The Deuces Wild Championship weekend for three racing series began on Friday night, November 7th at the Texas Motor Speedway Dirt Track North of Fort Worth.
This weekend's racing would see three distinctive different series and types of race cars settle their season long points battle at one of the finest dirt tracks in the country. On hand racing this weekend were the POWRi 410 Outlaw Sprint League Sprint Cars, the Late Models from the Revival Super Dirt Series being supported by drivers from the United Rebel Late Model Series and the USRA American Racer Modified Series.
All three series would be crowning their champions following the racing action on Saturday night although there was really only one series that hadn't already determined who their champion would be and that was the ARMS Modifieds.
Speaking of the ARMS Series, I did get a chance to briefly talk with ARMS owner Trenton Berry as he prepared for the evening's racing. As soon as this race is over, he will be devoting full attention to getting things finalized for his 2026 season with his three Modified series plus the new Late Model Series his is plunging into. To say that his plate is full would be an understatement and he mentioned that he was only home for three weekends all Summer this year. He anticipates all three series to be about like last year and his Late Model Series is planned to be for somewhere between fifteen and twenty events at tracks in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma mostly with a purse structure of three grand to win and a total purse of somewhere over sixteen thousand dollars. He did say that he has received quite a bit of interest from promoters from that area about booking an event.
I did not get the chance to speak to anyone from POWRi but their list of series and events is expected to once again be huge.
With this being the final race for all three series along with the last race of 2025 for many teams, the opportunity to race at one of the finest dirt facilities plus spectacular weather, a large field of drivers was anticipated for this weekend's action and none of the three series disappointed.
When everyone had signed in on Friday, there were thirty five Sprint Cars on hand along with fifty two Late Models and sixty five Modifieds with the total entries of one hundred and fifty two swelling the paved pit area of the track to the bursting point with a number of late arrivals having to pit across the street on grass.
Full programs for all three series were on the card for Friday with all three series doing time trial qualifications, heats, B Features and main events. A number of established stars were on hand in each class along with a number of up and comers. Drivers were on hand from a large number of states and I was especially surprised to learn of the number of Late Model teams from the Midwest area that I was not aware were running. Because POWRi runs so many races in the Missouri area, there were a large number of Late Model teams on hand from there, the Sprint Car teams were from literally all over the country and the ARMS series gets great support from the abundant number of Modified teams in Texas and Oklahoma.
The track had been generously watered for Friday night's racing action and it took just a few minutes longer than planned for the Sprints, the first group on the track for all events, to roll it in. However, after this, the track would see no attention except to scrap the mud off the walls several times as it raced heavy and fast all night. There was no dust and no water truck was ever needed and despite it's heavy nature, it did form two distinctive lines with some drivers running the cushion even though the top half of the track remained unused while others hugged the inside line. The inside line took a "shine" so maintaining consistency lap after lap was challenging and we saw much back and forth racing.
The three themes that seemed to prevail on Friday night for me were the superior car counts in all classes, the dominant runs by two drivers that completely dominated their divisions and the long night of racing which slopped over onto Saturday morning. More about that later but let's talk about the dominant performances of Cade Dillard and Aaron Reutzel.
Dillard was perfect on Friday night, turning the quickest time in both the Late Models and Modifieds, winning both his qualifying events and then dominating both feature races. It was quite the night for the Louisiana driver who used this weekend to race in both of his favorite classes and certainly to try and sell more cars in this area.
In the Late Models, he set quick time at 15.623 seconds, a full four tenth of a second quicker than group two quickest Jake Nightingale. The Late Models started their heats straight up from qualifying but the top six didn't run a heat, they raced a dash the determined their starting positions for the main event. Dillard won that so he started on the pole.
He got the lead right from the start and led all twenty five laps, finishing comfortably in front at the finish. This race had its share of difficulties with the yellow waving four times and nearly as many drivers not finishing the race as those that did.
A particularly nasty lap two wreck saw then second place runner Eli Ross spin on a restart and collect a number of other drivers with at least four eliminated from the contest. Nightingale, who had a bad dash, had to come from the third row and after a good battle with Jon Mitchell and and Kylan Garner, drove up to second at the end but was well back of Dillard. Mitchell finished third in front of Kip Hughes and Shane Hebert. Garner faded to sixth but still clinched the title.
Modifieds also qualified with Dillard the only driver in the seventeen second bracket, turning a fast lap of 17.917 on the four tenth mile oval. Heats were straight up off times and after winning his heat, Dillard redrew the pole for the Modified main and he again led from start to finish.
This race forced him to work a bit harder, at least at the beginning as he was challenged by young New Mexico driver Hunter Sandy who nearly snuck by the low running Dillard by running the cushion but Dillard saw him coming in the nick of time, changed his line and that was game, set and match after that.
Three early yellows kept the field bunched for minor issues but the last eleven laps of the twenty lapper ran off green to checkers and Dillard used that time to pull away from the field, finding the quick line to be up on the cushion in turns one and two and hugging the inside line on the other end of the track.
Tyler Davis came from the third row with a nice drive to finish up second and third row mate Chris Huckeba finished third. Tristan Dycus and Jason Sartain wrapped up the top five as only five drivers failed to finish this race in contrast to the Lates.
There was some drama as point leader Kale Westover blew a motor in his heat race and things looked bleak but he was able to change the motor, start with a provisional twenty sixth and race all the way up to tenth with Manuel Williams, second in points finishing behind him while third place in points Joe Duvall blowing up early in the main as motors were detonating left and right on the big track that was pulling hard.
And as dominant as Dillard was, Reutzel might have been even more so in the Sprint Cars. His evening started out shaky though, as a push vehicle climbed the back of his car as it was being pushed out for qualifying, damaging it and sending him back to the pits for repairs. However, scheduled to be the second car out on what was still a wet track, he might have benefitted by the incident as he then ended up being the twenty seventh car out when the track was better. He set fast time at 13.538 seconds and then, after finishing second in his heat, earned the pole for the feature. The Sprint Cars were the only class not to start straight up in heats and use draw redraw, as they inverted four for their heats and used passing points to set the running order for the main.
The Sprint feature was quite remarkable in that it went twenty five laps, green to checkers and all twenty three drivers that started the race were still on the track at the finish. Lapped traffic was clearly brutal but it made for some interesting jockeying for position. Reutzel handled it like a champ and his lead was nearly a full straightaway for most of the race. At the end, there were only ten drivers on the lead lap as Reutzel carved up the field.
Austin McCarl moved into second by the halfway point of the race but he had nothing for the leader. Ayrton Gennetten, the point champion, started and finished third with Roger Crockett and Brenham Crouch completing the top five.
The one bummer of the night was the long night of racing itself. Obviously, it takes quite a bit of time to qualify over one hundred and fifty cars and with engine heat starting at 6 pm and qualifying following hot laps for all cars, the time schedule was blown out of the water early. It's not that they did a poor job of time management as the qualifying was done as fast as possible, the races were lined up promptly and one immediately followed the other and they took no breaks. It's just that there was a lot of racing to be done and it took time.
Despite their best efforts, the first race didn't hit the track until 9:09 pm, very late indeed and the final checkered of the night, for the Late Model feature, flew at 1:52 am on Saturday morning. A good sized crowd appeared to be on hand but it was sad that at least half of them were already gone when the first feature race started. After dropping thirty five bucks to watch the show and then not seeing a single main event, how many of them will return on Saturday?
The plan is to start an hour earlier on Saturday but clearly, they did not give good consideration to just how long it would take to qualify that many cars and still start at a reasonable time. We will see how things work out on Saturday but with that many cars, it is a tough thing to run off a speedy show, especially on a work night. But on the plus side, the racing was good except for the lead and it was great to see so many drivers support these series.
And oh, I have to mention how cool it is to have a tunnel at a dirt track so the drivers leave through the tunnel and don't have to cross the track. What other tracks in the country have such a set up?
No comments:
Post a Comment