Tuesday night, June 22nd, I made my first visit of 2021 to the Hancock County Speedway in Britt Iowa. The special event on this Tuesday night was the annual Sport Mod Nationals, this year at Brill sponsored by Seed MaxYield, the same firm, by the way, the employs long time track announcer Chad Meyer.
The Sport Mods would be going for thirty laps with the winner taking home twenty five hundred dollars, very good money indeed for a Sport Mod while the other classes that regularly race at Britt, all sanctioned by IMCA, the Mods, Stock Cars, Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts would all be running a program too for their regular weekly payoff.
It was kind of a strange day weather wise with it being cool early on but then a definite increase in humidity that made it quite uncomfortable as the afternoon progressed. Some ominous clouds drifted by with most staying to the South and while we had a short "sun" shower that didn't even dampen the grounds, it produced a spectacular rainbow that arched to the East of Britt. That must be good luck, right?
The Fair Board has recently retaken the promoters reins here at Hancock County after the previous promoter opted out in the middle of the season with the track being shut down for a couple of weeks with car counts very low and enthusiasm at a low point. After taking some time to reorganize, the Fairboard restarted races last Friday with the report that somewhere in the neighborhood in twenty to twenty five more cars signed in to race and that there seems to be much more in the way of positive vibes for the race meet.
They would hope to continue that trend on Tuesday night and from what I could see, they did just that in a big way. Meyer made a point of thanking the crowd repeatedly and seemed to indicate that the crowd was much bigger than any seen here for quite some time. It was a very late arriving crowd but I suppose on a week night that would likely be the case but when they all got to the track, there was a goodly number of them.
Eighty eight cars signed in to race in the five IMCA classes that were on hand with almost half that count being in the Sport Mods. Pay the money and the cars will be on hand seems to be a simple explanation as forty three Sport Mods from as far away as eastern Wisconsin, the Red River Valley of Minnesota and the Arizona drivers making Iowa their Summer home were on hand. Car counts in the other classes were still kind of on the small side but at least they had enough cars for double heat races.
Qualifying for the Sport Mods, however, was no easy task. Five heat races would take four cars apiece and one gigantic B Feature of twenty cars(Jeff Broeg would approve!) would qualify the last four with no provisional entries assigned.
Remember that weather that we talked about earlier? Well, all the storms that were drenching central Iowa seemed to be backing up into our area. Lightning flashed in the southern skies and while the program had been moving along at a brisk clip even before the weather was discovered to be worsening, they really turned things up a notch at this point in order to get the show completed. While the folks around me in grandstands eyed their phones and seemed to wish that the rains would come our way(apparently this is also an area badly needing rain), the rest of us hoped for smooth main events so we could get the whole show in and not have to sprint to our vehicles in a down pour.
The driver cooperated also. As the crews raced to get the Sport Mods ready for their big show, some of the other feature races were ran off in the interim and they were about as smooth and quick of mains as possible with two running green to checkered and the other having only just one yellow.
They weren't necessarily particularly compelling races but they did get done in short order. The Sport Compact main saw Jaedon Erickson start on the pole and he ran away for an easy victory. There was, however, a good three wide battle for second that finally saw Lucas Parsons take the position on the last lap with Cade Lehr trailing.
The Hobby Stocks followed with another green to checkered run. Josh Sidles started on the pole(all classes were draw/redraw on this night) and he ran away for an easy win with no one challenging him. There was a good battle for second though and Chris Krug held off a pack of challengers to take second ahead of Tony Smidt, Carter Koop and Kolby Goepel.
The Stock Car field was also a small one but their race got much more interesting. Troy Swearingen seemed dominant in his heat race and then redrew the pole which seemed to be a "no brainer" as to the winner. However, he had a terrible first lap and fell back to third as he was passed by both McCain Jennings and Andrew Borchardt.
However, Swearingen then dug in and righted the ship, working his way back past the two cars that had previously passed him and by the halfway point of the feature, he was back in charge. He then pulled away to make things easier on himself the last half of the race with those two trailing him.
Earlier, Kevin Opheim provided the entertainment as he went flying off turn three in his heat race and then came screaming back onto the track like a Scud missile taking air, flew down the back chute where he spun again with such speed he almost tipped over and then decided that the pits looked like a much safer place to be. His feature race was much more tame but didn't provide even a top five finish for the Mason City driver.
It was then time for the Sport Mod thirty lapper as lightning flickered to the South and the Sport Mods provided any close racing action that the previous three features didn't provide. The statistics will show that Matt Looft would lead all thirty laps and that sounds pretty tame but I guarantee that it was no where as easy as that as he was repeatedly challenges by several different drivers for the lead but each time it looked like he was going to be passed, he dug down and held everyone off.
Early on there was quite a scramble going on behind him and when the first yellow waved with seven laps complete, he was being chased by Jake Sachau, Vern Jackson, Shane Paris and Alec Fett.
Jackson would spin one lap later and this would slow things down again but on the restart Sachau and Jared Boumeester, who had made up a considerable amount of ground, both battled for the lead. It looked like Boumeester was going to make the pass but as would play out several other times, every time it looked like Looft would get passed, somehow he managed to fight off the competition.
At the halfway point Looft continued to hold off Sachau, Boumeester and Fett with young Jayden Schmidt suddenly becoming part of the lead group. The teenager from eastern Wisconsin has been tearing things up in the Green Bay area and I see why as he was very fast and worked his way into the top five after starting twelfth. Also starting to move up at this point was Colby Fett who had started in the sixth row and this race was one that saw much movement from deep in the pack toward the front, despite the fact that there were few yellows and there was just a lot of hard racing and passing going on. Sachau would later slip over the banking while trying for the lead and all back to the second five in the running order.
One late yellow set up a four lap dash to the finish and once again Looft was up to the task as he fought off the late charges of Colby Fett to take the win and cash the big check. Schmidt continued to charge as he finished third and impressed everyone on hand. Paris, who had started up front and then faded as far back as ninth, made his own late charge and finished fourth ahead of Boumeester as the quality and depth of this field was outstanding.
With trophy presentations saved for the end, the Modifieds were rushed onto the track to try and complete the program. Nick Meyer started on the outside pole and would go on to lead all twenty laps in this race. He built up a big lead but then Arizona invader Chaz Baca would start to move up after starting in the third row. Baca was working the low side of the track and closed on the leader and it looked like the top spot might change hands.
However, while Baca got close, he could never just get past and after Meyer withstood his best attempt, Nick started to again pull away and would drive on for the win. Jeremy Mills would finish third.
Wow, it was quite the whirlwind of activity once the race officials put everything in high gear with the weather approaching and it was almost impossible to take a breath, the races were coming that hot and heavy. The whole show was completed in about two and a half hours with their top notch efforts beating the rain. When I left, it still hadn't rained and I don't know if it ever did but certainly it's better to be safe than sorry and for that I give all the credit in the world to the track officials for their great job and to the drivers for running very clean feature races when their help was needed.
I'm sure the crowd appreciated their efforts and I want to wish them good luck the rest of the year in their efforts to revive the program here in the Hobo capital of the world. The Night of 1000 * and 10000* races are still on the schedule for August so check out their website for more details. Thanks again to everyone at the Hancock Co. Speedway.
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