Night number one of the IMCA Winter Nationals eight night run here at the "Diamond In The Desert", the Cocopah Speedway near Somerton Arizona, took place under sunny skies and favorable temperatures here on Wednesday night, January 6th. The best and biggest field of drivers ever for this event assembled one hundred and sixty one strong in the four classes that were racing on this night to compete in a full racing program for all classes that saw the fans that were assembled here more than get their monies' worth of racing action.
When the final checkered flag waved in the early morning hours of Thursday morning, the four winners that would be celebrating would be Tanner Black in the Modifieds, Andy Altenberg in the Stock Cars, Chris Toth in the Sport Mods and Eric Knutson in the Hobby Stocks.
This series certainly has seemed to turn the corner in terms of popularity for the drivers as the number of participants took a huge jump here for 2021 with the numbers telling the story. As compared to last year's opening night event, the number of racers grew by a staggering fifty three with increases in all four classes. The most significant gain was in the Sport Mods where nearly two dozen more competitors lined up to race as compared to last year's event, all of which was completed long before COVID became the word. The Modifieds too gained quite a few cars while the fender classes had more modest gains but gains indeed.
It would be a long night as a full night of racing, which would include thirty races between the four classes, would be the schedule for this opening night of racing. And despite the fact that the program started within mere minutes of the advertised time and no track prep work would be done during the evening at all, it still takes a long time to run that many races, even though there weren't a significant number of yellows and the one spin rule was also in effect to keep the show moving. In fact, testament to the smooth driving by the competitors was the fact that in all the qualifying events(heats and B features), there was only one event that saw more than two yellow flags and the four mains were clicked off with a total of ten yellows between the four including a nonstop Modified twenty five lap event.
The evening did get off to a rocky start as early in the second race of the night, a Hobby Stock heat, Mitch Mahler Sr got clipped on the back chute by another car which turned his vehicle and sent him sliding flush on into the concrete wall, drivers side first, the worst possible kind of contact for a driver and the wall. Mahler was complaining of back pain and they transported him to a local hospital which meant that we had to wait while another ambulance came to do the transport. Later another incident in the pits, not reported by the tower to the fans, appeared to require another transport so it was a busy night for the medicos.
As you might imagine, a lot of quality machines and their drivers were left on the sidelines by the time that all the preliminaries were completed and it was time for the feature events. The track, which had started off the evening as very slick and wet, had now turned black and shiny and the racers' tires could be heard squealing as they attacked the corners. Despite the fact that the track had slowed down considerably, speeds were still high on this fast track.
Hobby Stocks took to the grid for their feature race first, twenty four strong, and it was pole starter Joe Peterson that led the first three laps. He was in hot competition with Steve Bitting Jr, Tim Gonska and Eric Knutson. Knutson used the high groove to move up and challenge for the lead and on lap four he edged past and took over the top spot. However, Peterson and Bitting Jr did not go away and continued to challenge him closely.
The yellow waved three times in the opening nine laps which kept the field bunched as the "Delaware" restarts were used on this night which tends to keep the field more tightly packed. Knutson continued to ride the high side of the track with Bitting Jr continuing to test him on the low side. Meanwhile, Brandon Bombardo and Matt Olson, from row six, were on the move and raced into the top five.
Knutson was under heavy pressure when the yellow flew one more time, setting up a five lap sprint to the finish. Bombardo powered around Bitting Jr to take over second and he was riding the rear bumper of Knutson. However, Eric would not be swayed and he continued to run his line and remain steady in the lead. Bombardo made one last attempt on the final corner but Knutson held his ground and crossed the line as the winner. Just as the winner crossed the line, a big wreck was triggered in turn four that saw both the checkered and red waved as a couple of the cars suffered significant damage. Bitting Jr finished third with Peterson and Olson next in line.
With the hour getting late, the Sport Mod feature was cut by five laps and they ran a twenty lap finale. However, the number of laps was not significant for Christ Toth, who started on the pole and dominated the race. He led all twenty laps and built up a significant lead over the rest of the field. In fact, the only time the rest of the racers saw Toth was when the yellow waved.
On each restart, Toth would be challenged by Fred Ryland and Austen Becerra and each time he would leave them to do their own battle, which Ryland won out on through each yellow. One driver on the move was Brian Osantowski who started thirteenth but using the high line charged into contention. While Toth was long gone, Osantowski pulled in to fight for the second spot as he got past Becerra and pulled in to challenge Ryland for second. However, he ran out of laps and had to settle for second as Toth finished up a dominating performance. Brady Bjella would finish fourth as Becerra slipped back a couple of spots at the end. Toth's only "thrill" of the race was when a lapped car spun right in front of him and Chris clipped him but did no damage to his car in what was a very close miss.
The Mods were up next and by this time the track was taking rubber and the Mod main turned into a "rubbered up" event with one fast lane down low and to wander out of that lane meant a quick trip backwards in the field. Russell Allen appeared to jump the initial start but it was not called back and Allen took the lead while outside pole starter Chaz Baca Jr, who was thought to be the likely race favorite given his starting position, got shuffled back to third behind Black. And that's the way they ran for fifteen laps in that running order. Everyone tucked into the low groove and looked for mistakes by their competitors to hopefully jump a spot.
Black began to put pressure on Allen who was struggling in the corners but Russell smartly blocked the groove and Black showed patience as he didn't use the "chrome horn" on the leader. Finally, on lap fifteen, Allen slipped up the track in turn one and Black quickly blew past him to take over the lead and once in front, he pulled away as the last nine laps were uneventful.
Black crossed the line with a comfortable margin of victory while Allen managed to hold off Baca for second. Zippy Devilbiss and Ethan Dotson completed the top five in a race that saw only one driver not complete the event and only two a lap down.
All twenty three Stock Cars on hand started the main event with North Dakota driver Rob Stenvold leading the first four laps. Andy Altenberg was hammering on his rear bumper looking for the lead but when a change took place, it was from a smooth move by Blake Adams who found an opening and drove past both drivers to take over the top spot.
Adams secured the lead for a few laps and then he appeared to start to struggle coming off the corners and suddenly, Altenberg was all over him again looking for the lead. Lap after lap, Andy would challenge but each time Adams would fight him off. Several times Altenberg would get the prime inside lane but Adams surprised by finding just enough bite in the second lane to fight off the Minnesota driver.
Finally, as the white flag was waved, Adams got just a bit higher off turn one and Altenberg was able to drive under him and take over the lead which he held to the finish in an exciting conclusion. Interestingly, Altenberg and Adams' race cars came out of the same trailer as they shared a trip to Arizona and Adams built the car that Altenberg drove to victory. As Adams slipped high on the final lap, Michael Steen made a late rush to get the second spot over Adams. Aaron Spangler and Tony Will, up from twelfth, also were closing at the end.
Keeping the track in good racing condition does appear to be the major challenge to the management for the rest of this series. There will be a lot of race cars on this track the rest of the week with lots of laps to be run and a locked down race track does not make for optimal racing and tends to cause drivers to take some risks and drive perhaps a bit more aggressively. Despite the fact that they poured water on the track all day and it was so slimy that well over an hour of track packing was required at the beginning of the evening, the track still ended up rubbered up for half the main events so all are hoping that they have a successful strategy to prevent this from happening again. Because of so many cars and so much racing to be done, for the remainder of this series, the starting times have been moved up by two hours with a 5 pm green flag. This must be tough on a week night for the working folks of the area to get to the track but I'm told they must get the programs over earlier than Wednesday night. How this will play on the track, which will now be raced upon for a period of time under bright sunshine as opposed to starting after the suns sets is anyone's guess.
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