Friday night, July 3rd was night number two of the River City Rumble at Bob Timm's Mississippi Thunder Speedway located just North of Fountain City Wisconsin on the beautiful River Road running along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River.
The highlighted event was the Firecracker 40 for the Late Models of the Dirt King's Tour out of eastern Wisconsin who have been running at this track on a regular basis this year with their planned schedule thrown much to the wind due to track closings and delayed starts for others.
Along with the Late Models, also running would be the USRA sanctioned Hobby Stocks, B Mods and the Modifieds with all classes running for extra pay including the Modified feature which would pay two grand to the winner.
It was another hot and steamy night as it has been most of this week with everyone drinking plenty of fluids while the track prep crew worked tirelessly to get as much moisture into the track's racing surface as possible, a tough task under normal circumstances but made even tougher due to the weather conditions plus the fact that this was the second night of the doubleheader and the track had already been pounded by race cars on Thursday night too. The track rubbered up quickly last night, i was told, so their mission was to see that the same thing didn't happen again and they were successful in that regard as they provided a very fast track that did not take rubber all night.
Full fields of cars would be in attendance in all four classes that were racing on this night but only the Late Models would require a B Feature to set their field for the main events.
The qualifying events were completed in a remarkably smooth manner and in fact, through fourteen heats and the Late Model B Feature, the yellow flag was only required to be used two times! So even while everyone was racing hard with passing points used to line up the mains, all drivers were able to run hard while not either spinning or running over each other. A couple of the feature races would not be able to be run off quite so clean however, but that sometimes comes with the territory.
Hobby Stocks were up first with all twenty on hand able to take the green flag for their main event with several northeastern Iowa USRA cars among the field with some even being regulars at this track.
One of them, Scott Spilde, was the early leader of the feature. However, track point leader and former blacktop racer Steve Dwyer drove around Spilde and was then to dominate most of the race. However, almost unbeknownst to the crowd and myself, Travis Krause, who started nineteenth in the main, was gradually but decisively moving to the front of the field. As Dwyer continued to dominate, Krause moved into the top five and battled with Cody Rollinger and Chris Hovden behind the leader.
Suddenly leader Dwyer had a mechanical issue in turn two and his car lost power and slid sideways on the track, costing him a number of positions and he eventually would pit because of the issue.
Krause was right there to take advantage of the opportunity as he drove into the lead and then pulled away over the last few lap to score a big win after starting in row ten. Rollinger and Hovden would follow him home as they completed the top three.
A tradition of the River City Rumble has been for the open wheel classes to line up for their main event in three wide fashion. Thus it was that the twenty two cars able to take the green flag would do so in the three wide formation but based on passing points in the heats.
This put Ryan Olson on the pole and the winner of the last two mains at MTS would soon make it three in a row as he dominated this race, leading from start to finish and no one really able to provide much of a challenge to him.
Even a late race slowdown that set up a six lap sprint to the finish didn't give him any grief as once again he pulled away and drove to an easy victory. There was, however, a nice battle for position behind him with Taylor Skauge outlasting Shawn Walski in a good battle for second that saw them swap the position a number of times during the race. Eric Thill and Brandon Hare completed the top five.
Then it would be time for the Late Models with twenty four cars going forty laps and while the stats will show that Dustin Sorensen led all forty laps, it was anything but a breeze for him as he was challenged quite hard for much of the race and there were just enough yellows to allow the field to bunch up on several occasions, making his work just that much harder.
Sorensen, along with track owner Timm's son Jake, have both developed strong open motor Late Model programs in the last year to go along with their USRA Modified racing so when the Late Models come to this track, which they probably not just by coincidence have done more often than ever in track history this year, the visiting cars find plenty of competition.
Sorensen is the son of long time Modified racer Mike and the grandson of Dick, who was a Late Model star back in the days when people like Mert Williams, Dave Bjorge and Wendell Kuehn made southern Minnesota a Late Model hotbed.
Now Late Model racing seems to be making a comeback in this area and both Sorensen and Timm will be carrying the torch in that division. Sorensen was strongly challenged the first half of the race by Jesse Glenz, who was leading the charge for the spec engine cars on hand. He was right on Sorensen's tail until he clobbered the wall on lap twenty three and his race was done. It was then a battle for second between Timm, Ryan Unzicker and Jake Redetzke for that spot.
Unzicker, looking for a new challenge this weekend and pulling to MTS for the first time, made a late race pass stand for second but he was several car lengths behind Sorensen at the finish on a track that remained blazing fast throughout the race and provided a real grind to the drivers on this hot night. Sorensen earned five grand for his efforts.
While Late Models are making inroads at this track, MTS is still in Modified country and the open wheel cars pulled on to the track as the featured division on Friday, running thirty laps for two grand.
Just like in the previous race, Sorensen and Timm would be two of the favorites to win but they had plenty of stiff competition in Lucas Schott and Jacob Bleess.
Sorensen, in fact, would be the early leader from the middle of the three wide start but Schott came charging up from the outside of row two and would make the pass on Sorensen and take over the lead.
Once he was in front, he would lead the rest of the contest but Bleess would continue to pressure him right up to the finish. It was a tough race for several of the contenders as both Jake Timm and Calvin Iverson would hammer the concrete walls and limp off with much damage in both instances.
Schott was setting a blistering pace but Bleess would manage to stay right with him through the whole race, but he could never get closer than a couple of car lengths behind and that is the way the race would conclude. For most of the race, a great battle for third saw Cory Crapser and John Doelle swap the third spot with Crapser holding on for that position at the end. Doelle's new car this year has made him more competitive than at any point for him in perhaps the last decade of his racing career. Josh Angst completed the top five finishers.
A large crowd was on hand and were treated to a very good fireworks display before the final feature race. With many cities and other events having canceled fireworks for this year, this might be one of the few chances folks would have to get to see this tradition. However, I am in the midst of day two of what should be a four consecutive night display of fireworks with two tracks on the schedule yet this weekend both promising big booms from the sky and not those associated with thunder storms!
Thanks to Bob Timm and his hard working crew as he presented yet another in what seems like a plethora of special events held at his track this year.
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