Chisholm's Roll, Joe Saturday Night USMTS Winner

 The doubleheader weekend of USMTS Modified racing concluded on Saturday night, March 1st at the Heart 'O Texas Speedway in Elm Mott and what a weekend it was for the racing Chisholm family out of Osage Iowa. 

On Friday night, Jim, the defending USMTS Modified Series point champion, started off the new year with a bang as he won the opening night event while younger brother Joe had a solid run, finishing in the fifth spot. Their domination of the weekend continued on Saturday when Joe won his first ever USMTS main event, fighting off Tanner Mullens to get the win. Jim did not have quite as good of luck however, as after starting sixteenth in the main event and working his way into the top five by the halfway point of the contest, a flat tire sent him to the pits for a replacement and he would have to settle for ninth and repassing much of the field for a second time. 

The undercard action saw the Limited Mods and Factory Stocks also run  full program with Louisiana's Coty Tupper winning for the second time this weekend and Boone Evans made a late race pass to take the Factory Stock main event. 

It was a spectacularly beautiful March night for auto racing and a big crowd packed the HOT for the last appearance of the USMTS at this track in 2025. Attrition had taken a small toll on the field by Saturday as forty three drivers signed in for Modified racing. Thus, with this number of entries, the field was split into four big heat races as opposed to six rather small heats that we saw on Friday night. The field was still split in halves for qualifying and the top twelve in passing points automatically moved to the feature. 

Reece Solander and Jamie Burford where the quickest under the clock with Burford, the former Late Model star who is making a return to Modified racing after nine years, was fastest overall at 15.070 seconds. After that he struggled though and came up one spot short of making the feature through a B and had to rely on a provisional starting spot. Burford drew a "5" for the invert, one of the most important events of the night for the drivers. 

Changing up from the previous two nights when the track was just too slimy for fair qualifying for those that drew low pills, the track was considerably drier on Saturday and while qualifying went much smoother, many drivers struggled with their heats, with many more yellows for spins etc. than the previous nights. I also felt that the track was the feature was not as good as the previous nights, while the fast groove seemed narrower and tougher to pass on. 

With the first race of the season in the books, the number of cars added to the feature increased with Trevor Hughes, Gary Christian and Mark Smith joining Burford as additions, making it twenty six cars for forty laps for the top prize of five grand. 

Joe Chisholm drew the outside pole on the redraw and with the top side fast for those that wanted to get up to the top, he jumped into the early lead over Carlos Ahumada Jr and Tanner Mullens. Ahumada Jr would start to slip back in the field though, with Mullens moving to second and both Kyle Strickler and Rodney Sanders moving forward. 

A multi car pileup on lap thirteen slowed the action for a second time and this almost proved to be Joe Chisholm's downfall. The choose cone was in effect once again and for some strange reason that boggled the minds of those paying attention, despite the fact that Chisholm had been ripping the cushion lap after lap, he chose the bottom for the restart. 

Mullens just licked his lips in anticipation and sure enough, when the green dropped, Mullens blew past to take over the lead. He maintained that spot for the next six laps, despite another slowdown for another big crash and having Chisholm all over his rear bumper. 

But Joe showed that he was the faster of the two drivers, as on lap nineteen, after working Mullens hard for several laps, he was able to pull off a slider and race back into the top spot. They raced that way through the halfway point of the event, with Strickler and Sanders joined by Jim Chisholm in the top five. 

Jim may have succeeded his brother as the quickest driver on the track at this point as he has worked his way forward after starting in the eight row and in fact was able to get past  Sanders for fourth before disaster struck. He slowed on lap twenty four with a flat tire and was forced to pit along with Strickler who suffered the same problem. 

Thus the lineup for the restart was really shuffled with both Solander and Kyle Brown appearing for the first time in the top five. After all the yellows in the first half of the race, the last sixteen laps ran off green to checkers and Joe showed that he was quickest of all, pulling to a nearly full straightaway lead. However, his fans could never relax because even though he had a comfortable lead, he made things exciting by pushing so hard and his hammering style of racing saw him twice almost overshoot the second turn and cause disaster for himself. But somehow he bailed himself out each time and saved the night for himself. 

In the last few laps he caught the back of the pack and with passing tough with the fast lane full, they might have helped Chisholm and he wisely slowed down, followed them and eased his chances of flying off the end. Mullens would close up some but Joe still had a comfortable lead at the checkers. 

Terry Phillips made a strong run of his own after starting fifteenth as after not even being in the top five until the very end, he continued to charge and got by both Solander and Sanders to finish a strong third, despite fighting some health issues with his vision over the weekend. Eighteen drivers finished the contest and with the numerous yellows, all were on the lead lap. 

An interesting development occurred in the Limited Mod class. Friday night winner Denny Gieber who won the race on Friday racing a B Mod, switched cars on Saturday night and was instead running a Southern Sport Mod. The move was not a helpful one as he would finish midpack on Saturday. 

The driver that has been hot here all weekend, Coty Tupper, would dominate the Limited Mod feature. Tupper, who has been speedy all weekend, has also faired well when it came to the redraw as he started outside pole on both Thursday and tonight and won both nights. When he started tenth on Friday, he had to work very hard and have some breaks to get up to second at the finish. 

Tupper blew away from Kyle Wilkins as the start and opened up a large lead over the field. There was some good battling back in the pack though, as Jake Smith, Dan Wheeler, Wilkins and Casey Brunson battled hard, exchanging slide jobs in what was an entertaining fight for position. 

After starting tenth, Trevor Cogburn used the same banzai style that he had shown on Friday night to advance through the pack but when he tried to slide job two drivers on the same corner it didn't work out and his spin at the midpoint of the race was the only slowdown of the event. 

The final half of the race ran off green to checkers with Tupper building up nearly a full chute lead over the field. Smith used a couple more slide jobs to work his way into second but he was way too far behind to be a factor. Wheeler finished third and Wilkins had bad luck when he blew a motor on the final lap and gave up a good finishing spot. Brunson ended up fourth ahead of T.J. Evans. 

Things looked pretty cut and dried in the Factory Stock feature until a late race yellow really changed things around. Michael Bowles started on the pole and sprinted away from Steve Grantz in the early going, and eventually opened up a comfortable lead over Grantz. 

Brian Johnson, who had started twelfth, gradually worked his way to the front and moved into third by the halfway point of the race with Boone Evans close behind but both were considerably behind the top two. 

However, this all changed with just five laps to go when a spinning car triggered the first and only yellow of the race. This bunched up the pack and suddenly it was a three car race for the win with both Johnson and Evans pulling up beside Bowles and they went three wide for the win. 

Johnson was able to edge past Bowles with two to go but then Evans dove under Johnson and took over the lead as they saw the white flag. Evans pulled away on the final lap as he came from tenth for the win with Johnson a close second and Bowles a disappointed third as the late yellow certainly cost him the win. 

USMTS was back in rhythm on Saturday night with a show that started right on time, ended much earlier than the previous nights and also saw no breaks at all, rolling right into main events as soon as the last qualifying was done. 

The Modified drivers now have a full week to put things back together and wash up the equipment before they head to Rocket Raceway Park near Petty Texas for the next round of USMTS racing next Friday and Saturday. 

As always, thanks to the folks at USMTS and ARMS for a solid weekend of Modified racing and also to the staff at HOT for their work on what was likely a grueling weekend of racing to begin their long season here in Texas.  

Jim Chisholm With HOT Start in USMTS

 Jim Chisholm served notice that he intends to defend his 2024 National Championship with the United States Modified Touring Series in the strongest manner that he can and he did so by taking the lead on the fifth lap and leading the rest of the forty lap opener for the twenty seventh season of the USMTS on Friday night at the Heart 'O Texas Speedway in Elm Mott. 

Support classes for the USMTS opener on Friday were the Factory Stocks and the Limited Modifieds and the winners in those two classes were Westin Abbey and Denny Gieber. 

It is hard to believe that the USMTS is beginning their twenty seventh season of racing. After all, it seems like just yesterday when Todd and Janet Staley bought the series and changed the name from the USMS to USMTS and then took off and ran with the idea of a traveling series for Modifieds when no one else had even contemplated such an idea. Well, it proved to be an outstanding business decision and the rest is history with the series seemingly in just as strong a position as it has ever been with a solid schedule at some of the finest race tracks in the country. 

A tour of the pits before the races would reveal that last night's quick qualifier Casey Fowler did indeed blow a motor right off the bat in his heat race. They were forced to change engines today in the pits and the word was that the motor they blew was a brand new piece, racing in its first night of competition. They were discouraged, needless to say, but hope springs eternal that Friday night would be a  better night for them. 

An odd situation developed this weekend with the "preliminary" night of ARMS racing on Thursday night actually producing a larger car count that the USMTS did on Friday. Down three cars, the USMTS field of forty eight was still strong and not one to quibble with. A check of last year's point standings did reveal that they lost three of their top ten point drivers from last year in Jake Timm, Dan Ebert and Jason Hughes along with a no show by Tyler Davis. Both Timm and Ebert have moved on to Late Model racing in 2025 and Hughes is reportedly retiring from racing. Jason was in the pits on Friday but just helping his son on his car which now carries Jason's sponsors and even his car looks. It will be hard to imagine USMTS racing without Jason Hughes being in the field. 

The USMTS continues to use a rather different method of qualifying their cars for the main event in 2025. They are back to qualifying the cars with the field split into two groups with three cars under the clock per session. The quickest driver overall, which happened to be Kale Westover at 15.581 seconds, then rolled a dice to determine the invert in the heat races. Tonight the quickest four in each heat were inverted. The drivers then earn passing points for their heats with the top twelve making the main and the rest in a B Feature. Two provisional starters set up the twenty four car field for the main. The method of time trialing and then both inverting heats and using passing points can be debated all night but the bottom line is, that is the way they do it and if you want to race with them, you have to adapt to how they run their show. 

For the second straight night, the track didn't roll in as expected but Todd is true to starting a racing program on time, so the Mods had to qualify on a pretty slimy race track, with the first drivers out really having a challenging track to deal with which, I'm sure, pleased them no end. However, series announcer Erik Chesterman made it clear that their laps were going to be their only laps with no retries or "mulligans." This did help insure that the program started within mere minutes of the advertised time, unlike Thursday night. 

The forty lap feature for the Modifieds would see Chisholm come from the fourth row to take the win. Kale Westover, by the luck of the redraw, started on the pole but on the opening lap he slipped up the track and allowed Keith Hammett to duck under him and record the lead for the first lap. Westover's night dipped even more when he rolled to a halt one lap later, triggering the first yellow of the event. 

Chisholm had already moved to second with Kyle Strickler, Kyle Brown and Philip Houston close behind. Chisholm continued to pressure Hammett for the lead and on lap five Hammett slipped up the track and Chisholm shot under him to take over the top spot. 

Three yellow flags slowed the action in the first eleven laps and with the USMTS utilizing the "choose" cone and also double file restarts even for the front row, after each yellow Chisholm had Strickler, not afraid to try the outside, right beside him. On each occasion however, Chisholm managed to fight off the North Carolina national Modified star and continue to maintain the lead. 

The track started to go low side dominant and both Rodney Sanders and Tanner Mullens started to move up and they both put Strickler behind them by the halfway point of the race. Only Joe Chisholm stayed on the top side of the track and he pounded the cushion with fury while managing to stay up with the leaders. 

Mark Smith collected Brown and Carlos Ahumada Jr. in a turn three pileup and after Smith then pounded the turn two wall five laps later, he was done and the yellow flags also stopped, setting up a fifteen lap race to the checkers. 

Sanders was very strong and several times he got a nose under Jim Chisholm as they battled for the lead. Sanders appeared that he might be the fastest car at this point, but Chisholm was not going to give him the inside line. 

In the last few laps, Sanders slid back a few car lengths with Jim Chisholm then continuing his strong run as he drove home for the win. Sanders, Mullens, Joe Chisholm and Strickler completed the top five. Sixteen cars completed the feature race with all on the lead lap. 

Both the Factory Stocks and Limited Mods had improved car counts for Friday night's show and both provided entertaining feature races. The Factory Stock main saw a great battle between Westin Abbey and Johnny Torres for the win. While the lead position was only officially changed one time, in the early going of the race they were swapping the lead on each end of the track with slide jobs breaking out left and right. 

However, each time, except for lap four, when Torres led at the line, Abbey was scored the lead driver. Cody Dixon was running third by the halfway point but then contact between himself and G.W. Egbert IV led to some hard feelings expressed on the track and a shuffle of the running order. 

Meanwhile, the leaders hugged the low groove and while Torres rode right on the rear bumper of Abbey, Westin was able to hold on and take the win. Last night's winner Cameron Cook crossed the line third but failed in post race inspection, giving third to Egbert over Michael Bowles and Cody Frank. 

Nineteen drivers started the Limited Mod feature race which also had its share of action. Three different drivers led at points of this race and hard feelings also developed over some of the activity during this fifteen lapper. Mark Fox started on the pole and led the opening lap before he was passed by Trevor Cogburn who was running an exciting line high up against the wall in the turns. 

Cogburn led over Michael Dabney with Boone Evans moving up rapidly in the field to crack the top three and then engage in a slide job special as he fought with both Cogburn and Denny Gieber for the lead. Gieber had started seventh but smoothly moved forward and as the other leaders battled hard with each other, he was able to slip by and take over the point. 

Things got pretty physical for second as the slide job intensity got even stronger but that came to an end with just three laps to go when Evans spun his way out of the contest. Gieber was very smooth right on the bottom and he would pull away for the win. Cogburn continued to pound the cushion in a late attempt to make a winning pass but it cost him second as last night's winner Coty Tupper who had started tenth, slipped under him for second on the last lap. Jake Smith and Dabney completed the top five. With the intensity displayed by the support classes for the first racing weekend of the year, I can't imagine how hard they must go at it by the time the heat and humidity of July hit!

Excellent last February weather continued on Friday with the promise of more when we turn the calendar to March on Saturday night. The same three classes will again be in action with the second point race for USMTS paying another five grand to the winner. RacinDirt will have the broadcast for those unable to jump in the car and drive to Texas on Saturday.