It was a big night for Kelly Shryock as the honored veteran was a double winner, taking both the Stock Car and Modified main events in the Bank Midwest IMCA Series special held on Tuesday night, May 25 at the Jackson Motorplex in Jackson Minnesota.
This was the first time since the 1980's (not sure of the exact year) that I had been to a race at the Jackson track so obviously, for me, it was like attended a new track all together. Since the complete makeup of the facility there is hardly anything on the grounds that even looks familiar to get some bearings off of to make a comparison to the beautiful facility that they have now. I did recognize the entrance to the Fairgrounds from the old days and the water tower across the street and I believe that the Fairgrounds building off of what used to be turn four that had the "bullseye" painted on the roof where a sprint car went through that roof is still there. The outline of the old three, four corner is still there and that's just about it from the old track.
The track as it stands now seems to be an almost duplicate to a slightly smaller version of the Knoxville Raceway from the multi layered guardrail that surrounds the track to even the grandstand with the giant pillars underneath for support. The lighting is spectacular and every seat seemingly a good one with no obstructions in the infield and the scoreboard visible to everyone although I was just a little disappointed the the scoreboard wasn't both a little bit bigger and better. Simply put, a traditional old fairgrounds half mile track has been turned into one of the Midwest's finest facilities by owner Todd Quiring and one that I would want to visit much more often than the old half mile.
Jon McCorkell, who soon will be opening up his own Fairmont Raceway, is promoting the three race series of IMCA events at this track which normally hosted a variety of types of Sprint Cars as their main classes. And he and his crew were busy on this night, as the race car turnout was spectacular. Given that this was a weeknight show, early on the number of cars entering the facility was slow and small in number and it began to look like it was going to be a small field of cars in attendance. But when they started to arrive, all at the same time after likely all getting off work, the line to get into the pits was long, extending all the way out to the county road for a great deal of time, even to that point when the driver's meeting was to have been held, which was forced to be delayed.
In total, one hundred and thirty three cars signed in to race, with the Hobby Stocks, Sport Mods and Stock Cars all having over thirty entries while the Mods was slightly less and the Sport Compacts lagged at the back, only requiring two heat races. Twenty preliminary races were required to set the field for the main events including B Features in the three largest numbered classes of the night.
While I don't pretend to know as many people around this part of the country as I would farther North, there were a few people in the pits to talk to before the show began. One of those was North Dakota's Zack Docktor who was racing in the Modified class. Zack tells me he will be spending the Summer racing in the southern Minnesota and Iowa area this year. He was laid off from his sales job in Minot in February and being young and in love with racing, he plans on spending his accumulated "down" time racing. He has been hanging out with his friends, the Rogotzke family, and will now be heading down to the Algona Iowa area to live with some friends there for the upcoming days.
Speaking of the Rogotzke's, Josh just arrived home from a business trip just hours before he jumped in the hauler and they headed to the track from his home in Sanborn Minnesota. Josh travels the country for his job and just make it home in time to race on this night. I'm told he also has a Late Model to race again this year too.
I was not aware, and was surprised, to see that Kossuth County Speedway head starter Logan Kelly is also a racer, having a Hobby Stock that he was racing on this night. I would think that it would be difficult to race with drivers one night and then be required to make decisions about those same drivers when they came to Algona but he must have found a way to make it all happen comfortably as I'm sure that conflict of interest could be screamed by some.
The announcer on this night, not identified by himself but listed in the track program as Austin Lloyd, had a busy night's worth of talking and I thought he did a fine job. If indeed it was Austin working on Tuesday, I was surprised at his base of knowledge on the IMCA cars as he likely announces mostly Sprint Car shows at this track and sometimes, "winged folks" tend to look down on their noses and dismiss the "fendered" and "claimer" cars and not give them their due but that didn't seem to be the case on this night at all.
As stated above, it was a great night for Shryock, winning back to back the last two feature races of the night. Kelly came from fifth on the grid to win the Stock Car feature and it was a tough battle with many strong cars in contention. Justin Luinenberg led for several laps with McCain Jennings providing plenty of pressure as Shryock, Jeff Larson, Derek Green and Cody Nielsen all charged to the front. Shryock was smooth on the bottom of the track and was excellent at finding the openings to move through the pack and take the lead.
Several of the front runners were eliminated by a late collision as they were battling off turn two. Larson was turned around and had to change a tire as Green was also involved in that incident and Jennings dropped out with a flat tire too.
At the end, Shryock pulled away and with a last corner pass, Colton Arends passed Luinenberg for second with Curt Lund and Dan Mackenthun next in line. With three yellow flags, this feature race would have more slowdowns than any of the others, an indication of how smooth the whole program would be run off.
It took Shryock only three laps to come from the fourth starting spot to take the lead in the Modified feature and after that he cruised to the victory. The last seventeen laps of the race ran off nonstop and Shryock just cruised around his preferred line on the bottom of the track and let the race come to him. Late in the going, Brandon Beckendorf, who started thirteenth, made a charge and he gave Shryock his stiffest competition, closing to his rear bumper once before Kelly then stretched the lead once again. Cody Thompson thrilled the crowd as he rode the cushion, one of the few to do so, and came up from eleventh to finish a close third with Dalton Magers and Bob Moore also in the top five.
The Sport Mod feature provided the biggest surprise with a stunning change of events late in the race that saw the apparent race winner suddenly shuffled to second. Early on, Zach Davis was leading the event but a group that included Jared Boumeester, Jake Sachau and Matt Looft were all storming to the front. Boumeester took over the top spot but he couldn't hold off Sachau who passed him and then started to pull away.
The top three were running about the same distance apart and there seemed to be no change in the order and it looked like things had pretty much settled down to what would be the finishing order. However, a yellow flew with only four laps left when Dan Paplow slowed on the track and then things got interesting.
Boumeester, stuck in third and with nothing to lose, went to the cushion for the restart and it worked immediately. While he was able to maintain in turns three and four, he gained ground in big chunks on the East end of the track and it took him only two laps to pull up and then drive by Sachau for the lead. There wasn't enough time for Sachau to recover and Boumeester had the top lane covered and he would drive on for a stunning victory and remarkable change of events, all triggered by a late yellow flag. Sachau would settle for second ahead of Looft with Davis and Justin Klynsma, making a last corner pass to round out the top five.
The Hobby Stock feature Malik Sampson make a strong run for the win. He started sixth and took little time getting to the front, passing Blake Luinenberg and Brad Becker to take over the lead. Once in front, he stretched his advantage and drove away for a comfortable win. Only two yellows slowed this contest and only four of the original twenty four starters failed to finish. Becker would hold on for second while Cory Probst would charge up from seventh to finish a strong third. Luinenberg and Josh Sidles would complete the top five.
The Sport Compact feature would quickly run off nonstop and would feature a two car battle from start to finish. Nate Coopman would start on the pole and that is usually bad news for the rest of the field but on this night he had his hands full as Marschall Robinson would give him plenty of heat.
Robinson would literally beat on the rear bumper of Coopman for twelve laps, all in an effort to go by. In fact, a couple times it seemed like instead of trying to make an outside pass, which may have or have not worked, he was satisfied to just keep tapping on the rear of Coopman's car. In any event, Coopman would hold off Robinson to take a close win with Austin Fiedrich finishing third.
It was an impressive performance as once they finally got started, twenty five races with over one hundred and thirty cars competing, most running on an unfamiliar track, was completed in less than three hours with is admirable. However, to be fair it must be noted that the first race didn't take the green flag until 8:31 pm which is unacceptable too and resulted in a completion time of nearly 11:30 pm on a Tuesday night in May which just isn't good.
It appeared that the sign in portion of the effort was just overwhelmed with long lines seemingly never ending as drivers and crews had to get out of their rigs, line up and buy their pit passes and while more racers streaming to the facility, the lines just never got shorter. Probably due to the fact that they don't have to sign in near as many cars for their other shows, the procedure was just too slow and forced track officials to delay the start of the driver's meeting and hot laps until the line grew short and the rigs were in the pits. Now that they have seen what these Tuesday night shows will bring, hopefully they can make some adjustments, get more lines going etc and get the cars into the pits quicker because they have shown they can run off a quick program, they just need to get it started earlier and on time.
Overall, I was very impressed with the quality and quantity of the field and the track and program overall and will certainly consider returning for one of their other Tuesday night shows. Thanks to program Jon McCorkell and the folks at Jackson for a full Tuesday night of racing.
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