What better way to complete a busy Fourth of July holiday than a trip to the Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway for their Fourth of July extravaganza. This Sunday night race would be Fast Shaft qualifier event with the Modified feature paying a grand to win and along with that , sponsor contributions had raised the Hobby Stock feature payoff to nearly five hundred dollars to the winner along with boosts to other finishing positions also. In addition, the Late Models and Sport Mods would be racing along with the Limited Late Models and AIRS series so a full night of racing action was promised.
It was a really steamy night but just what you would expect, I guess, for the Fourth of July holiday. For the longest time it didn't seem like anyone was going to show up to watch the racing but I guess folks were just hanging out where it was cool until the last minute because by the time they dropped the first green flag, there was a very nice crowd on hand. And oh, by the way, there were also fireworks to conclude the program too.
Eighty four race cars in five classes signed in to race on this night with only the Limited Late Models not fielding a group of cars that was sustainable. All other classes either had two or three heats while the Limited cars barely had enough for one small heat. With the seemingly minor differences in rules between the Limited Late Models and IMCA Late Models( in fact sometimes some of the Limited cars run with the regular Late Models at various times) it doesn't seem logical to be presenting both classes anyway.
An interesting pattern change has seemed to develop over recent years at this track. Even though the Wisconsin border is barely a few miles from here and the only type of racing in Southwestern Wisconsin is either IMCA or IMCA type, the number of Wisconsin based cars at this track was always very, very small. In the meantime, there always used to be a large number of Illinois cars, particularly from the Freeport area, that always raced here. Now that pattern has done a hundred and eighty degree turn. While the Illinois cars are very scarce at the track, the number of Wisconsin based cars has ballooned. In fact, on this night, with twenty two Badger state cars, just at a quarter of the entire field was drivers that had crossed the Mississippi to race here at the Fairgrounds. While track announcer "Big Boy" proclaimed that it was sometimes hard to get racers to come out for holiday events, it seemed on this night at least that the field of cars was actually larger than their normal fields on a Sunday night would be.
It was a brutal night to try and get moisture into a racing surface but they were dumping the water on continuously from the time I got to the track and while they might have had a little more dust than normal, and of course the wind was blowing right into the grandstands, the track actually seemed to improve as the evening progressed and I thought they had an excellent track to race of for the feature races with plenty of different grooves and lots of side by side racing that always seems to be prevalent here.
While I confess to not knowing a lot of the drivers here, I did visit briefly with a couple in the pits before the show and one I talked to was James Curran who told me that he would soon have both a new Late Model and a new Limited Late Model to put on the track as he races in both classes as the opportunities present themselves.
Spotted in the grandstands watching the show on this night was Hall of Famer Ed Sanger and while I'm told that he often attends the races here, it is still a thrill to see a man who has had so much to do with elevating Late Model racing as a whole on hand to watch the evening's show. In the years when I discovered Late Model racing in the state of Iowa, he was "The Man" and while there were plenty of other outstanding drivers at that time, he was still the one to beat.
Sunday's show was a draw/redraw program for all classes which is eminently fairer for the racers but does not always do favors for the fans looking for racing with lots of passing. On this night the results were a bit spotty as three of the five feature races were won right off the pole with one driver leading all laps but that statistic might also be just a bit misleading. Let's look closer and seen what transpired on this corn growing night in northeastern Iowa.
The Sport Mod feature was first and in this race Troy "King Kong" Bauer did kill the field. He started in the second row, had the lead before one lap was completed and would lead the rest of the way without a serious challenge being thrown his way. Gage Neal and Tyler Soppe did their best to keep up with him as he slalomed through lapped traffic but they could never really push his lead.
The Hobby Stock class has made a very nice improvement at this track. On life support for a period of time when they just couldn't produce any cars, the number of local and area cars has enlarged recently and the extra money on this night likely produced a few more as twenty of them were on hand.
This race too, was won right off the pole with Daniel Wauters leading from start to finish. However, it was a close race and Wauters was challenged by a pack of about four cars that seemed to be trading positions on nearly every lap. After a mid race yellow, Wauters drove a very conservative race, hugging the low groove and if he hadn't been so fast accelerating off the corners, he likely would have been passed. He indicated that he likely had broken a shock or something along those lines that made him drive a very conservative race. When I first met Daniel a number of years ago at a race in Maquoketa, he was just getting started in the sport and was as green as the grass in our lawn at home after we got a needed storm on Sunday night. However, he seems to have picked things up nicely, thank you, as his win on this night was reported to be his twentieth of the year already!
The Limited Late Model feature was done quickly with David Webster passing Mitch Current after one lap and then holding off Steve Schueller for the win. Webster, the veteran racer from across the river, seems to have a Late Model for every sanctioning body that he competes from the biggest sanctioning bodies in the country to the local races.
The Modified and Late Model features were both excellent. In the Modified feature, Bryce Garnhart led for the first fifteen laps but he was under constant attack from both Matt Gansen and Ryan Duhme. They were all over him in each corner as Garnhart worked the low line on the track. Gansen was relentless as he hammered the cushion and lap after lap he started to edge up on Garnhart.
Finally, Bryce, feeling that his line was slowing down, jumped up to the cushion himself and that proved to be his downfall as Gansen then moved inside him and made the winning pass with just five laps to go. Gansen then moved back up to the cushion and Garnhart went back to the bottom to try and slide under Matt and retake the lead.
However, Gansen had the high groove down pat and he drove on for the win. Garnhart pushed so hard on the last lap, trying to regain the lead, that he slipped out of his groove and Duhme was able to pass him for second.
Kay started on the outside pole and while he would lead all twenty five laps, it got sticky for him near the end of the race. He made the low side work and had built up a good sized lead but Ron Klein and Luke Merfeld were working the top side and just like in the previous race, the top side started to pick up speed and both closed on the leader. But Kay wasn't born yesterday and he was monitoring the situation even as he tore around the track. When he made the decision that he needed to change lanes, he jumped up to the cushion himself and it did indeed help him as he picked up speed and gained a little distance.
While Klein and Merfeld continued to push, Kay was in control and would drive on for the win with those two chasing him across the line.
All racing was done just about 10 pm and normally I would have stayed for the fireworks show as I like fireworks, but it was a daunting nearly five hour drive facing me and with the opportunity to beat most of the spectators out of the parking lot, I reluctantly turned tail for home and instead watched all the back yard fireworks as I drove through Dubuque and other environs close by.
Thanks to everyone at Dubuque for a fine wrap up to the holiday weekend and a special hello to starter Doug Haack who tells me that he'll take hot July weather anytime over the bone chilling cold of Winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment