The 44th annual NAPA Auto Parts Gopher 50 opened up on Thursday night, July 6th at the Deer Creek Speedway near Spring Valley Minnesota. Under Lucas Oil sanctioning this year again, this three night event will pay the winner $50,000 for their efforts on Saturday night when this three night event wraps up. Along with the Lucas Oil Late Models, the USRA Modifieds will be running three full shows with an increased purse for the finale on Saturday night also. However, the Modified show will be lined up each night by the results of that night while the Late Model finale will lock in twenty drivers based on points earned during the first two nights of racing with the rest earning their way in during Saturday action. Trying to be one of the drivers that is guaranteed a starting spot in Saturday night's seventy five lap main, the drivers of the Late Models would engage in some rather "pithy battles" right from the start here on Thursday. Likely some friendships were strained and some new rivalries started based on what would later happen during the Thursday night show.
The Gopher 50 is one of the longest running Late Model specials in the Midwest with a long an rich history as many of the biggest names have raced in the event over its long history. I am happy to say that I was there from the beginning, seeing the first two events in its history played out at the Chateau Speedway near Lansing Minnesota, a track that is currently not even operating. After the race grew too big for Chateau, it was moved to the Steele County Fairgrounds track in Owatonna where it had many great years of providing racing memories to fans of the Midwest at its huge half mile oval and gigantic grandstand. There were lots of special moments at that track over the years and I was lucky enough to be the official reporter for that race for many years. Eventually, with the rising of Deer Creek and increasingly hostile feelings by city officials in Owatonna, the race was moved to Deer Creek where it now is held annually. I had a record for many years of never missing a Gopher but that was broken several years ago when they went to a Saturday night show and I was unable to attend. But, such is life. There probably aren't very many people left that have attended every Gopher except for the original organizer Jerry Ingvalson , who I spoke to as he was making the rounds in the pits on Thursday.
Thirty eight Late Models signed in to race on Thursday including the top twelve in Lucas points and eighteen of the top twenty. These days, even a race paying fifty big ones to win struggles to get cars, especially here in the upper Midwest where open Late Models are not hanging from every tree branch like they are in certain other parts of the country. I had run into Ingvalson at a couple of other races earlier this year as he was trying to drum up drivers for this race and he candidly said that if they got forty he would be happy, so his prediction was pretty darn close. Likely, with the point format in operation here, there will be no second day additions to the driver's lists.
Thirty Modifieds were on hand which included most of the top drivers at Deer Creek along with some traveling stars running here during an off week for them with their next big race coming the following week in East Central Minnesota. Among the entrants on this night was current USMTS point leader Rodney Sanders who lists his home as in Texas but truly lives most of the year in southern Minnesota.
The folks at Deer Creek run a very well managed program with top officials in all categories at the track. They have excellent announcers, good track workers, and management people in charge that know how to manage what is a big business here in southern Minnesota. They also know how to treat the fans correctly and politely, and seldom misstep like so many other tracks have done and continue to do so. And unlike a lot of tracks, they make you feel welcome and appreciated and that is something sadly missing at so many tracks these days, especially with all the competition for the fan's dollars.
Even with the change of ownership here at the track in the last year, with Cole Queensland now owning the majority of the track but their family having sold just under a 50% ownership to Mike Sorensen of Rochester, things continue to operate smoothly here. Sorensen, by the way, was a great Modified racer in his day and his son Dustin is the current defending USMTS who now is focusing driving Late Models as the house driver from Jimmy and Chris Mars' MB team.
The program on this Thursday would be the usual program as followed by Lucas, with qualifying followed by four heats, a pair of B Features with no provisional starters in the main that would see twenty four take the green flag. My only beef with these multi day programs is that the preliminary feature races are only twenty five laps and in that short of time, normally a lot isn't accomplished as the race is over before many can even get going. The race on Thursday later would be an exception to the normal rule however. And while I know that these preliminary features "only" pay five grand to win, the fans that come to watch are still paying top dollar and really deserve to see a few more laps of Late Model racing.
An interesting twist on this night's racing would see Brandon Sheppard in the Rumley car, normally driven by Kyle Larson and I believe, the first time that Sheppard has driven for the Rumley's. All the other top Lucas drivers were on hand and they went at it with special fury it seemed on this night. The track was racy right from the get-go, and slide jobs were prominent and not always pretty. Hudson O'Neal and Ricky Thornton Jr got "into it" early on and that would continue during the main event. There were others too that had a tough time in the early going and Thornton Jr, Tim McCreadie and Max Blair were among the many that had to run a B Feature just to get into the main.
Later, Tyler Bruening, Johnny Scott and Boom Briggs were among the many that had to watch the main from the pits.
On this night, the Late Model program would be first to race and first to finish and the sun was barely setting on the western horizon when the Late Model feature was called to the track. And boy o boy, the twenty five lap main was full of action and drama. Daulton Wilson, seeking his first ever Lucas victory would grab the lead over fast qualifier Bobby Pierce to lead the first laps. Pierce, Jonathan Davenport and Devin Moran would all race as a pack close behind him.
The race was stopped with eight laps complete when Shane Clanton would go OVER the wall in turn three and end up out near the parking lot outside the track. I have been to any number of races at Deer Creek over the years but that is the first time I can recall a car actually clearing the wall. Truth be told, as the dirt has built up over the years, the wall is really not very tall in a lot of spots and it would not take too much, given the proper circumstances, for such a thing to happen. Clanton was OK and the race resumed but then wild things started to happen.
Leader Wilson suddenly pulled up short with a flat tire and just as the yellow flew, Pierce was making a big charge in turn four and clobbered the outside wall very hard, damaging his car. Bobby tried to take the green on the restart as the new leader but his car was only pulling on one side with a broken axle, and after nearly stacking up the field, the yellow flew again and Pierce called it a race.
This gave the lead to Moran, who had been moving up without all the drama that was attached to some of the others. And once in the lead, he slowly and smoothly drew away from the field with the last fourteen laps going green to checkered. While Davenport and Sheppard went at it for the second spot, Moran pulled away from the field with a line that saw him low in turns three and four and riding the banking in turns one and two.
The top three would finish in that order. McCreadie didn't need his rear wheels the last five laps as Tyler Erb kept coming up behind him, trying to pass and lifting the rear end of McCreadie's car right off the ground. That can't be a pleasant feeling at racing speed. On the last corner O'Neal and Thornton Jr got into it again with Ricky coming out on the short end of the stick and losing a couple spots. Perhaps cooler heads will prevail for tomorrow's show and this will stop, but knowing race drivers, my bet is no, it won't stop until someone gets wrecked.
A post race situation between Thornton Jr and O'Neal where Thornton Jr. hit the other driver's car after the race was over resulted in Thornton Jr being disqualified from the event which I believe also means that he lost his points for the night and likely will now have to run a B Feature on Saturday just to get into the main event.
Despite the fact that the race was only twenty five laps and saw only two yellows, there were some drivers that made impressive charges including McCreadie who came from seventeenth to fourth, Erb from eleventh to fifth, O'Neal from twenty first to eleventh and Dustin Sorensen from twenty third to tenth. This was especially impressive given that only Pierce, Clanton and Stormy Scott, who dropped out on the pace lap, didn't complete the race and all cars were on the lead lap. For a twenty five lap "Saturday night" special, it was quite an impressive race.
With thirty cars, the Modifieds ran three heats and B Feature to set their twenty six car field for the main event. J. T. Wasmund would lead the first two laps after starting on the pole but it took only three laps for Jim Chisholm, the quickly rising next super star in Modified racing, to pass Wasmund and take over the lead.
And once in front, he would just pull away from the field, leaving the pack to battle for second and other positions behind him. The race was stopped only one when Josh Angst broke on the track and on the restart, Chisholm would again pull away from the field.
While he was smoothly out front, there was a good battle for second with Carlos Ahumada, all the way from Texas for this show, holding off Lucas Schott to get the runner up honors. Aaron Benson and Brandon Davis would complete the top five with only three cars not on the track at the finish. Other local drivers held up well with Sanders having to settle for ninth.
For the opening night of this three night affair, a large crowd was in attendance with the opening night 50/50 winner taking home over twenty five hundred dollars. The track provided live music after the races on both Thursday and Friday night so they make a special effort to move the show along quickly and all racing was done just after 10 pm on this night. Lucas announcer James Essex reported that according to Campground Manager Bill Nelson, the track was seeing a record number of campers registering for the three night extravaganza, a good sign that the crowds will be big as the weekend arrives.
As usual, it is always a treat to visit Deer Creek and reengage with so many people that I have met there over the years including Cole Queensland, track announcers Todd Narveson and Tracy Passe, Bill Nelson, Lucas announcers Ben Shelton and Dustin Jarrett and many others. Thanks go out to all of them for their help.
No comments:
Post a Comment