Wow! It was one of those nights on Monday night, July 26th at the Park Jefferson International Speedway located just North of Jefferson South Dakota. I had made an attempt to see a race earlier here this year but got rained out so with my Monday open, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to make a second attempt to see some racing here. Scheduled on Monday was a Fast Shafts Qualifying event for the Modifieds with the winner to go home with a thousand dollars while the sanctioned Stock Cars, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks would also be racing. Perfect. Four classes was just about the right number for a Monday night show. Little did I know that I should have brought my pith helmet with me for protection as it turned into one of the stormiest nights of the racing season so far with rumbles on both the track and in the grandstand before I could make my getaway.
Perhaps it was the heat that finally broke everyone's rationality, as it was at a "feel like" temperature of ninety eight degrees when I walked into the pits and it didn't cool down much if at all during the evening.
Before I go any farther I need to give a tip of the hat to the real heroes of the evening and that was the track prep folks. Between the blistering hot temperatures without a lot of humidity to help the track, the blazing sun and a strong wind blowing, it was the worst of scenarios but the track turned out just fine. It stayed smooth, there was no dust and they didn't even have to touch it during the half time break. I am getting so tired of seeing more laps by the water trucks recently than the race cars that this night was a very refreshing treat.
As a side note, I finally got to see the driver with one of the most colorful of names finally race. I had been reading his name in the results for quite some time but Monday night was the first time that I finally got to see Sport Mod driver Casey Cakebread race. We'll spare all the bad jokes about his racing being a piece of cake etc and just report that he would get a top ten finish in the main event.
Moving on, the field of cars was not overwhelming on this Monday night but there were enough cars for two heats and a main in each class with the Modified field being the largest. and the heats went so smooth. After starting within a few moments of the advertised time, the heats cracked off very fast with one lone yellow flag and before we knew it, it was time for a quick break with the feature races to quickly assemble and roll on to the track. The one spin rule, by the way, certainly helped keep the heat races moving along.
Let's start with the first two features which both were quite smoothly handled before things got crazy for the Stock Cars and Modifieds. The Hobby Stock feature saw Tyler Smith start on the pole and lead all twelve laps to get the win in that race. A late yellow bunched the field after he had built up nearly a full straightaway lead but he controlled the restart, pulled away again and drove to a nice win with Jeremy Ertman and Kelvan Lansink trailing.
The Sport Mod feature would see some hard driving and some highly entertaining but cleanly executed slide jobs that spiced things up. The track was fastest on the top side but it was prime for sliders to break out and the Sport Mods tested that theory. Josh Blom would lead the first six laps before he was overtaken by Keegan Nordquist for the lead. Keegan had done a great job working his way up from the fifth starting spot by throwing a series of sliders that worked well for him and following the only yellow of the race when Mitch Schultze dropped a driveshaft on the front chute, he powered past Blom to take over the lead.
It then became a two car race as Jake Sachau got to the runner up spot and pushed for the lead. He made several attempts to pass but Nordquist was quick enough to hold him off. One last surge on the final lap saw Sachau almost give the farm away when he went way too hot into turn thee and went flying off the end but he was able to fight his way back on to the track and still get second with Nordquist getting a fine win. Blom would settle for third.
About this time I was thinking to myself that they sure seemed to be driving hard on this night and I wondered just what was stirring them up so. Well, things hadn't even broke the surface yet compared to what we would see in the last two feature races.
The Stock Cars came out first for their main and they were driving as if racing for many thousands of dollars to the winner as no one was giving an inch and most were taking far more than they were willing to give.
Travis Barker would lead fourteen and three quarters laps of the race but his lead was anything but secure. He had first Ryan Harris and then Mike Albertsen challenging him and when I say challenging, that means they were beating on his quarter panel on every turn. However, Barker would continue to fight them off through three yellow flags, during which Harris and Albertsen would also be battling for second with Mike losing both front fenders in the skirmish.
Harris was able to regain second and he put more pressure on Barker, again hitting his quarter panel on each corner but Barker would continue to fight him off with Albertsen just waiting for an opening. It came down to the final lap when Harris would throw a slider that I would judge to be clean and clear Barker in turn three. Barker tried to cross back over on him while at the same time Albertsen dove low to the inside of Barker. All three got knotted up leaving the corner, sideways and fighting for control as the field bore down on them.
Somehow, Albertsen found some open spare on the inside and came across the line as the winner with Harris crossing second. Poor Barker got collected by traffic and not only didn't finish, he had a damaged race car on top of it. I have to give Barker credit for keeping his cool and not starting an incident which would have been easy to do. And apparently Barker "tapped out" and said that they were just racing for the win so Harris got to keep his second spot while Barker ended up tenth as a DNF. I think he might have been too nice on that deal, as while the last corner slider looked clean, the way that Harris was literally beating on his car on every corner before that was more than just hard racing in my judgement. By the way, this race provoked the crowd to the point that security was called to settle down some folks in the grandstands.
It was then time to move on to the Modified feature, scheduled for twenty laps or two knockdowns, which ever came first. Ricky "The Racer" Stephan would be the early leader of the race with Shawn Barragan closely following. Highly entertaining was watching both Chris Abelsen and Cody Thompson as they worked their way up through the field after starting in the fourth and third rows respectively. They were using every move in the book as they came charging through the field.
A Midrace yellow bunched the field and then Bob Moore and Matt Bonine proceeded to tear each others cars up, triggering another yellow, inflaming the spectators even more and there was tension in the air as somehow one had the feeling that things weren't over yet.
Abelsen had powered past Stephan to take over the lead with Thompson close behind and after the fifth yellow, the field went single file in the few laps left and that proved to cut the chase to between Abelsen and Thompson. Thompson would try and drive under Abelsen in the corners but Chris had just enough to hold him off.
The last lap triggered the dynamite as Thompson dove low and hard into the final corner and didn't let up. In fact, neither let up but Thompson's momentum drove Abelsen right up the track and into the dingle berries off turn four. Thompson would cross the line first as the crowd, split between the two hard chargers celebrated the win while others flipped "the bird" to Thompson as he crossed the line.
Abelsen did not take the last lap maneuver well and on the cool down lap, he found Thompson and drilled him, spinning him out and then doing threatening "dive bomb" maneuvers around his car.
Not surprisingly, the decision was made to disqualify Thompson for over aggressive driving and Abelsen for his pay back, so Chris Mills, who crossed the line third, was summoned back to the infield to receive the winner's trophy and check. Interestingly , in the official rundown, the two were listed as DNF and not DQ's which allowed them I would assume to get paid but that may be changed later. The crowd was frothing at the mouth by this time and I determined a quick exit stage left seemed most appropriate as most of the crowd was headed for the pits and I didn't think they were headed there for autographs. Sure enough, I was no more than a couple of miles down the highway when I met two squad cars, lights blazing and sirens screaming, heading for the race track and I don't think that was because the free donuts had arrived. This evening reminded me so much of a race night in the brawling old days of the 60's and 70's that I began to look for Mr. Peabody and his "way back machine." I thought I might have stepped into a time warp.
So, it would turn out to be a memorable night, but not for all the right reasons. The crowd turned out to be of decent size, especially given the brutal heat and the racing was good until folks just got carried away for whatever reason. Thanks to Adam Adamson for clearing me for the evening and all the other nice folks at the back gate where working was just plain miserable on this night. I believe the next race for these classes is the two night Iron Bowl which might be properly named since some may have to race while in irons!
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