Saturday night October 31st was night number two of the first annual MODster Mash series. After a challenging night on Friday at Lakeside Speedway, everyone moved about three hours West to the Eighty One Speedway in Park City Kansas, just North of Wichita for another full night of racing.
USRA sanctioned Modifieds and B Mods would be on the card and based on the number of entrants, the program would be duplicate on what Friday night's show was, right down to the number of heats and B Features with it once again being just a two class program.
With all the damage done to race cars on Friday night amidst the challenging track conditions, it was felt that the field of cars for the Saturday night show would be considerably lessened for round two. However, that proved to not be the case as many of the teams that had difficulties somehow got their cars put back together and for those that did not follow the tour on to Eighty One, there was a whole group of racers that run Eighty One on a regular basis just waiting to take on the travelers.
Forty one B Mods and sixty eight Modifieds signed in to race at Eighty One, so while the number of total cars was down just a bit, it was not a significant drop by any means with just three less B Mods and six less Modifieds. And joining the field on Saturday were fifteen Modifieds that did not race on Friday along with twenty two B Mods, largely regulars at the track just North of Wichita. Among the few that did not follow the tour West and were most surprising by their absence were the Modified drivers Joe Duvall, Lucas Schott and Ricky Thornton Jr. I speculated last night that Thornton Jr might not be around for Saturday and apparently he did not have a motor to replace the one that was damaged as he hung on for the win on Friday. It was surprising that Schott was not on hand, given that he is locked in a battle for the USRA national title with Jake Gallardo and did finish the feature race on Friday night.
This was my first visit to Eighty One Speedway since the track was sold to new ownership last Fall and John Allen took over the operation of the facility on a day to day basis. And they have made a large number of improvements to the grounds since I was there last Fall for the Junghans race.
On the track side of things, a wall now surrounds the entire racing surface where all their used to be was walls on the straightaways. No more as big blocks of concrete now surround the track. With that change, it allowed them to extend the pit area off the number four corner and cars no longer pit in the infield of the track which is now clean with the old buildings that were in the infield gone. There is a scoreboard just inside turn one that both the racers and fans can read and new lighting makes the track more visible as well as doing a great job lighting up the grandstands too. New pit bleachers and concessions in the pits are also planned for next year.
On the spectator side of things, the old wooden grandstand is gone and has been replaced by a great high rise metal stand that offers great sight lines and I would say that there is no longer a bad seat in the house. The sound system is awesome and they have added a lot of concrete walkways both in front of the grandstand and also behind the grandstands where the new concession buildings are with everything remodeled from last year. It is now an awesome facility and even more changes and improvements are promised to be ahead.
Being Halloween night, a trick or treat walk through the pits for the spectators took place during the afternoon and after sunset, they even furnished a spectacular blue full moon to boot.
The drivers and crews are to be lauded for their hard efforts already this weekend as many had lots of work to do to get ready to race on Saturday yet the vast majority of those that ran on Friday showed up to do it once again. Through two nights of competition, eighty six different Modifieds and sixty six different B Mods have taken to the track between the two shows.
Clint Erickson, one of the drivers that flipped last night at Lakeside, did suffer a rather significant injury in that accident. According to his brother Duke who drives the #57 Modified, Clint broke his wrist in two different places in his violent B Mod flip during a B Feature with the bone actually piercing the skin. He was taken by ambulance from the track to a local hospital, was released on Saturday morning and they headed back to their home in Sioux Falls S.D. The Erickson brothers have their own body shop so it sounds like Duke is going to have to pick up the work load while his brother recovers.
The time trial format started last night at Lakeside was continued on Saturday at Eighty One with Brandon Sheppard being the quickest at 17,755 seconds and again they inverted the top four in each heat and then once again raced for passing points. About the only thing a time trial program can guarantee is that the racing program will never start on time. With an advertised starting time of 6 pm, it was fifty minutes later than that when the first green flag waved. However, at least the temperatures were much improved over last night and it was pleasant to sit outside on this sunny but windy late Fall day.
It is interesting how different a track races when there is a wall surrounding it where they never used to be one. Instead of rim riding on the very edge and occasionally slipping over the top, drivers now seem to use more of the lower lanes on the track and with it being relatively smooth and slick, the number of crashes and mechanical breakdowns was much less.
Seven heats and four B Features set the field for the Modified forty lap main event and except for the last couple of laps, it was Johnny Scott who led all the way. Scott started on the pole and quickly pulled away from the field. He showed great speed and built up nearly a full straightaway on the field as only one yellow with twelve laps complete slowed the action. He appeared to be in great shape to win the race until circumstances changed right at the end.
While Scott led, Tanner Mullins and Terry Phillips had a great battle for second as they swapped the spot back and forth several times before Mullins finally established that second was his. Phillips then locked into another good battle with Rodney Sanders for position.
Then making a move after starting in the fourth row was Jake O'Neil. With everyone using the top side, O'Neil started working down low and he made it work as he gradually moved up and took over the third spot. Just when it looked like Scott would be home free, Jimmy Owens spun and triggered a yellow with only three laps to go. With O'Neil looking so fast on the bottom, I thought Scott might be in trouble and that proved to be exactly the case as on the green O'Neil powered under Scott in the first turn and took over the lead. He would then extend it to the finish while Mullins would throw a slider on Scott and take over second with two laps to go. Sanders and Phillips would complete the top five. I really hate to see these late race yellows as it left Scott as a sitting duck and if that yellow hadn't flown, there would have been no one to challenge Scott for the win. It was indeed bad luck for him. The overall race was much cleaner than last night with only two yellows and seven cars that didn't go the distance. the O'Neil win was accomplished driving his back up car which was the machine that Chase Junghans drove last night at Lakeside.
The same format of five heats and two B Features set the field of twenty four for the B Mod main. Jeremy Chambers and Dustin Daniels battled for the lead in the opening two laps and they swapped the top spot back and forth. Bad luck struck Daniels when Chambers got an inadvertent piece of him and spun him out, triggering a yellow. While it was unfortunate, the officials ruled that Daniels had triggered the yellow so he went to the back while Chambers got off "scot free" for his malfeasance, inadvertent or not.
Only three laps later, Jim Chisholm came charging up from the fourth row and after battling with Kris Jackson for second, Chisholm took over the lead of the race. He would hold the lead the rest of the way and despite a couple of late restarts that gave Jackson a clear shot at him, Chisholm would hold off Jackson and come home for the win. It was a very big one for him, as he added his seventeenth feature win of the year while at the same time topping his closest challenger for the national title. Tomorrow night will settle things at Humboldt with Chisholm now sitting in great position. Jake Richards was the hard charger in this race, coming from the eleventh starting position to get up to fourth at the finish and he was still on the move but ran out of laps.
Once the racing did begin, the track officials did a good job of moving things along and it ended up being just over a three hour program which was right in the range of where it should be. a very substantial crowd was on hand on Halloween night and I'm told that the crowds have been good all year here. The crowd was also very vocal and enthusiastic and they were given much reason to be so as an outstanding display of heat race action was provided with several of the races featuring some thrilling side by side action and last lap battles for the lead. It was another good night of racing as all look to finish with another good show on Sunday at Humboldt.