Monday night, June 8th, I was in Spencer Iowa at the beautiful Clay County Fairgrounds Speedway for their opening race of the 2020 racing season. Five IMCA sanctioned classes would be on hand for this event and the Iowa heat remained cranked up as it was another toasty night with my car thermometer registering triple digests for the second straight day on this most recent of swings through South Dakota and Iowa.
Spencer will run a fairly short series of Monday night races this year along with events also during the Clay County Fair in September as a popular belief was that there was just too much racing going on in the area last year and Spencer was kind of the "odd man out" when it came to a night of racing that would work for them. So they came up with this plan of running a limited number of races, mostly on Monday nights where there would be no conflicts and then also during the Fair.
They have come up with a somewhat novel idea to make each night of racing special and what they have done is make the purse the same for the top four classes that race at the track. All classes run for a thousand bucks to win with seven hundred for second and so on down the line. Now a grand to win for a Monday night show is good money for the Mods but great money for the other classes and it looks like their plan will be a winner.
I would guess that based on the combination of a nice day, many drivers still trying to catch up on their racing after being sidelined for months and this novel purse structure all helped make this a popular event indeed as one hundred and fifteen drivers signed in to race on Monday and the crowd was by far the biggest I can ever remember for one of their "regular" nights of racing here.
With the big wide track here they are able to run a large field of cars in the main events so the only B Feature required after the preliminary heats were done was for the Hobby Stocks, who with thirty five cars in attendance were the largest field, and all but one of the cars in that class seems to run either the #27 or some variation of that number! I'm exaggerating, but just slightly.
The only exception to the rule of big fields of cars was in the Sport Compacts, where only five signed in. On a night when it is important to move the show along, if they can't muster more cars than that it might just be prudent to tell them to leave their cars at home and just run the classes that are racing for a grand. In the Sport Compacts, it was a two car battle between Kaytee DeVries and Jaeden Erickson with DeVries driving away for the win late. Although Erickson crossed the line second, he was shown as running last in the official results so I must assume he was either docked some positions for a jump start or perhaps disqualified for some technical issue. There was no explanation in the official results and no announcement made at the track so the answer is somewhere in "the cloud."
The Sport Mods jammed twenty six cars on to the track for their main event and the redraw was kind to Doug Smith who started on the outside pole and led the entire contest. Zech Norgaard and Alec Fett tried to stay with Smith but they were unable to provide any kind of serious challenge.
After a smooth race for most of the distance, three late yellows just as the checkered was about to be waved stalled the action and delayed the inevitable.
One driver who benefited greatly from the late yellows was Matt Looft. He started twenty third on the grid after having trouble in his heat race when he had to spin to avoid a crossed up competitor and with the one spin rule in affect, he pulled off the track rather than continue racing from way behind.
However, he righted the ship in a big manner in the main, gradually working his way forward and taking advantage of the bunched up restarts to pass cars in packs and he cleared Norgaard near the end to take the second spot. For him it was a great ending to what looked like it would be a frustrating night.
The Hobby Stocks showed how it can be done was with twenty four cars starting their main, they raced with only a single yellow flag and that was when the second place car spun while trying to retake the lead and only four of twenty four failed to finish the race.
Josh Sidles took the lead from the pole and led the first half of the race with his strongest challenge coming from Malik Sampson who started right behind him. They were followed closely but a wad of cars that contained Zac Smith and Mike Smith with the Nielsens racing hard to try and become part of the group also.
Sidles made one mistake in turn one and Sampson was right there to jump on the opportunity and he ducked under Sidles to take over the lead. Sidles then pushed very hard to try and regain the top spot but turn four bit him as he spun while trying to gain the top spot back.
This took a little of the pressure off Sampson and he was able to drive home for the win. A late charge saw Cory Probst drive up from the seventh spot to grab second. He was trailed by M. Smith, B. Nielsen, Z. Smith and C. Nielsen and no, I'm not making this up just to be clever.
The Stock Car feature was probably the best race of the night as we saw some jockeying back on forth and more use of multiple grooves than at probably any other time of the night. Elijah Zevenbergen started on the pole as he looked to take another big dollar race after just coming off the big win at Stuart last week. He did grab the early lead but was closely pursued by Luke Saathoff, All eyes were on a group of drivers led by Jeff Larson, Jake Masters and Kelly Shryock who were making a hard charge toward the front.
Zevenbergen had settled on a line that was pounding the cushion in turns three and four while hugging the tires in turns one and two. Larson was running the low side all the way around the track and was really moving up quickly. He closed to the rear bumper of Elijah and when Zevenbergen slipped off the bottom in turn one, Larson was right there to grab the top spot.
After that it was Elijah and Jake Masters that took turns challenging Larson for the lead. They could gain using the top side on the West end of the track but turns one and two just wouldn't hold for them and they lost all the time they gained on the other end.
Larson meanwhile was hugging the tires and near the end, despite a couple of late yellows that bunched things up, he was able to extend his lead slightly and avoid a tight race to the flag. The Minnesota invader won over Masters, Zevenbergen and Saathoff.
The Modifeds wrapped up the evening with a quick twenty lap feature race, broken up by a lone yellow flag. Chris Abelsen started on the pole and twenty laps later, he was still in front. He survived a brief challenge by Shryock who tried to outside which worked to the degree that he was able to get up to second but then it slowed and Nick Meyer was able to drive under him for the runner up slot.
Meanwhile, Abelsen was just cruising up front and drove home to a relatively easy win.
While much of the opening night was successful including a great car count and a big crowd in the huge covered grandstand, there are a few things for management to work on for the next show, which is scheduled for Monday night, June 29th.
The races didn't get over until 11 pm and that is much too late for a Monday night program with many people getting up and leaving when their "magic time" hit and they had to head home. The actual races themselves lasted just under three hours with that being a great target number, particularly considering the big field of cars. However, with the success of this show, I think they can plan on having big fields for the whole year so a few changes are going to be necessary.
They have to figure out a way of getting the drivers and crews signed in quicker and getting the line at the pit gate moving faster. It would do no good to open up earlier because with the Monday night rush, it does make it tough because most people arrive after work and all at nearly the same time. But whether it is to have more lanes open to the pits so they don't have to come in one at a time or more people working the booths, they need to get the lines going quicker. Monday night they had the drivers meeting at 7:10 pm which is ten minutes after the scheduled hot laps were supposed to start.
And hot laps for that many cars takes some time, a primary reason why the first green flag didn't wave until 8 pm. Either shorten up the hot laps to maybe only a class or two each night or God forbid, just skip hot laps and drop the green flag at 7 pm but that hour saved right there would have produced a final checkered at 10 pm which would have been awesome.
I was glad to see that northern Iowa legend Chad Meyer was doing the call of the races again, but even after they turned up the p.a. system, I still had a very tough time hearing him. Perhaps it is my old worn out ears or perhaps where I chose to sit in the grandstands might have played a factor.
But hiccups aside, it was a very strong opening night for the track in Clay County and with much local backing and help from businesses and individuals who have stepped up to rescue the racing program, it looks like it will be a very good year at the Clay Co. Fairgrounds Speedway for their Monday night gatherings.
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