The previously postponed Memphis Spring Nationals were held on Friday night, May 8th and Saturday night, May 9th at the Pepsi Scotland County Speedway in Memphis Missouri. And for one of the very few times in my racing history, I was overwhelmed by a huge field of cars and long lasting racing events that quite frankly just ran me out of time to do my regular race report. Between a very long trip down to Missouri on Friday from the wee hours of the morning to a very late conclusion to the Friday night show caused by the huge field of cars, the turn around time to be back at the track was simply too short for me to do a reasonable race report and also get just a bit of shut eye so I could make it through the show on Saturday.
Fortunately, Jeff Broeg was on hand also and his race report does a fine job or reporting the action from Friday night so switch over to his site to get a full report of the first night action. And unfortunately, a surprise weather front(at least to me) came sweeping into the northern Missouri area late on Saturday night, just after the first main event had received the green flag and the rest of the show was washed out, thus wrapping up the evening and weekend in a disappointing manner.
So what I will try to do is give a brief summation of the weekend and a few of my thoughts on the racing overall.
Of course the obvious thing was the huge fields of race cars that were on hand. And quite frankly, if there is such a thing as there being too much of a good thing(except for the promoter obviously), this was it. With two hundred and six cars signed in to race on Friday night and another two hundred (approximately) on hand for Saturday, it was a tremendously large field of competitors on hand. Many states were represented and some drivers drove a long way to be part of the action including drivers hauling Sport Compacts all the way from Minnesota and Kansas.
But the down side to this is that no matter how quickly the show is run off, going through a full program with that many cars just takes a long time and not wrapping up the show until 1:30 am from Friday and just getting the features started around 11 pm on Saturday makes for a long weekend of racing.
And unlike most shows put on by MVG and his crew, these two tended to stretch out quite a bit. It's not that the shows themselves weren't run off in a quick and speedy manner, it's just that they didn't start anywhere near when they were supposed to and a considerable amount of time that was required for track prep both nights dragged things out. Especially on Saturday night, with the first race not really hitting the track until nearly 6:45 pm after hot laps were advertised for 5 pm, that time could have allowed certainly at least several of the main events to be completed before the surprise rain hit. And while it was great that so many drivers were feeling the need to get out and race, I'm not sure that sixty Sport Compacts is on everyone's wish list.
I get the fact that this was the first race of the year on the track surface and this track doesn't see a whole lot of racing even under the best of circumstances so I fully understand that track prep was necessary but recognizing this circumstance, perhaps the best thing would be to plan a much earlier start time for both nights, as the fans and drivers always seem to find a way to get to the track when it is required.
There was quite a mix of cars on hand with of course the majority of them being IMCA cars in this part of the country. However, there were also several USRA cars running in both the B Mods and Mods and a couple of WISSOTA drivers that made the long pull to race in the Mods, B Mods and Hornets too.
The Stock Cars were absolutely phenomenal in the show that they put on. No wonder many people will say that the Stock Cars are their favorite class after the kind of action that we saw from them all weekend. It didn't matter whether it was heats or features, their side by side racing and swapping of positions was just spectacular. And of course the wild finish on Friday night left the fans thirsting for more, just the thing any good promoter wants to see.
Perhaps the cure for many of the ills being felt by dirt tracks across the country would be to go to just a two class program such as what was done back in the fifties and sixties. Just run one class of open wheel cars and Stock Cars and I don't see how you could go wrong. Just don't mess up the Stock Car rules and leave them just as they are as they put on a good show at every track they are running at.
The racing was much better on Friday than it was on Saturday even though the track was quite rough on Friday night. Granted, we didn't get to see the features on Saturday but much of the moisture had been scrapped off the track on Saturday in an effort to smooth it out but it didn't clean up very well and the groove was limited.
On Friday night the cars were bouncing through the holes but they were all over the track and despite the conditions, there were few yellow flags. Consider this, in the twenty two qualifying heats on Friday night, there were only a grand total of three yellow flags and there was only one race all night that had more than two yellows and that was the Sport Compact feature. That is remarkable, given the speed the track carried on Friday and the fact that the cars were airborne nearly as much as they were contacting the track.
Saturday night's abbreviated show saw several more wild wrecks and a nod show go out to Bobby Six, who flipped wildly on the front chute at the start of a heat yet still got the car back on to the track for his B Feature when he unfortunately got involved in another "dinger."
Even with the huge field of cars Friday, another twenty two new ones showed up on Saturday night including a Sport Compact that towed all the way from the Minneapolis MN area on an open trailer, only to get shoved into a ute tire on the green for a heat, effectively ending her night before it was hardly started. Hopefully they enjoyed the ride down!
It was a shame that the ticket sales had to be limited as I suspect they could have filled the joint if the tickets would have been available. The few that were offered on race day were snatched up quickly and I don't remember seeing people lined up to buy tickets like that for quite some time. I also witnessed a couple people who couldn't get tickets due to them all being sold old and their dumbfounded looks when they learned they couldn't get into the grandstand, even though there were plenty of seats to be had. Virtually no one was wearing masks and most social distancing measures went by the way side as ticket and concession lines were snugger than they were supposed to be and I'm feeling we might as well give up this whole charade and just go back to normal as the laws and regulations are so inconsistent from area and state to state and are being enforced even more inconsistently.
Everyone is so used to now being able to pull up lineups and driver's lists and results on their phone or electronic devise that it really feels wield not to have them available as was the case in Memphis. It is now three days after the fact and official results of the weekend don't seen to be available anywhere yet.
Lance Schill had never seen the Scotland County Speedway before Friday night but it didn't take the Langdon North Dakota driver long to figure it out as he came from ninth to second in his heat and then led the entire distance for the B Mod win on Friday night. Schill is one of those drivers that races a lot during the course of a year, he was chomping at the bit to get out and run, thus the long trip to Missouri. Schill, who is a top competitor in WISSOTA, has raced in both Mods and Midwest Mods and also has done very well racing in Arizona in January. He will join the ranks of the Late Model drivers soon as he has a new MB Custom ready to go for the season opener at his home track, the River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks N.D.
It was a spectacular weekend of racing and you could tell that the fans on hand had been waiting for this night to take place so they could get out and see the drivers and watch the cars go in circles once again. Thanks to MVG for a fine double header at a track that while not fancy by any means, always seems to provide some great racing action.
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