Traveling issues have caused this report to be delayed but a brief summary is nevertheless required. The second leg of the Midwest Madness Tour was held on Monday night, June 28th at the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer Iowa. Organized by the Western Iowa Race Results face book page and sponsored by Hickenbottom Trucking, this series is presented on five straight nights at three tracks in northwestern Iowa, one in extreme southern Minnesota and a fifth just across the border by mere miles into South Dakota.
Five of the IMCA classes would be racing in five straight programs including the Sport Compacts, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks, Stock Cars and Modifieds. All five nights would be IMCA santioned and all five nights would offer extra pay with a point fund also being offered.
This series has grown to be quite a popular series with many travelers on hand from vast parts of the country. It is interesting to see drivers from California and Arizona haul their race cars all the way to the Midwest after seeing these same drivers and cars racing in January in Arizona. Of course, it helps that many of the Arizona and California tracks take some time off this part of the year because of excess heat in those regions, thus allowing them to be a part of Midwestern racing without any punishment for missing their local shows.
To say this series is popular with the drivers would be an understatement as one hundred and sixty four drivers signed in to race at Spencer and including other drivers that raced at Worthington on Sunday night, a total of one hundred and ninety six different drivers race in the series just the first two nights. On Monday, all classes except the Sport Compacts had over thirty entries and B Features were required to cut the field down to feature racing levels.
There were some different winners on Monday night from what I am used to seeing on my trips to Iowa so far this year and it was good to have some variety in victory lane. Two drivers that I know run well but I have yet to see win until Monday were Keegan Nordquist and Tim Rupp.
Nordquist would make a lap seventeen pass on Lance Borgman to win the Sport Mod feature after starting in the fourth row. Rusty Montague would be the early leader with Borgman and Jackson Harpole trailing. Montague would continue as the leader with things getting shuffled early on when big favorite Matthew Looft would roll to a halt with a flat tire.
Calamity would befall Montague to as he would come to a halt while leading the race which would turn over the lead to Borgman. However, a late yellow with just two laps to go would pack the field and lead to the late race change as Nordquist would get a great restart and drive around Borgman to take the lead and the win. Colby Fett would make a great drive on his own as he would come from seventeenth to pass Borgman on the last lap for second.
Former Sport Mod racer Tim Rupp, in what I believe is his second year of Stock Car racing, would dominate that main event as he would lead from start to finish. Early on he would lead over Donavon Smith and Justin Luinenburg . Rupp would set a hot pace as he raced off the cushion and he was able to build up a nice sized lead. Two yellows would pack the field back up but each time Rupp would again pull away when the race resumed. A late collision set up a two lap race to the finish and once again Rupp would pull away for an impressive win. Smith would hang on for second while Damon Murty would make a late charge coming from fourteenth to third.
Mike Smith is one of those dominant drivers that reaches victory lane often and he did so again on Monday with a powerful run to win the Hobby Stock main. He would start sixth but move into third by the halfway point of the race as Brandon Nielsen and Drew Barglof would take turns leading during that first half of the race. Smith would continue to charge and on lap ten he would take the lead and then pull away.
Late race shuffling saw Nielsen eliminated with a flat tire as Kevin Bruck would move up into second with Barglof taking third.
Another driver who always does well here, Tom Berry Jr, would come from the sixth row to win the Modified feature. For a long time during the race, it looked like Cody Thompson would win for the second straight night, having topped the racers in Worthington on Sunday night. However, Berry Jr was working the low side of the track successfully and we was able to drive under Thompson just past the halfway point of the race and then pull away. Thompson would hold on for second but the biggest story of the race and perhaps the night, was Jacob Hobscheidt. After not finishing his heat race, he came from eleventh to qualify through a B Feature and then drove from twentieth to third in the feature race.
A nonstop Sport Compact feature would see Riley Paysen lead from start to finish to win his first ever Sport Compact feature race. He had Levi Volkert chasing him the whole race with Kolby Sabin right there also as the top three ran in a swarm for virtually the whole race. And for the second straight night, the Sport Compacts might have produced the best feature race.
Despite a warm day and bright sunshine, the track was in excellent shape on Monday night, thanks to the efforts of MVG and Trent Chinn and those others unnamed that did a great job of track prep. I think the track was at its raciest of the year so far with a number of drivers making big advances as there were two solid lines to race on.
One down side of such a big field of racers is that one should expect it to be a rather long night of racing. Despite all efforts to move things along quickly and run as tight a race as possible, it would be nearly 11:30 pm before the final checkered would wave. It should also be pointed out that a total of twenty nine races were held including five feature races with victory lane celebrations led by announcer J VAN.
A very nice crowd was on hand on this Monday night with the crowd size seemingly making a nice jump from the last couple of shows here. Thanks to Trent Chinn Promotions and all the other workers involved with the "Madness Tour."
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