So it is Monday. The last Monday before the fourth of July holiday weekend. What to do? Should I cut the grass today or perhaps try and get caught up on the laundry. Weeds need to be pulled in the flower bed. There's always something around the house that needs doing or repairing. Perhaps I should just spend the day chasing away the five black bears that have taken up residence in our yard, but that is another story for another time.
Wait. Maybe instead of doing any of the above I should just jump in the car, drive to Spencer Iowa and attend night three of the Midwest Madness Tour featuring five IMCA divisions and a guaranteed big field of cars. Yes. That is a much better plan and a wiser use of my precious time.
And so I did. Welcome to night three of the Midwest Madness Tour presented by Western Iowa Race Report.com. I enjoy their website and I get a lot of information off of it. I also got lots of entertainment in witnessing the event they put on Monday, June 29th at the Clay County Fairgrounds Speedway in Spencer Iowa. This was night three of their seven night tour and the car counts remained strong with the travelers supporting the entire series supplemented by area drivers that attend the short series of races that are being held here this year at the Clay County Fairgrounds. In fact this was just the second race at the Fairgrounds so far this year as they run a series of mostly Monday night specials and so far that format seems to have worked well for them.
By my count, one hundred and forty five cars signed in to race here at Spencer with four of the divisions producing over thirty cars per division along with a small handful of Sport Compacts that truly don't even deserve the time they take to run at an event like this. Four strong classes would be plenty of cars until and perhaps when the Sport Compacts could produce a field of cars big enough to even allow on the track.
There is a point series that goes along with this tour and the support, class by class varies wildly. While thirteen of the top fifteen in Modified points traveled on to Spencer on Monday, only seven in the Stock Cars were on hand and even less in the other two classes. The top six in Hobby Stock points were on hand and the top ten in Sport Mods points didn't even bother to show up with the highest point driver, Hunter Longnecker, currently running fourth. No matter though, as with over thirty in each class there were plenty of strong racers on hand.
A series of twenty two qualifying races set the field for the five main events. B Features were required for all classes except of course the Sport Compacts with many fast cars not even making the cut for the main events. The track held up well through all the pounding it was taking and the one spin rule kept the program moving on a number of occasions where if it wouldn't have been in effect, we would have seem a volley of yellow flags otherwise.
The Sport Mod feature was first up on the schedule and how many times do you see a twenty four car field of Sport Mods go non stop, green to checkered? That's what I thought, not very darn often. Well, it happened on Monday and I saw it. And not only did it go nonstop, all twenty four cars that took the green flag were still on the track and racing at the checkered! That doesn't happen often.
And as you can guess, the lapped traffic was unbelievable. Winner Cody Thompson spent the last half of the race bobbing and weaving through very heavy traffic and having to utilize the whole track to find the openings he needed. In fact, when the checkered flew, there were only eleven cars on the lead lap with the rest of the field down one lap which made for a nightmare scoring this event if they were using the old pen and paper style. It would have taken them hours to sort through this logistical nightmare.
Justin Klynsma was the early leader of the race but Thompson swept past him on the high side after a couple laps and then disappearing into the Clay County twilight as Cody kept himself busy weaving through what must have seemed like rush hour traffic in a bottled up MIx Master in Des Moines. But he survived just fine to take the win. Klynsma held off a late race challenge from Doug Smith to retain second.
Even though there were only six Sport Compacts, they managed to stage an entertaining of sorts main event. Kaytee DeVries was the runaway leader early with Jade Lange gradually reeling her in. A yellow bunched the field and on the green DeVries just didn't seem to have quite as much speed as Lange drove past her to get the win, one that was not particularly appreciated by DeVries' hometown fans. Tyler Fiebelkorn drove four hours here to compete and finished third.
Jesse Sobbing started on the pole for the Modified twenty five lapper and he led most of the contest but it wasn't quite as easy as it might have sounded. He got some still early competition from Bob Moore and then a group of about three other drivers worked their way into the mix and it led to an interesting contest.
A couple of late restarts scrambled the running order and Brandon Beckendorf made a determined advancement as he worked his way late into second but it was too late to put a challenge on Sobbing. Chris Abelson and Kyle Brown also advanced nicely through the pack as they both came from the fifth row to third and fourth at the finish.
Jason Kohl led all laps of the Hobby Stock feature but again it wasn't near as easy as it might have sounded. The top side of the track proved to be the dominant lane to run as the evening wore on, and it was a struggle to protect that line while also trying to negotiate through traffic and at the same time protect yourself from the slide jobs that the others were trying.
Kohl had a pair of Nielsen's in his rear view mirror as Brandon and Cody took turns attacking him on the bottom lane while also having to slide back up the track and stay in the fast groove. They were also really battling with each other as they exchanged grooves on the track while at the same time trying to get past Kohl.
Cory Probst came from tenth on the grid to be a part of the conversation as the top four were running in a group. On the last lap, Brandon Nielsen went for broke in an attempt to take over the lead and it cost him second as he couldn't pull off the past and instead slipped off the fast lane. Probst would get the spot behind Kohl who had his hands full with Cody N. next in line. This race had just a single yellow and only three drivers that didn't finish off the event as the theme of the night was both few yellow flags and very few non finishers in the main events.
The Stock Cars wrapped up the night with the same scenario playing out as they went nonstop to the finish and only a single driver didn't finish the event.
This race proved to be a two car battle between Devin Smith and Elijah Zevenbergen for most of the race. Randy Brands started on the pole and he and Zevenbergen raced wheel to wheel on the opening lap. Smith made a brilliant move as he cut low down the back chute and ducked up ahead of Elijah to the dominant top side and then drove past Brands to take the lead.
This move seemed to fire up Zevenbergen who seemd to pick up the pace and then drive to second on the rear bumper of Smith. It was fun for a series of laps as they exchanged slide jobs and swapped lanes on the track as that top side was the place to be and they took turns wrestling for that lane.
However, after some close near misses, Smith started to assert some dominance and he pulled to a several car length lead. Things got dicey once again when the leaders caught traffic and Smith had a few anxious moments before he finally found the holes to get past the slower cars while also pinning Elijah behind them so he couldn't take advantage.
At the finish, Smith has three lapped cars between himself and Zevenbergen while a late charging Jeff Larson worked his way up to a close third place finish and Kelly Shryock came from eleventh to fourth.
As stated earlier, a big crowd was on hand for the Monday night show but many had to get up and leave early as things go a little late before the final checkered flag waved. The track crew did a commendable job running off the program as they were hustling cars out for the next heat almost before the previous one had crossed the line. Track announcer Chad Meyer was scrambling to keep up and when they out race this announcer you know that they are moving things along. All told, they got twenty seven races completed in about three and a half hours which is really moving things along.
The only problem is that they didn't throw the first green flag until almost 8 pm and that simply is too late when the racing card is this big. This was the same problem they had at their last show here. They ran things off great, they just got started too late. So if that means making the cut off earlier, or perhaps not having hot laps which take a considerable amount of time with that many cars, something must change so that they can get started earlier and then they will be able to complete the show early, instead of at 11:30 pm on a Monday night.
Otherwise, it was a good show with an impressive car count and a much better way of spending a Monday night, rather than pulling weeds!
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