The Malvern Bank sponsored SLMR Late Model Series traveled to their next destination on Thursday night, June 11th and that was the historic Hamilton County Speedway right in Webster City Iowa. The Late Models would be joined by three of the weekly USRA sanctioned classes that race weekly at the half mile here at the Fairgrounds.
The SLMA has been traveling well this week with the vast majority of the drivers that raced at Stuart on Wednesday night moving on to Webster City this night. A few didn't make the extra distance trip, while four new drivers showed up to spice the Late Model field and in total, a solid group of thirty five were on hand for the show.
Today I got a little more information on the qualifying format and after hearing about just how the details work, it made a little more sense with particularly the "sand bagging" part of the qualifying not really a workable part of a driver's strategy for the event. In fact, their format would be much like one used by Knoxville for their Sprint shows as the time trials also receive points and a combination of qualifying points plus points earned during heat race action set the sixteen cars that automatically moved on to the main event and avoided the dreaded B Feature(s). So while I'm still not a fan of time trials and never will be, at least this format weighs both time trials and heats and does promote hard racing in the heats, particularly with a six car invert.
However, as several of the drivers told me, time trials are still very important and weighed heavily. For example, Kyle Berck crashed out of his heat race tonight and finished dead last in that event but because he was the quick qualifier for the night, he still had the outside pole for the B Feature, an event that he opted out of to take a provisional instead.
Speaking of Berck, the defending point champion has had a couple of tough nights this week. He had just an average performance for him last night in Stuart and tonight was even worse. After being the quick qualifier and being several tenths of a second faster than anyone, he took off like a rocket in the first heat race, passing a couple of cars from his third row starting spot immediately and looking to take second after just one lap. However, he tried to throw a slider in turn one for that position and went into the corner way too hot and slammed the outside wall hard.
He went off on a hook and ended up using that provisional to start nineteenth and was only able to work his way up to twelfth at the finish when he looked to have the dominant car of the night.
It was a wild and crazy day for track promoter Todd Staley. He was torn between two venues on this day as along with having this race at one of the two tracks he promotes, his USMTS traveling series was in night one of their big three night show at the Cedar Lake Speedway in Wisconsin which is one of their "showcase" races of the year.
He left Hamilton Co. in the hands of his finely trained weekly crew while he took off up to Wisconsin but when one of his employees became ill, he had to make a banzai run back down here to Webster City this afternoon to help. He was doing everything from watering and tiling the track to helping run off the program all the while trying to monitor what was happening in Wisconsin. And after he got everything wrapped up here, he would have to make a return trip back up to Wisconsin for the rest of that racing event on Friday and Saturday. Ain't promoting fun?
Speaking of promoting, I had the chance to spend a few minutes talking with Ricky Kay this afternoon in the pits. Of course he is a busy man too, managing the race team of his son Justin along with his farming and other businesses. And of course, he added to his "plate" last Summer when he took over as the promoter at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds Davenport Speedway. It was interesting getting his perspective as one new to promoting but having been involved in racing for many years in other facets of the sport. It made it clear that one of the big reasons that he took over as promoter at Davenport was because that track and the Fair itself was something near and dear to his heart having had three generations of his family involved in activities at the Fair and its close proximity to where he lives.
It was also interesting to hear some of the things that come up when trying to run a race track and dealing with so many different elements that a promoter must that quite frankly, I never would have thought of. It is a full time job that unfortunately, pays off more like a part time job, if at all! So most do it simply for the love of the sport or to keep tracks "on the edge" surviving. Although lots of track owners and promoters seem pretty gruff, most have a soft spot in their hearts for the tracks they are trying to help survive these especially tough times.
As far as the racing itself, it is always high speed at the big half mile which is looking so much nicer since Staley took the place over. So many improvements have been made and it is just a much more appealing place that it was for the longest time. Jeff Aikey was a man on a mission Thursday night as he started on the outside of row two but boldly went to the high groove, a lane that most were avoiding and perhaps all his years of racing here gave him knowledge of, and it took him just over a lap to take over the top spot.
After that, he maintained a comfortable advantage for thirty laps and took the win. This race did come off nearly as smooth as the previous night with several yellow flags, many late in the contest when Aikey would just as well have seen the checkered flag.
Three times they had to do the green, white and checkered before they got it right and all three times Aikey pulled away for the most deserving win as he was clearly the fastest car on the track most of the night as we never really got to see what Berck could have offered.
The battle for second was full scale war as Tad Pospisil and Billy Leighton Jr made hard contact a couple of times on restarts as they battled for second. One time, they collided so hard in turn one that Pospisil took a little air but he kept right on going and on another occasion they were leaning on each other down the front chute as they took the green, followed by a couple of cross over moves that Pospisil retain the second spot. Josh Leonard and Andy Eckrich, up from tenth, completed the top five.
The support classes were pretty light on competitors on Thursday night and whether it was because they will be racing here again in just two nights for a weekly show or it was just tough to get here on a Thursday night, the field in all three classes offered was on the small side.
The Hobby Stocks were the best of the three with fourteen cars and they provided a good feature race to wrap up the evening. Daniel "Dilly Bar" Ayers sat on the pole but it was Cory Roe that was the early leader. This race ended up being a three car battle between Roe, Eric Stanton and Eric Knutson. Stanton would eventually make the winning pass with just a few laps left and then pull away slightly from Roe for the win. I was disappointed to see that Stanton has given up the Hatchback look with a more standard looking race car this year, but it is also probably his finest looking car, and clearly just as fast as the "grocery getter" was. The Hobby Stocks have a new look this year as they are on racing tires as opposed to passenger car tires that they used to run and by both looks and performance, on this big track they are hard to tell apart from the Stock Cars and that must be slightly confusing to the casual race fan.
Ten B Mods took the green for what would be a nonstop main event for them. Levi Chipp would lead from start to finish with early pressure from Ben Moudry until he broke and pulled off the track. After that, it was Ty Griffith who spent the entire race trying to track down Chipp but he couldn't do so and had to settle for second.
The Tuners couldn't even hit a "high C" on this night as there were only three of them on hand and their race was a "flat" one with the Alto section a half beat behind! Matt Oberhelman held off John Gill(not the Modern Day Cowboy but the Marshalltown one) to take the win but in victory lane he was as happy and giving out hugs as if he had just won the Daytona 500 so good for him. As for me, they could have used just a few more Baritones.
All racing was done around 10:30 pm and would have been done earlier if not for the protracted Late Model event. Everyone on board seemed happy with the results as the weather finally cooperated and they were able to finally get a Late Model special completed here.
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