Saturday, February 6, 2021

Sweet Tops Outlaws Opener; Michael Jr Leads Plethora of Modified Winners

 Friday night, February 5th, the Volusia Speedway Park near Barberville Florida was back in action. On this night, half the program was the same while a new sanctioning body rolled in to orchestrate the other half of the acion. 

UMP Modifieds were again on the card on Friday with one of their most unique nights of their campaign here while the Sprint Cars returned for the third night in a row, but this time they were sanctioned by the World of Outlaws who were making their first appearance of the year and the opening round of their 2021 point season.

 A huge crowd was on hand for the Friday night show. In fact, they made an announcement that all reserved seats had been sold out as spectators crammed the facility on a balmy night with just an occasional spritz of rain in the air just to remind us that showers were not that far North of our location. 

The opening few races of the Outlaw season are important ones for those teams chasing points as they want to get off to a good start for the long season ahead. Perhaps my expectations were too high but I must confess that I was disappointed that only thirty cars would sign in to race with the Outlaws and a couple of that number were having troubles and laboring to just get their machines to run. I would have thought that with all the "hype" for the start of the season and the abundance of media coverage given to all Speed Weeks events that this would have led to more cars being on hand. It leaves me to wonder just how many cars they will have when their high flying tour heads into areas where there are no local Sprint teams to help them fill out numbers. 

But no matter. On this night everyone seemed to be perfectly happy with the field assembled and it made for a nice tidy program with four heats, a dash and B Main and the thirty lap feature race. 

Sam Hafertepe Jr surprised some likely by setting fast time at 13.268 and then also winning a heat race which set him up for the unlikely task of pulling off a clean sweep. However, even though he started on the pole, he was quickly overtaken by a group of other drivers and would eventually end up thirteenth. 

The track had more bite in it than the last couple of nights and the Sprints were really flying around the track, most using the middle to high lines to make passes. Jacob Allen led the early laps until he was overtaken by Sweet who would lead the majority of the contest. Logan Schuchart and David Gravel would work their way up and would have a nice battle for second with them exchanging the position several times as they tried to catch Sweet. There were only two minor yellows and the last eighteen laps ran off nonstop. 

The driver making the moves was Donny Schatz who started eighteenth after a poor time trial run but he was quickly on the move. Running the low line that was not clogged, he was able to pass many cars as he worked his way to the front. He closed in on Schuchart for second as both started to catch Sweet but some bad luck in traffic broke Schatz's momentum and he would have to settle for third between Sweet and Schuchart. 

It was a smooth contest with only the two minor yellows and all but two of the twenty six starters were around at the checkered flag. It was not a good night for Kraig Kinser and Wayne Johnson as both had to use series provisionals to make the main and it is awful early in the season to have to be relying on those to race. 

The Modifieds run a unique program on Friday that is an apparent "thank you" to all the teams that haul all the way to Florida to race for relatively low pay all week. On this night everyone gets to run a feature race as they divide the cars up and this year ran five instead of the normal four features, given the record breaking car counts that they have had this week. For example, ninety six Modifieds signed in to race on Friday which produced five feature races of between twenty and eighteen cars in each. The unique thing is that on this night the Mods do not qualify but are instead lined up by points. However, they group the races unusually with the low point cars having their own race, the next twenty in the next race etc until the last feature of the night features the highest point cars, all racing together instead of being interspersed out. It is different but it is designed to produce different winner by using this method and apparently the "gator" trophy is more important to many than the top prize, which was also boosted by a hundred bucks to pay $700 to win each feature. Oh, and did I mention also that the top ten in points in each race were inverted so it took a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out just where everyone would start their main. 

And it was quickly apparent to even the most casual of fans why and how the drivers managed to earn their way into the races they ran. They started out with the low point cars race first and gradually worked they way toward the top point cars and the first three features were full of wrecks, spins and yellow flags. There were a couple of huge multi car wrecks and all three of the first features couldn't complete just a single lap before the yellow waved. Starter Dave Varney was getting a sore arm, waving the yellow so much. 

Contrast that with the final two feature races for the high point cars which saw the yellow waved only a total of three times between the two contests and only three starters total that didn't go the distance while in the first three features more cars than that were eliminated in crashes just getting off pit road!

I want to focus on the final Modified feature of the night which was for the top twenty in points and my "A Feature" for the class. Kyle Strickler drew the benefit of the ten invert to start on the pole and it seemed that this should seal the race for him. However, little did we know as he took off into turn one on the opening lap like it was a mile track, not a half mile, and he flew high and hit the wall, eliminating himself immediately. 

On the restart, Rich Michael Jr used the outside to take the lead and surprisingly, he would pull away and lead the entire fifteen laps for the win. He was running very strongly in his brand new Elite chassis and no one had anything for him. New York is not a hot bed for the type of Modified that Michael Jr races but I have seen him travel to races from coast to coast as he has always been one that liked to travel and race against the best, rather than stay home and race local competition. In any event, he was bad fast as he pulled away to win by nearly a full straightaway. There was a good battle for second with Just Allgaier passing Mike McKinney for the spot with Nick Hoffman and Tyler Nicely completing the top five. All but Strickler completed the race. 

Early in the evening during the first feature, we all got to see the dirt debut at Volusia of NASCAR super star Joey Logano who put on quite a show for the fans and received surprisingly warm applause. He started seventeenth in the ultimate "hooligan" race as he had no points but showed that he had the touch on dirt, driving up to third at the finish and making the podium even though the car was pretty battered up after not totally avoiding some of the mayhem on the track. 

One nice thing about the VSP format was that they ran the Sprint feature relatively early in the program; I'm guessing for a variety of reasons that included giving them a good track and making it not too late for the premier show of the night. A large side benefit to fans like me was that as soon as the Sprint feature was over, the mast majority of the winged fans bailed for the gates. This left us much more room in the stands for the real fans and we watched the last three Modified features in relative peace. Then we walk out to the parking lot, jump in our vehicles and drive right out of the place. Nice!

Saturday night they will be at it again, hoping to outfox the weather which is not looking good at this time. The Outlaws will race number two of their season while the Modifieds will see half of the total field racing to see if they can qualify for the inside row for the big "gator" finale on Monday night. Only the top ten finishers in the Saturday night main are guaranteed starting spots with everyone else left to run a "hooligan"  on Monday to try and get in. 


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