As the evening began to lay out, I was wondering at first if I had made a mistake driving all the way down here for what looked like it might be a really small field of cars to compete. But even more so that for most of the their midweek events, everyone arrived at the last minute and when everyone had finally signed in, there was just about the right amount of cars for a quick yet interesting show and plenty of strong running competitors among those on hand.
I should back up for a minute and review my quick conversation with promoter Mike Van Genderen that we had before the races in the pits. The Monday night, XR tv race scheduled for this coming Monday has been postponed for a couple of weeks, now slated to be run on Monday night, August 24th. The reason for the postponement is one of the more bizarre and rare ones I have ever heard. Quite frankly, the race track is out of water. Here at home we have had plenty of rain but there are parts of the Midwest that are very dry and the Stuart area is one of them. MVG gets his water for the track, pits etc from a pond on the South side of his property down in the hole behind the parking lot. Well, with no rains the pond water has been depleted and he announced tonight that the pond is officially dry! Buying city water from a hydrant is far too expensive for him to consider as is having water trucked in so with his last two tanker loads filled before the show, he was officially out of water.
The decision was made to postpone this race for two weeks with the hopes that some rains would come and replenish the pond. If he gets not significant rain in the next two weeks, I'm not sure what his strategy would be but we will cross that bridge when we come to it, so to speak.
However, this is not to infer that the race track went "wanting" on this night which would be far from the truth. He had things planned out correctly for the track to have plenty to "drink" and it was in terrific shape for some great racing on Wednesday with not a whisper of dust to deal with and as smooth as glass. It was an excellent track to race on and as usual here, drivers used every inch of the racing surface plus just a bit of the concrete wall to find the fast way around this high banked quarter mile.
It always amazes me that with the tightness of this race track and with the close racing action that is almost nonstop, that the yellow flag and wrecks would be more numerous. But that is not the case at all and on this night they would speed through twelve qualifying events with just two yellow flags! The features would have a few yellows but nothing extensive so that is largely what allows them to run off such a quick show. Other factors that lead to a quick evening are starting on time, rushing one race on to the track after the other and making sure that post heat race break is a short one.
I thought the highlight event on this night was the Modified feature that started twenty cars for twenty laps and saw some spectacular driving, especially when dealing with lapped cars. Todd Shute was the early leader but he couldn't fight off Tim Ward and Tom Berry who both came from the third row to pass him. They set a torrid pace and were soon dealing with heavy lapped traffic and with Berry pushing Ward, Tim had to make a quick choice of where to go or be overtaken as Berry was relentless.
With just a few laps left, Ward made a spectacular winning move as he some how split three slower cars and gave himself just enough of a margin that a strong last lap charge by Berry came up a car length short in what was a very entertaining and intense race that was stopped only once by a yellow flag.
Brock Bradger(love that name) led for much of the Stock Car feature but Bob Daniels was able to get to his lower side and take the lead from Badger late in the race. There was a real rush from the back at the end and while Daniels had just a small margin as the leader, it was a wild finish as second through fifth were in a wad and fighting right to the checkered. Badger held on by inches for second with Buck Schafroth coming from ninth for third.
Brayton Carter dominated the Sport Mods, as he has been doing with regularity this year. He had to get a bit physical early in the race as he came from the third row, but once in front there was no one that had anything for him. The battle behind him was a good one though and while Dusty Masolini had ran most of the race in second, Garrett Nelson made the bottom hook up for him as he three wheeled his way around the track and on the last corner he nipped Masolini for second.
The Hobby Stocks went at it as they usually do and it was Dylan Nelson that took the win. Early on, David Bailey had the lead with Patrick Pellman challenging until Brandon Cox caught them. However, a scrum for the top spot saw Cox and Bailey get together with them sliding into the infield and Cox was sent to the back.
While Nelson had clear sailing in the lead, the rest of the top five were battling it out and Cox made quite the drive, coming from the back where, ironically, he would battle once again with Bailey for the second spot and for the second time in the race, it would be Bailey who would hold on for the runner up honors.
Rounding out the evening were the Sport Compacts and in a nonstop fourteen lap main, it was Hunter Patrick who got to the front quickly and had a pretty comfortable margin for most of the race in what was probably the most straight forward of the five mains. Curtis Masterson would finish second ahead of Bryan Vannausdle.
They wrapped up the evening with Mechanics and Powder Puff races but I was on the road by the time they dropped the green for those events. But the beauty of it was that if someone like myself had to get up early the following morning or had a long drive ahead of them, they were able to hit the road at a very early hour. Despite seeing a full racing program in five classes, the show was done just a touch after 9:30 pm and I ambled to the parking and was still on the road early. This folks, is the way that a midweek show should be run if you want to be successful.
As usual, thanks to MVG and his fine crew of competent officials, with Tony Paris sharing the announcing duties of this night with "The Foxman" who kept us all informed plus spun a few stories along the way. Keep an eye on the track face book page for announcements regarding the rest of the season and pray for rain, just not on race day!
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