkert would pull away for the win over Caine Mahlberg and Corey Namanny. 

All racing was complete before 9:30 pm and a good sized crowd was on hand for opening night at the fairgrounds oval and I must admit that while the car count was a bit concerning to me, I heard no complaints from the audience where this is as much a social event for the week as it is to see a race and sometimes I think here that the racing actually comes secondary to the visiting and quaffing of a few cold ones on a midweek night on the town. 

Thanks to Trent Chinn and the workers of Trent Chinn Promotions for their help as I suspect this midweek show will be a target visit again at some point this season. 

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