Continuing my week of bouncing around to see various series events and visiting various states, on Wednesday night, June 23rd I dropped into the LaSalle Speedway in LaSalle Illinois as the UMP Summer Nationals "Hell Tour" made a stop at Tony Izzo's quarter mile oval.
This was the start of the second week of the "Hell Tour" and after having three days off following a Sunday night rainout in Indiana, everyone was fresh and ready to start a week of short track racing on Illinois bullrings.
Along with the Late Models, the Summit Racing Equipment Modified series would also be racing on this night along with the UMP Street Stocks who would be running double feature races to make up for a feature race rained out at this track early in the Spring.
A very strong field of Late Models would sign in to race on this night with thirty five of them on hand and several surprise entrants that makes this a fun series just to see who all is on the entry list each night. Cade Dillard and Garrett Alberson would be among the surprises on this night as both are veteran drivers that specialize running other series' races with both dropping in to LaSalle to get both track time and to test the tires that are being used now with this race tire shortage getting to be a series thing across all forms of motorsport and who would have ever guessed that this would even be an issue. It always used to be a question of if a team had the money to buy another tire and now it is whether you can find someone that even has tires to sell. Strange indeed.
Both the support classes needed some support on this night as both produced rather sparse fields of cars with only sixteen Modifieds and eleven Street Stocks but I guess for those hard core Late Model fans it was probably good news as their parts of the program would be shorter in length if all you really wanted to see race was the Late Models.
Rain hit the LaSalle area early on Wednesday morning and truly we were probably very lucky to even have a race to attend. But they got the track worked into shape and it was a smooth and fast track on this night. It built up a huge berm during qualifying that made it a track for the bravest of brave but repeated packing efforts over the course of the night produced a good track with good racing in the preliminaries but later we'll talk about the fact that they just might have "over engineered" themselves for the main event.
The usual Summer Nationals format was used that is a tried and true UMP tradition and thankfully we didn't have to jump start our hearts from any shocking experience as all four pole sitters won their heats as expected. The large exception was Ashton Winger who led for sure the most unpredictable of nights of anyone on the grounds. He had a night to remember as she did a violent barrel roll in qualifying when he jumped the big berm and went summersaulting in turn one. It took him a bit to get out of his car but he was OK.
Now most would have called it a night but Winger was here to race and he rolled out his back up car and started ninth in his heat and through some determined driving and finding the breaks when he needed them, he got all the way to third which allowed him to start tenth in the feature.
And he put on a show in that race too, being the first to get off the bottom lane of the track and race the cushion and that allowed him to gain several spots in a race where there wasn't much passing. However, the good news story ended badly when he got too high on turn four on the final lap of the feature and hammered the wall, losing three positions as he limped to the finish line and worse yet, again badly damaging his back up car. His crew will be very busy on Thursday trying to cobble together something to race on that night.
It seemed that by feature time for the Late Models(which they pleased the fans when they ran the Late Model main first), the track had been widened out nicely and appeared in prime shape for the forty lapper. However, here is where they might have "over engineered" themselves as instead of just leaving well enough alone or perhaps just rolling in the cushion a bit, they instead watered the whole surface and ripped the track, something that just didn't seem to be needed. So what they ended up with was a blinding fast track that was just too fast right around the bottom and that is where everyone ran, cutting the passing as everyone tore around the short way. It made for a quick feature that ran off nonstop but other than the leaders having to fight the back markers to get by when they didn't want to move off the bottom either, there was not a lot of side by side racing, a shame since it appeared that they were primed for just that.
Brian Shirley led from green to checkered and was not ever really challenged with his biggest "pucker" moments being when he tried to get around a few of the slower cars which forced him to go to the second lane which was just a bit sketchy compared to the low groove. However, he managed to pull off the passes and drove home for the five grand win over a good effort by Alberson who finished a strong second with Ryan Unzicker closing on him at the end.
Point leader Bobby Pierce had a trying night as he blew a tire during his heat and was forced to use a provisional as he used the Last Chance race as a hot lap session. Starting nineteenth on the grid and with everyone racing fast and not a lot of room up top to pass, he settled for ninth which was quite an accomplishment to move up that many positions. Only four cars didn't finish the race and there were twelve on the lead lap at the end.
While the Modified feature paid fifteen hundred bucks to win, apparently it doesn't pay back so well as only five of the top ten in current points in the Summit series were on hand as I guess there aren't many that race the series for points other than Nick Hoffman. Two heats would set their field for their twenty five lap main event and it was another walk in the park for Hoffman who has now won all six races in the series. He pulled away from Mike McKinney right away and there was no question who would win this race as there weren't enough cars in the main for the back markers to cause much of a problem and that would likely be the only thing that could mess up his run.
The top five stayed in order throughout the race which had only one yellow flag with McKinney settling for second over A-Dog Weisser with Ray Bollinger making the only pass in the top five when he got past Tommy Sheppard Jr.
The Street Stocks ran two feature races. The first was for those cars that returned from the Spring race that saw their main event get postponed. There were only five of them which left not much in the way of drama as Zach Zuberbier led from start to finish and wasn't challenged in that nonstop race.
The second feature was for all in attendance on Wednesday and for most of the race it appeared that we were going to see the third straight pole sitter win the main. But then things got wild and crazy in the last few laps and those hearty fans that stuck things out to the end saw some drama.
Megan Irwin had led from the start but she was receiving stiff challenges from Lance Evans who kept trying to poke his nose to the inside of her in the corners. However, he overdid it and clipped her car which gave him a flat tire and ended his chances of winning.
This allowed Zuberbier to move up to second and challenge and with just a couple of laps to go, following a fifth yellow when Evans gave himself a flat tire, Irwin again jumped into the lead, only to suddenly lose power on the back chute as an ominous puff of smoke came from the back of her car.
The field, such as it was, was tightly packed behind her and cars scrambled in all directions to avoid her with a couple launching themselves over each others hoods. However, they all flew into the infield and the starter kept the green flag flying and Zuberbier managed to find the clean route to the front and he held on the final couple of laps to take the win as track officials had to separate a couple of the drivers not totally enamored with each others driving styles.
Zuberbier was trailed by Terry Reed and Joe Hillman at the finish.
All racing was complete before 10:30 pm and for those fans that were on hand to see the Late Models and Modifieds, the running order allowed them to leave early and the parking lot was pretty clear by the time the last checkered flew.
LaSalle is only running a series of special events again this year with no weekly racing and I believe that this race is the last on their current schedule for 2021, pending any additions. The track is still in fine shape and racing nicely but the lack of use is starting to show up in various places as the scoreboard hasn't worked for quite some time and the pa system was not the best tonight as all around me couldn't hear Ruben at all.
However, they ran off a crisp show once the qualifying was out of the way and the big crowd on hand shows that there is much appetite still in central Illinois for Late Model racing. Thanks to Tyson Graves, Tony Izzo Jr and the Dirt Car Summer Nationals staff for their help as they presented a solid night of Late Model racing.
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