Friday night, February 28th, the opening night of the fourteenth annual Toilet Bowl Classic took place at William Scogin's Clarksville Speedway and Fairgrounds in Clarksville Tennessee. Somewhere around one hundred and forty race cars signed in for the opening night of racing action(I didn't have an accurate count of the Mod Lites so I'm estimating on just how many actually raced).
Six classes would be in action on this cool February night including UMP Late Models and Modifieds, 604 and 357/602 Crate Late Models plus Quicksliver Street Stocks and the Mod Lites. The Late Models had for a number of years been involved in one of several different traveling series for this opening weekend of racing but this year it would just be under UMP sanctioning with Sam Driggers on hand to coordinate the activity in this class.
Nearly thirty Street Stocks and well over thirty Modifieds were on hand for the first of two straight nights of racing but the Late Model count at twenty one cars for a three grand to win top spot was somewhat disappointing.
An unexpected weather phenomena would throw Friday night's racing action into a tizzy and result in a long and arduous experience. A threat of rain, which would first appear in the forecasts not until Thursday night, managed to come through for us on Friday in two separate visits. The first time, late in the afternoon, did nothing to harm the show. However, the second round of light rain came right in the middle of Modified time trials and with the track already pounded down hard, it took a while to re pack the track and get it ready for more racing. They had to re time all the Mods over for the second time plus they still had to qualify the Streets and 604 Crates and apparently they was no contingency plan to shorten up the show and get the racing started just a little bit quicker, given the circumstances.
So, by the time they got everyone qualified, the first race did not hit the track until 10:50 pm. They did eliminate heat races but that was part of the original plan anyway so the racing action consisted of B Features for those classes that needed them and just main events for the other classes.
Of course all feature races were started straight up based on qualifying so any big charges through the field were pretty much out of the question. The top attraction of the night was the Late Model main with all twenty one cars on hand taking the green. Josh Putnam started on the pole and led for a good part of the feature. However, lapped traffic proved problematic for him as the slower cars were also hugging the low line of the track and with Tanner English nipping on his tail, Putnam was forced to make a move to try and get past the traffic.
If worked badly for him as he got too high in turn three, got into the "snot" on the high side of the track and English drove under him to take over the lead. Tanner was then able to lead the rest of the nonstop main event to take the win over Putnam, Donald McIntosh, Booger Brooks and Brian Shirley.
The largest field of the night was in the Modifieds and Lucas Lee, who qualified the fastest of all, led all twenty laps for the win. Allen Weisser pressured him for a time but eventually Lee pulled away to beat Weisser, Dillon Nusbaum, Clayton Miller and Nick Allen in what probably the most stacked of any class.
The one driver that upset the "apple cart" was legendary Tennessee racer David Earl Gentry who started tenth and still managed to get to the front and win the QuickSilver Street Stock feature. Gentry, who recently celebrated his five hundredth feature win, finished ahead of another veteran in Charles Zimmerman to get the win. The Street Stocks, which look more like the Stock Cars or the Super Stocks that I am familiar with at home, put on a nice show with some very clean looking equipment. Other winners included Clayton Miller in the 357/602 Crates and Jesse Lowe in the 604 Crates.
What made the long rain delay even worse was the fact that there was a total lack of a grandstand pa system. While the announcer was able to talk to the pits, no one in the grandstands could hear anything that was said all night so we had to guess what was racing and why while I was able to use RaceMonitor to determine the qualifying efforts of those classes that ran determined time trials rather than group qualifying which a few of the classes did. It did make for an even longer night when the spectators grew frustrated not knowing who was driving what and just what race was on the track.
A remnant of last year's tornado at the track was still evident. All the grandstand seating from the tower to the first turn is gone, blown away in that storm. New cement slabs have been laid down but to this point, just small temporary bleachers have been brought in with new ones yet to be erected but the plan is in place for that to happen.
It was a cool night and with many of the spectators damp from the rain, when they got cold they headed for the gates and by the time the final race was run, there weren't too many people left on the grounds to confirm that the final checkered flag waved at 1:20 am. As the first night of the Toilet Bowl, all the feature winners got a "special plunger" for their efforts on Friday night.
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