A rather lengthy stay, by my standards anyway, in the state of Iowa was wrapped up on a beautiful Sunday evening with a visit to the Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway on Season Championship night at the northeast Iowa facility.
Four IMCA sanctioned divisions, the Late Models, Modifieds, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks would all be racing a full program along with the unsanctioned Four Cylinders for the last regular season program at the fairgrounds track.
It would turn out to be a nice way to wrap up the weekend and also celebrate his thirty third birthday for Justin Kay as he would highlight the evening by winning both the twenty five lap Late Model feature and guaranteeing the track title at the same time. Other winners on the night would include Matt Gansen, Ryan Schilling, Brandon White and Josh Starr.
A nice field of eighty seven cars would sign in to race on Sunday plus the AIRS cars were also a part of the program. Interestingly, the last time I was here they were having trouble getting Hobby Stocks and Four Cylinder cars to race and on Sunday those were the two biggest fields with over twenty a piece in each one. Last time there was a nice field of Modifieds but tonight they had by far the lowest car count so there is no way to predict just what might happen from week to week with earlier action this weekend and upcoming events, of which there are some big ones in eastern Iowa over the Labor Day weekend, likely playing a role in who raced and who didn't.
Another interesting factoid that I noted was that of the eighty seven cars in the pits, thirty of them were from the great state of Wisconsin, a whopping nearly 35% of the field that had crossed the Mississippi River bridge and forged up the hill to race at the fairgrounds and in all five classes that race at the track. To me this high number is quite remarkable given the fact that there is only one race track in all of southwestern Wisconsin to produce interest and cars and such a different situation from just a few years ago when at Dubuque a car from the "Cheesehead state" was a rare sighting indeed with maybe Darren Mish and David McClain often being the only ones.
Dubuque is one of those tracks that don't have season championships as such and instead just add up the track points and crown their champions that way on the final regular season night. Sometimes that works out great but on this year at Dubuque, things were rather anticlimactic as four of the point leaders had large leads and would only need to start their respective main events in order to claim titles.
The only one where there was a remote chance of a change was in the Sport Mods where Scott Busch held a nice sized lead over Tyler Soppe and strange things would have to happen for Soppe to overtake Busch but it was technically possible. However, that remote chance went away when Soppe was involved in a late race crash and would be a DNF for the feature.
Jacob Welter had such a huge lead in the Four Cylinders that after he hit the wall in his heat and went off on the hook with much damage, he celebrated his title from the back of his trailer as he did not even run the main event. Along with Busch and Welter, other winners of titles would be Kay, Timmy Current and Jimmy Doescher.
It would be a night of contrasts in the main events and also a night to test the patience of track officals and fans alike. While on one end of the spectrum, the Four Cylinders and Late Models would get through thirty seven laps of feature race action with only three yellows and all three were pinned on the Late Models, the other three classes would produce a mind numbing eighteen yellow flags in fifty laps of racing action, topped by the Hobby Stocks that wore out starter Doug Haack's left and right arm(there were so many yellows I think he had to switch arms midway through their event) with eight yellows that was only one more than the Sport Mods would produce themselves.
The Late Model feature was one of dominance by Kay after a dandy early race battle between Ron Klein and Nick Marolf. Klein would lead the first four laps after starting on the pole before Marolf would pass him for one lap, only to see Klein return the favor and take the top spot back.
Meanwhile, Kay, who started tenth, was moving forward with a surgeon's precision, passing cars both high and low as the situation warranted, and by lap nine he moved past Marolf to take over the lead. NIck stayed close for a lap or two but then Justin moved to the low groove and would then gradually pull away with the last fourteen laps of the race running off nonstop.
Kay would be an easy winner over Marolf and Luke Merfeld who raced his way up from twelfth to finish thrd.
The Four Cylinders would start nineteen cars in their main event and to everyone's surprise and shock(at least mine), they would run off their main event nonstop from green to checkered. This race appeared as if two classes were running together, the Four Cylinders and the Super Four Cylinders, as Starr and Joe Zrostlik were so much faster than the rest of the field as to be quite ridiculous. They were nearly a half lap in front of the rest of the field as they three wheeled their way around the track, lifting their left rear tires as a dog does when he is looking for a fire hydrant.
Starr got to the front first and Zrostlik couldn't catch him as they finished first and second. Is it coincidental that Starr has raced Modifieds and Zrostlik Late Models? I think not. Noah Krahenbuhl would finish first in class and third overall. This race, while not having a yellow flag, did finish under the checkered/yellow when John W. Campbell slammed the back stretch wall on the final tour. He would be OK but not so much his car.
Eight mind numbing yellows would slow the Hobby Stock feature with Brandon White, who took the lead on lap two, taking the win. He had to show great patience as with all the yellows, one slip up on a restart could have ended his chance for victory. David Crimmins was his main challenger as he took second on lap four and would chase White on every restart.
Doescher would first appear in the top five on lap eleven but would then advance quickly as he passed a couple of cars and a couple in the top five managed to take each other out, elevating the others. A two lap sprint to the checkers saw things get exciting but White would hold off Doescher and Crimmins to get the hard fought win. Fortunately, White's car was faster than it looked as to all appearances it was the plainest looking car on the grounds but it was indeed fast enough to drive home for the win.
A two car collision on lap one would set the pattern for the Sport Mods, who came up just one yellow shy of matching the Hobby Stock futility. Grant Manthe would be the early leader of this race with Schilling closely following until lap eight when Grant would make the pass for the lead. There would be one burst of green flag racing before four yellows in the last five laps would bog things down again.
Busch would start eleventh but with patience and the lack of same by some of the competition, he would find himself up to second with a pass on Manthe with two laps to go. The pressure was on Schilling at the end but he responded with a couple of solid laps and would come home the winner ahead of Busch and Manthe.
After starting off with a collision on the opening lap, the Modifieds would respond with fifteen clean laps before a couple of slowdowns near the end. After Tyler Kleiner led a couple of laps, it would be Matt Gansen who would drive into the lead after starting seventh. He would then build up a big lead over the field as "Darkside's" Duhme and Current would move into the top three.
The late race yellows made for nervous time for Gansen but he got away good on both late restarts and would earn the win over the Darkside duo.
The track seemed to be in fine shape for racing so I'm not just sure what the problems were that caused all the restarts other than over driving but people like Kay showed that there were plenty of grooves to race on and make passes without ending them by spinning donuts. Despite all the yellows, the whole program was completed before 10 pm.
Thanks to everyone at Dubuque for a fine season of racing but it isn't over quite yet though. Despite the regular season coming to a close, they still have some big events on the schedule. On September 23rd, a Thursday night, the SLMR Late Models will be having a big show at the track and then on October 14-16, Darkside Promotions will be having a three night event at the Fairgrounds featuring Late Models, Modifieds, Stock Cars, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts racing at some point over the weekend. Check their face book page for more information on that event.
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