The dynamite schedule continued at the Davenport Speedway at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport Iowa on Tuesday night, July 11th. This time, it was the Lucas Oil Late Model Series that invaded the quarter mile oval with some of the biggest stars in all of short track dirt racing on hand to battle for the ten grand top prize along with season long points that many are battling for.
Top flight drivers, top notch announcers, top notch production at a top notch racing facility, what more could a racing fan ask for. A symbiotic relationship currently exists between the racing fans that attend here and Kay Promotions along with Sixteen Racing Promotions. The promoters provide one of the most aggressive and varied schedules for the fans to see a wide variety of the biggest names in the sport and they respond by attending these races in impressive numbers. And as long as the crowds continue, the promoters will continue to bring in more in the way of varied and attractive events.
And again on Tuesday, despite an oppressively hot and humid day that even threatened rain at one point, another very large crowd was in attendance to watch the Lucas Oil drivers in action, along with support classes that included both IMCA Late Models and Modifieds. Some big thunderheads developed during the afternoon and a few sprinkles fell at the track but then the clouds parted, the sun came back out to bake us and racing would be certain to happen.
Ricky and Dr. Al were challenged to provide a racy track for three classes of cars but they also came through again with a fast track and little dust to deal with for the fans. Devin Moran came within a whisker of breaking the track record and while speed alone does not a good track make, the multi groove racing that we would see later would be testament to fine track prep.
The Lucas Oil Late Model drivers and actually Late Model drivers in general are in the midst of a grueling part of their year long schedule right now with many big races on tap plus lots of point races and travel to go along with that. And the hot Summer heat can't make their jobs much easier. Despite all the things going on right now, thirty two Late Models would sign in to race on Tuesday along with enough Mods and IMCA Late Models for a pair of heats.
Qualifying is generally not an amusing part of any racing program but it did turn out to be so on Tuesday. For some reason, a lot of the drivers were finding it hard to keep their cars on the track during time trials with many slipping over the banking on this quarter mile that has no outside walls, setting off groans from some in the crowd and titters from others. The best was the last three drivers to qualify who one after another slid over the banking in turn one and followed each other through the outfield of the track, drawing a roar from the crowd. Bad qualifying efforts put a few drivers behind the eight ball early, most notably Tim McCreadie, Hudson O'Neal and Brian Shirley.
The Lucas cars would be divided into four heats and just one big Jeff Broeg sized B Feature on this night of which six would qualify for the forty lap main event.
Keeping the program moving along, the Lucas Late Models would be the second feature race of the night, following a rather extensive track prep session that saw them water and rip the track after it appeared to be too bottom side dominant for the IMCA Late Models. This would take some time but would likely be worth it in the long run to make the track the best possible for the featured event of the program.
Twenty four drivers would take the green for the Lucas Oil Late Model feature that would see only two different leaders and a pretty dominant performance by Jonathan Davenport. He would start on the outside pole and after an exciting first lap that would see him get a good run on the top side of the track with Devin Moran trying to side up and block him and Davenport putting a pretty big wrinkle in Devin's rear quarter panel as he didn't back off and almost turned the Moran car, Davenport would lead the first five laps before Moran would fight his way past to take over the lead.
Davenport wasn't done though as he fought back and five laps later would drive back around Moran to take the lead. Davenport would then extend his lead with the best battle for second where Ricky Thornton Jr would move up to challenge Moran for second. By the halfway point of the race, Thornton Jr would take over second but he would not be able to cut into Davenport's lead any more than Moran had.
The last twenty eight laps of the race would go nonstop with Davenport in control most of the way. In the last ten laps however, Moran would regain second and then start to close on Davenport. Jonathan would get a scare in the last ten laps when he would get too high in turn four and almost slip over the edge of the track. He managed to save it but then dropped a bit lower on the track which gave Moran a chance to gain even more ground.
Eventually Davenport would get the ship righted and while Moran would continue to cut into the lead. he would run out of laps and have to settle for second with Thornton Jr third.
The one driver to best make the low side work was Brian Shirley who to that point had a rather miserable night. However, he would make a determined charge on the bottom lane which was pretty much open after most of the field chose to run the cushion. He would start sixteenth and work all the way up to fourth and would probably have been able to move up even further if not for an O'Neal crew member who gave O'Neal the sign to pull low and he managed to block Shirley from advancing further in the last laps.
Seventeen drivers would finish the race with state drivers having another tough night. Out early and not finishing were Ryan Gustin, Chris Simpson, Spencer Diercks and Tyler Bruening while Chad Simpson failed to even run the B Feature after earlier issues.
I'm sure that every writer, blogger and reporter has been struggling to come up with a catchy headline to mark the fact that Davenport won at Davenport in the city of Davenport. Hopefully others turned out more clever than mine! It was, however, the first win for Davenport here at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds.
The IMCA Late Model feature was the first one run and the lower horsepower cars found the inside lane to be too sticky to move out of and the vast majority of the cars hugged the hub for twenty five laps.
There were three different leaders with Joe Beal leading lap one before being passed by Nick Marolf. However, Marolf couldn't hold the low side either and Andy Nezworski would drive under him and take over the lead on lap three. From then on, he pulled away and would not be challenged.
There would be only one yellow in this race also and the last fifteen laps would click off green to checkered. Nezworski would cruise for the win while two fairly recent additions to this class, Beal and Mike Goben, would both have strong runs to complete the top five.
Normally strong racers in this class including Justin Kay, Marolf and Matt Ryan all had less than the stellar runs they were looking for.
Jeff Aikey would start on the pole for the Modified feature and after taking the early lead, it seemed likely that he would just march off for the win. However, that proved to not be the case as Matt Werner came storming up from the third row and got under Aikey for the lead on lap four. After that, despite two yellows that packed the field, Werner would pull away to an impressive win while being unchallenged.
Brad Dierks, who last weekend was running an open Modified at another track, broke out his IMCA car on Tuesday and would drive from the eighth starting spot to pass Aikey for second and then got on to finish in that position. Mitch Morris and Scott Lemke would also pass Aikey as his choice of running the cushion proved to not be the fast way around this track at the end.
Only three cars in this fifteen car field failed to finish the race and all were on the lead lap at the finish.
All racing was completed shortly after 10 pm and for those that were strictly Late Model fans, the Lucas race running second in the order gave them the opportunity to leave early and by the time the final race was over, I was able to drive right out of the fairgrounds, despite the big crowd. Sprinkled in amongst the weekly Friday night racing, the next special for the Late Models will be on Tuesday night, July 25th when the MARS Racing Series brings their program to the Fairgrounds with another top notch field of midwestern based drivers following that series.
As always, thanks to everyone at Kay Promotions for another good experience at the races.
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