300 Raceway in Farley Iowa is running an unusual schedule for the 2020 racing season. While they have a few special events on weekend, their weekly races, of which they have around a half dozen, are all planned for Wednesday nights. They run off a quick program and with only four classes on the card, it makes for the kind of fast midweek program that would appeal to the racing fan who still has to get up on Thursday morning and get to work.
On Wednesday night, August 12th, they had another of these midweek races with IMCA Late Models, Modifieds, Stock Cars and Sport Mods running for "Wide Open Wednesday."
Arriving early to the grounds, the place was a beehive of activity as crews were prepping the track for the Wednesday night show as well as continuing preparations for the big Lucas Oil series pull scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights. And things have certainly changed around the track with updates, disappearing buildings and all sorts of changes observed.
Count me as one that doesn't get to Farley terribly often so if I missed something, please bare with me but this is what I spotted. The scale had been removed, part of what was necessary to make room for the pulling pit just inside the front chute of the race track. A temporary scale was put in place out to the East on the property of the trucking company and the drivers had to follow a path that would wind them back out to the scale and then back to the pits. From what I saw it seemed to work just fine and the drivers had a nice hard surface to drive on also.
They didn't want anyone driving on the new pulling track so when the races were completed the drivers had to do a sort of rally around the flagpole circle and head back out the gate off turn two. Again, it seemed to work just fine.
The tower in the infield is long gone and probably a good thing as having the scorers and announcer in the infield is from a time long past. It was refreshing to see a nice clean pit area. Where the scale will be placed I do not know but a suggestion would be to put that somewhere in the pits also and not in the middle of the track, trying to keep that area as clean and clear as possible.
A very nice change was to move victory lane to a runway outside the flagstand and between the starter and the crowd on a very nice flat area where the interviews can be conducted and the driver(s) are much more visible to the crowd. They are escorted to that area after the race and then also after the ceremonies have concluded. I can think of a couple tracks in Minnesota set up very much the same way and it goes over big there too.
They were just finishing up the installation of the new sound system and it is a dandy, rivaling the best that I have heard anywhere. Lots of speakers and lots of volume but nice clarity make this a great addition to the track. The system is all new and I was watching as a technician worked on it, using a laptop to make adjustments. State of the art stuff, indeed.
Lastly, the flag stand has been moved so that it is in the middle of the front chute, instead of in the middle of the half mile which made it right coming out of the new corner four. This also is a good thing and should make starts work better. Veteran Doug Haack was waving the sticks on this night.
The purse structure for this show was an interesting one and while I didn't hear much comment about it, I found it to be quite interesting. The Sport Mods and Stock Cars are paid almost identical purses with just a few of the positions varying by a few bucks.
What caught my eye was the Modified and Late Model purses which again were very similar although in positions four through eleven the Mods actually get paid more than the Late Models while both race for six hundred bucks to win. Quite frankly, in my home area if the Late Model feature paid six hundred bucks to win, I doubt I could convince over a half dozen drivers to even take their cars off the trailers. Here on Wednesday, the Late Models had the highest car count with twenty four signing in to race so obviously there is a difference in thinking between the areas.
They had plenty of moisture in the track tonight and they used every available opportunity to roll in the racing surface which produced eventually some great side by side racing and no dust at all.
Among some of the changes I noted in the pits before the show was Wes Digman in a Sport Mod normally driven by Jerry Miles as Digman rolled his car at Vinton on Sunday night when he went there after Dubuque rained out and he got launched on an aborted start of the main event. Digman is battling for track points and was fortunate to have a fellow racer willing to give up his ride.
Bone Larson was in the house car of Rage chassis after he wrecked his car last Friday night. I was told that Justin O'Brien, who owns Rage, offered his house car to Larson to use while they get some wheels ready for the Freeport Illinois racer. And in the Late Models, Joel Callahan had two cars out, one for Scott Fitzpatrick to drive. And while Fitzpatrick had a good run, Callahan's car took some damage in the first lap crash of the Late Models in the main event.
The program went off at a very nice pace, with the heats quickly being disposed of and only a very short break before the first feature race hit the track. And two of the feature races were outstanding with great battles for the lead. Despite having relatively small fields of cars, both the Stock Car and Sport Mod features were dandies.
In the Stock Cars, it was a two car battle between Kyle Merkes and Phil Holtz that carried on for twelve laps. Merkes took the lead from the outside pole and Holtz dogged him the whole race, trying several times to get a nose under Merkes and several times getting up beside him but just not able to make the pass. The Stock Car feature ran off nonstop and it was over quickly, with Merkes winning by a half car length.
The Sport Mods was at least as intense with Jason Roth and Troy Bauer battling it out. It was fun to watch them work their way forward in the field with Bauer making the moves and Roth following him to the front. At the end, they were left to battle it out themselves and after a series of thrilling slide jobs, it was Roth who found the lead and then pulled away in the last couple of laps. Again, this was also a nonstop main event.
Following a pattern of hard racing with no quarter given, the Modifieds went at it for twenty laps. Jeremy Thornton was the early leader but he was eventually challenged and then overtaken by a strong running Timmy Current. When Thornton tried to get the lead back, he suffered front end damage and clobbered the turn one wall which ended his night. With the last fourteen laps going off nonstop, Current showed great speed as he pulled away from the field and in a right battle for second, it was Ryan Duhme who held off Mark Schulte and Jed Freiburger.
The "Darkside" duo of Current and Duhme were running retro looking cars sporting Skoal and Hooters colors respectively so they had both fast and distinctive looking cars.
The Late Model feature got off to a bad start with cars coming together on the front chute on the green which resulted in a grinding collision that eliminated three cars and damaged several others. The running order was badly shuffled and with Jeff Aikey inheriting the outside pole, it was both bad news for the competition and for the fans looking for another close battle. Aikey took off and was never seen again by the competition as he drove home for a resounding win over Logan Duffy and Andy Nezworski. Nezworski, despite receiving some pretty severe sheet metal damage in the opening lap crash, drove up from the seventh row to finish a strong third. Bad luck was incurred by Mitch Manternach who was running second when it appeared that he lost a motor.
It was pointed out to me by some of the teams and crews that helped work on the track this week that because of the length of the new pulling pit that the corner four area had to be changed and that it narrowed down coming off of turn four now and on to the front chute and they were worried about cars being forced up into the front stretch wall. They were spot on with that assessment as we saw quite a few cars tattoo the front stretch wall over the course of the night and several drivers on the outside lane that got crowded up into the concrete when the lower lane car drifted up too high. With the change to that corner, it would appear that some of the drivers are going to have to review their driving styles and etiquette in that area of the track.
It seemed like a very nice crowd for a midweek show that was not featuring any kind of special event and despite a long clean up for the major wreck in the Late Model feature, it was still just a few minutes after 10 pm when the final checkered flag waved. All in all, it was a good and entertaining night of racing and everyone should be exciting about the many new positive changes taking place at the track.
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