On Wednesday night, August 19th, Stuart International Speedway was back in action with their normal six class program which features five divisions of IMCA racing plus their Mini Mods. It would be their second to last regularly planned program with promoter Mike VanGenderen still remaining cloy about whether or not he will schedule a Fall special for the track. After tonight's racing action, the season will wrap up next Monday night with the RACEXR event, a live streamed event that will be free for the public with a world wide audience expected to witness the final race of the season. Point titles will be on the line next Monday night and a big field of cars is expected for this unique event. Admission will only be five bucks and if folks remember, it was one of these Monday night TV races that really got Stuart Speedway off the ground and launched into the major comeback that it has made.
MVG tells me that he has the big race upcoming at Corning plus two weekends at Scotland County on his schedule so another race here might be dependent on whether and how much sponsors step up in the coming weeks. It has been a long season here with many special events and I'm sensing that in a way they are ready to call it a season here in the jinxed 2020 campaign. MVG may also be involved in a couple of special events upcoming in Texas and Arizona with track prep and running the shows and of course, he will be heavily involved in the Duel in the Desert upcoming in November at The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway which is being promoted by XR this year. MVG promises me that he can knock three hours of the nightly show at Vegas after I expressed my concerns with it turning into an all night marathon following the addition of Stock Cars to the 2020 card. I may hold him to that promise.
Water, or rather, the lack of water, is still plaguing the Stuart Speedway. I took a different route to the track on Wednesday that brought me through a number of towns that I had never been through before and I couldn't help noticing that there is a swatch running North to South through central Iowa to the West of Des Moines where the fields look dry and the lawns brown and parched. This would include Stuart where MVG's plea for rain following his last show here went largely ignored and his pond is still dry.
With his options limited, they hauled water to the track this week for track prep and to water the pits and driveways. However, with that strategy vehicles were required and breakdowns and small accidents plagued the operation this week to the point that MVG was considering just opening up the city hydrants and playing what it cost for the upcoming Monday night extravaganza. We will see what he ultimately decided.
Not knowing just exactly how much water he hauled this week, I can only say that it was the perfect amount for the race as the track was great, smooth and fast, with a nice cushion and it threw not a whisper of dust all night. The driveways were also wet and the pits were dust free so whatever he came up with worked perfectly but that has been the history of this track since the current ownership took over, no two ways about it. Any deviation from the expected result would be the exception, not the rule.
It was also Hall of Fame night and Larry Embrey, Joe College and Terry Pruitt were added to the Stuart Speedway Hall of Fame in a brief ceremony conducted at intermission(which there never really is one) by Rev. Wombat
Both the car count and crowd size were down on Wednesday as it is getting to that time of the year where only the hard core fans and track point chasers turn out for a regular show on a Wednesday night. However, the drivers on hand put on a good show with a couple of outstanding performances as a part of the quick program that once again got us on the road well before 10 pm.
It might be a tossup as to which driver had the best run of the night but I will give the award this week to Tom Berry Jr. In a race that ran twenty laps nonstop, Berry Jr came from tenth to nip Kollin Hibdon for the win. Hibdon was running strong and had built up a nice sized lead and when Berry Jr finally passed Happy Gilman for second, he was about a half straightaway behind and had only seven laps to catch the youngster from Nevada. I didn't think he had a chance.
But boy, was I wrong. Making scorching fast laps on the high banked quarter, he caught Hibdon with two laps to spare and blew right past him in turn four to take the win. It was an awesome performance in an awesome year for the Oregon racer who also lived for a time in North Dakota. It was too bad though, that instead of enjoying the spectacular win in victory lane, he instead spent his whole time on the microphone berating another driver that he is apparently in a running feud with as they made some contact again on this night. Take time to stop and smell the roses for a minute next time before you go off might be a good plan.
The other driver who really shined on this night was young Dallon Murty It took him only six laps to come from tenth on the grid and then run away from the Stock Car field with a dominating performance. How these drivers get through the heavy traffic so quickly on a tight track like Stuart is an absolute wonder to me but just an expression of their tremendous skills behind the wheel of a race car. . Dallon had a whole straightaway at the finish on Chad Legere.
In victory lane Rev. Wombat asked Dallon how old he was and he replied that he was now fifteen but still waiting to get his driver's license. Holly Cow! He seems like a seasoned veteran by now. Just how old was he when he first started racing a Stock Car anyway? My goodness!
Five laps into this race, veteran driver Del Enos decided to exit the facility stage left. He climbed the dirt bank leaving turn two, cartwheeled over the dirt berm and ended up on the street running parallel to the track on its North side. Fortunately there were no "freebees" trying to watch from the road on this night or they might have been far to close to the action for their liking. He was far enough out of the facility that the ambulance and wreckers had to go through the pits and around on the city street to retrieve the car and check on Del's condition which was fine. Enos stepped out of the Truck class this year and got himself a Stock Car instead but I'm sure this wasn't part of the bargain.
Brandon Cox took the lead four laps into the Hobby Stock feature and then held off a late challenge from Dylan Nelson to take the win. These two are locked in a close battle for the track point lead and this race might have been significant going into the finale on Monday. Cox had a big lead but Nelson caught him, aided by a couple of late yellows but the frenetic battle to the finish saw Cox hold on.
The Sport Compact feature saw Mitchell Bunch get to the front early and dominate that race. The biggest excitement of the contest saw the hood on the car of Kolby Sabin come up and he tried to continue racing looking out of the corner of the windshield but eventually gave up and pulled into the infield.
It took only two laps for point leader Brayton Carter to get to the front of the short field of Sport Mods and it looked like a real snoozer of a race upcoming. But while all of us and apparently Carter to some extent relaxed, Brian Osantowski did not and he fought his way back into contention, perhaps surprising Carter when he appeared just outside of him.
A ferocious battle then took place in the late laps with Brian and then Brayton taking turns pulling sliders on each other for the lead. A late yellow seemed to aid Carter and he was able to right the ship and then hold off Osantowski for what turned out to be an exciting finish to the race.
So even on what MVG would probably say was a "down night" there was plenty of action on the track and some dandy races to be seen in the quick program. More is expected when the regular season wraps up next Monday night.
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