Friday night, October 16th, the MLRA began what they hope will be a three night racing weekend that will decide the 2020 MLRA Late Model champion. They begun this three night swing with the first half of a doubleheader show at Tammy and Kevin Gundaker's Tri City Speedway near Pontoon Beach Illinois. The plan it to run shows both on Friday and Saturday and then move to the Randolph County Raceway near Moberly Missouri to finish off the weekend and crown a champion.
Along with the MLRA Late Models who will be racing for five grand on Friday night and upping it to seven grand on Saturday, the UMP Modifieds will also be in action, racing two full programs with two grand to the winner each night. While the racing seasons are largely over in my part of the world, there are still a couple of weekends of racing left here in the greater St. Louis area with them having scheduled a big B Mod doubleheader this coming weekend and while I got a report that snow flakes were flying at home today, down here the temps are still approaching seventy degrees although it still does get cool once the sun goes down.
With the choices for the Late Model drivers being limited this weekend, an eclectic field of drivers was on hand for the Friday night opener. Along with the always tough field of MLRA regulars, such drivers as Larson, Gustin, Erb, Eckert, Timm, Schlenk, Moyer, Heckenast, Pierce and Babb, along with the local Tri City racers made this one tough field of drivers to compete with.
And on the Modified side of things, add Pierce, Krup, McKinney, Rettig and Long to the local drivers and a strong field would exist for the open wheel racing also. When everyone got signed in and ready to race, the Modified field numbered twenty nine along with a strong field of forty seven Late Models.
I got the chance to talk to Bob Timm before the show, the owner of the Late Model team raced by his son Jake and Bob is also the owner of the Mississippi Thunder Speedway near Fountain City Wisconsin. Timm in fact had a show scheduled for this weekend that was cancelled early in the week when the weather forecast looked dreadful and in fact, it turned out to be even worse than predicted!
Timm had quite a very at his track, hosting a considerable number of big paying shows for both the Mods and Late Models, coincidently both classes that his son races in. However, the biggest is yet to come as Timm as scored a World of Outlaws Late Model doubleheader for 2021 that will pay twenty thousand to win for the finale. and even more important to him, he managed to get a weekend where Lucas Oil is not racing either so he anticipates that the best from both series will be on hand.
He is making a number of improvements for 2021 including the addition of two thousand more grandstand seats for the back chute which will necessitate an addition to the track wall on the back chute. He has made tiered parking in his three, four corner that will allow drive in parking for motor homes etc and he has purchased two hundred and fifty acres from a neighbor just to the South of the track that will be used for camping plus adding on to his pit area as big things are planned for this track along the Mississippi River North of LaCrosse. But on this weekend they are working on getting son Jake, a relative newcomer to the Late Model world, faster.
Both classes would qualify under the clock with Kyle Steffens the quickest of the Mods at 16.562 while the blazing fast Ryan Gustin was the only Late Model to crack the fifteen second barrier. Using the always unimaginative straight up starts in both classes four big heats of Late Models and two B Features would set their twenty five car field when provisionals were added while three heats and a B Feature set the grid for the twenty two car Modified finale.
Going into this weekend, a very close battle existed for the MLRA point title with Jeremiah Hurst locked in a close struggle with Payton Looney and Chris Simpson. And of the three, only Simpson would qualify out of his heat while Hurst would have to run a B Feature and Looney would scratch out of his B and take a provisional which meant he would start very deep in the feature field.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Late Model feature would be the first on the main events with twenty five cars taking the green flag. Mason Oberkramer started on the pole and took the early lead with Tim Manville moving to the high side to challenge him while Simpson and Babb would move down low and see what developed. The top side was not working the best on this night with a few trying in earlier races without too much success and most eventually giving up and dropping back in line.
However, Manville kept working and working and he was briefly able to edge ahead of Oberkramer for the lead but then Mason would pick up the pace and move back in front. For many laps the top three ran in close formation with Oberkramer continuing to lead, Manville pounding the wall and Simpson looking for an opening while slightly farther back Gustin was wearing out the right side of his car on the concrete too as he tried to move forward.
The leaders got into heavy traffic just past the halfway point and with most still hugging the bottom, things started backing up dramatically. Suddenly, the top three were joined by Babb and Pierce as the lapped cars were stubborn and wouldn't move out of the way, making the logjam up front even worse. Manville got trapped to the outside and Simpson was able to grab second as everyone mostly hung to the low groove.
Just when it looked like a wild finish might take place, Hurst got into the wall on the back chute and triggered the first yellow of the race with only five laps to go. This would hurt in his battle for the point title and unofficially following the show, it was announced that Looney had retaken the lead but I could find no specifics on numbers and with Simpson's strong finish he must be very close also.
On the final green with only five to go, Simpson went for broke and tried to move up the track and drive around Oberkramer but there was simply nothing to get ahold of up there although Oberkramer was a "sitting duck", having been married to the bottom. Chris would luckily be able to get back in line although losing several car lengths and Oberkramer would drive on unimpeded having led all thirty laps. His strategy was to hug the inside, make no mistakes and let no one get inside of him and he made it work to the tune of five grand. Manville, Babb and Pierce would complete the top five with Pierce making the most noise, having started twelfth and making the top side work as well as anyone.
And while the Late Model feature left something to be desired on this night, the Modified feature, for those that stuck around and didn't hightail it for the exits once the checkered waved, more than made up for a perhaps lack of passing in the first feature and it was none other than the Bobby Pierce who would put on the show.
The Pierce team decided to bring a car for each class this weekend and fortunately for the fans, they did so as Pierce put on a great show and made the Modified feature a race that people will be discussing for awhile.
Eearly on it was Kyle Steffens and Will Krup battling for the lead with Rick Stevenson, McKinney, Dean Hoffman, Jeff Leka and Rick Conoyer all battling in the lead group. Each lap Krup would put the pressure on Steffens who was running through the middle lane and giving Krup the inside but Will just couldn't make the pass.
Hardly noticed with the large and good battle up front, Pierce was knocking down the wall as he began to advance from the inside of the eighth row and as the race got toward its midpoint, he was definitely on the move. After a lap eleven yellow for debris, the last fourteen laps ran off nonstop and that's when things started to get very interesting. Krup finally got past Steffens for the lead and as Pierce shouldered his way past Stevenson and McKinney, he was suddenly a real factor.
Bobby continued to pound the wall and with four laps to go, he got past Steffens for second and took off after Krup, who had taken the lead just two laps previously. Pierce was making the high side work like no one in either class had all night and he quickly closed the gap, raced up beside Krup and coming out of turn four for the white flag, blew past to take over the lead. He continued his charge, not letting Krup get back inside of him in turn one and then extended down the back chute and took the win, which had the chill stiffened crowd up and roaring. After the featured Late Models kind of let us down a bit, the Mods showed us what two groove, bull ring racing was all about and it was a spectacular finish to the evening. Or course Pierce is a fan favorite in this area and he stirred those loyal fans that stuck in out on a cool night with a spectacular finish.
The two division program was perfect for a Friday night this time of year and the final checkered flag waved just after 10:30 pm. The only catch in the whole program was that time trials delayed the start of the show with the first green flag not waving until 8 p.m. It's not that the Tri City crew and MLRA officials dragged their feet; nothing of the kind. In fact, they ran off a very fast program with no delays and only one very short break. In fact, I thought their administration of the show was very good. It's just that no matter how fast you run time trials, and the Mods even did group qualifying, it takes some time so if you're going to post a race schedule, unless you start time trials early, you're never going to be able to start on time, something that seemingly no one gets.
Saturday night the show will begin and hour early and there will be drama as the possibility exists that this might be the last MLRA show of the year, given the Sunday forecast and the points title might very well be decided on Saturday. B Mods will join the field on Saturday for a three class program on what is slated to be a hot and very windy October day.
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