Saturday night, March 3rd, the fourth annual Battle at the Bullring B Mod Nationals was completed at the Humboldt Speedway in Humboldt Kansas. Along with a fifty lap main event for the B Mods, the NASCAR sanctioned Modifieds also had another full program and the winners of the big money were Sketter Estey from Kelly Lake Minnesota while Tanner Mullins topped the Modified main event.
One hundred and two B Mods were left standing after two nights of qualifying events and this group of drivers ran through the gauntlet that started with four Last Chance events and gradually worked down through the alphabet until the last ten were advanced out of the B Feature to join the twelve that earned their way in by earning the highest point totals in two nights of racing. Three provisional drivers, one from each of the sanctioning bodies represented, filled out the twenty five car starting field for the main event for one of the longest races the B Mod drivers will be asked to run for the entire season.
Saturday was the first night in three that the B Mod drivers had actually gotten to race a longer race with more than ten cars in it and the first couple of Last Chance races got off to a shaky start as lots of restarts slowed the action. However, the drivers soon acclimated themselves and the vast majority of the other qualifying races went off rather smoothly with few yellows.
In the B Mod main, they actually got the first thirty six laps completed before the first yellow flag flew. High point earned Dustin Daniels sat on the pole and after a scrappy first lap, he edged ahead of Estey to take the early lead. Estey was pushing hard however, and within a few laps made a strong outside move in turn four to take over the top spot. Estey continued to show the way as some of the other drivers began to pick up the pace. The biggest movers were Michael Truscott and Kris Jackson who both started in row seven but were making large advances toward the front. Estey stretched his lead at this point while Kale Westover started to apply pressure to Daniels for second. Kale was eventually able to gain second and he began to close on Estey as Sketter started to work through traffic.
Westover got right up behind Estey as they continued to battle the traffic and Kale nearly made a move to take over the lead. However, Estey found a hole between a couple of back markers and was able to then put just a bit of distance on Westover. Meanwhile, Truscott was continuing his march to the front as he cracked the top five with Jackson right in his tire tracks.
Thirty six laps had been completed when the first yellow flew for a two car tangle in turn four. On the green, Andy Bryant, who was running in the top five appeared to break something and he piled hard into the third turn wall, triggering another yellow. Truscott was able to get past Daniels to take over third and when then went back to racing, Truscott continued his charge as he passed Westover for second and set off after Estey. Jackson ran into troubles though, as he had a left front tire go flat and while he remained on the track and running competitively, he had a group of several cars that was pressuring him as Kris just wasn't able to run as good a laps with the tire down.
It looked like Truscott might be able to challenge Estey but on the final green Sketter got away got from the pack and opened up some distance again and Truscott just wasn't able to muster a serious challenge. Estey was locked into his groove and there would be no catching him as the 2017 WISSOTA National Midwest Modified champion would become the first repeat winner of the B Mod Nationals. Westover held on for third ahead of Daniels and a late rush saw Ryan Schroeder get past Jackson to complete the top five finishers. The second five featured Jackson, Chad Wheeler, Jamie Davis, Sketter's father Kelly Estey and Cole Searing. Interestingly, Estey won the race with the same car he drove to the national title last year as his new TRC chassis is still under construction but once completed, the winning car will turn into a back up machine. It was also a good night for the WISSOTA drivers overall as positions 1,2,5, 8,9 and 10 were all drivers from that sanctioning body.
B Mods(or whatever the "handle" is that the particular sanctioning body chooses to call them). have a reputation, and sometimes a deserved one, of being a class that does nothing but spin and crash and create yellow flags. However, that was not the case here this weekend. Certainly there were some wrecks and some torn up equipment, but there were also plenty of hard fought, close side by side racing too. And the quality of the racing machines themselves had advanced by astronomical measures in the last few years. Just one look at the feature field of cars speaks to that. These are not B Mods anymore. They are expensive, good looking and sanitary racing machines that, in the right hands of quality drivers, can put on a great racing program.
Forty one Modifieds signed in to race on Saturday also and they ran five heats and two B features to set their field for their twenty lap finale. Having hovered among the front runners for the last two nights, it was finally time to Tanner Mullins to take his first win of 2018. Although he started on the pole, the win was anything but easy as after taking the early lead, he was overtaken by Tyler Davis and spent much of the race trying to track down the fellow Wichita area driver.
They put on quite a show as they race hard side by side without getting into each other as slowly but surely, Mullins got to the inside of Davis and edged ahead of him to take the lead well past the halfway point of the race. A tricky berm off turn two proved to be Davis' downfall as he caught it and clipped the wall and messed up the front end on his car. Darren Fuqua, trying to go back to back, was also a challenger until he caught the same piece of real estate and finished off his car also.
At the end, Dan Ebert, who had been putting in strong runs all weekend, made another nice charge as he drove up into second but had nothing for the winnner. Cody Skytland, sorting out his new car, had his best run of the weekend as he took third late in the contest. Zach VanderBeek did another one of his patented charges to the front as he came from fourteenth to finish fourth. This race was another rewarding one for the WISSOTA contingent as along with Ebert and Skytland, North Dakota's Ryan Mikkelson made it three WISSOTA drivers in the top five.
The track was a little bit different on Saturday than it had been for the first two nights. It seemed to hold a bit more moisture than previous nights and actually rolled up into a berm in the corners to the point that Ryan Whitworth came out with the grader and knocked it down before the fifty lap finale. It was a bit of an unexpected change and caught many by surprise although the racing wasn't a bit compromised by the change.
While the crowds had been, not surprisingly, a little bit light the first two nights of this weekend, a big crowd was on hand to catch the feature race action on Saturday and along with a jam packed pit area, seemed to indicate the long term health of this event.
Once again track officials did a fine job of running off and moving the show along. For the third straight night the program rolled off within a scant few minutes of the announced starting time and Saturday's whole program was completed before 10:30 pm. lots of people took advantage of the early conclusion to head to the pits and meet some of the drivers.
The entire weekend ran off smoothly and provided three solid nights of racing action. Not surprisingly at all, the folks at Humboldt were on their "A" game and provided a well organized meet. Announcers Sam and Brice did an excellent job calling the action and keeping everyone informed. There is a reason that Humboldt is well known for their outstanding special events and they just continue to build on their reputation.
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