The Clay County Fair Speedway wrapped up their regular season on Monday night, August 2nd with the running of the Philip "Fatty" Oviatt Memorial race. It was a Stock Car special with the winner on this night earning five thousand dollars while the other four classes would run for their standard purse which is a thousand dollars to win all the other classes except for the Sport Compacts who race for $200 top money.
Temperatures at race time had dropped nearly twenty degrees from last Wednesday night's show and it was a very comfortable night to wrap up the regular season at this track. Despite the fact that the track had just run a very big event only five days previous, one hundred and twenty five cars signed in to race and another large crowd was in the spacious grandstands here at Spencer to watch the action.
Qualifying would be using the draw/redraw format as always but the big field of cars would require that a B Feature be run for the Modifieds and two B Features for the Stock Cars to set their fields for the main event. Everyone on hand in the other three classes would take the green for those main events
The track proved a bit more challenging to prepare on this night for some reason and we actually saw a water truck on the track a couple of times on Monday as the surface was being a bit more difficult and was "cleaning off" slower than normal but finally it came together and we gradually had that wide and slick surface that seems to make for the best racing here. On this night the eventual fast line was on the bottom in turns one and two and as high as possible up against the concrete in three and four. This redirecting of the fast line made things interesting as the evening progressed with lane changes without signal lights being used often which made for some interesting encounters.
With five grand on the line and forty three Stock Cars on hand, their main was obviously the chief focus of the night and was also saved for the last event of the program. However, unlike virtually every Stock Car feature run at any track in the country, this one was not hotly contested and there was not a single lead change once the green flag was waved.
The reason for this was that Jake O'Neal was so strong and when he redrew the outside pole, that was bad news for the competition and also the fans wanting to see some door to door racing. That's not to say that there wasn't still some good battles going on and O'Neal had a couple of drivers that pushed him at various times, but not once would he relinquish the lead.
Winning his second feature here at Spencer within the last week, O'Neal is driving a cobbled together looking car with various alternating black and white body panels that make the car look more like a recycled cop car and all it needs is a red light on the roof and it could be a Hoboken cop car! But while it might look a little "rugged" it is also a very fast car.
O'Neal fought off early challenges from Randy Brands and then a big push from Tom Berry Jr who tried to use the high side to drive around O'Neal but couldn't quite pull it off. late in the race, Kelly Shryock would come all the way from thirteenth to second with a smooth and steady charge and would put the biggest push to O'Neal following a yellow with eight laps to go.
The track appeared to be taking rubber late in the race and O'Neal almost got out of the rubber as Shryock got a door under him in turn four but Jake would fight him off and that is as close as anyone would get to making a pass. Shryock and Berry would follow O'Neal home for second and third while Dallon Murty would charge from from sixteenth to fourth. Earlier Murty would take what I would guess might be his first laps in Modified racing as he drove a car provided by Harris Auto Racing but a bad draw for his heat and a smoking motor in the B Feature would keep him out of the main.
The Modified field on this night was just about as big racing for a grand as it was last Wednesday with two and a half times the cash on the line. Tonight's race would see three different leaders in the main before Brandon Beckendorf would nail down the win. Dalton Magers would be the early leader until Jesse Sobbing drove around him to take the top spot.
Sobbing would soon feel the pressure from Beckendorf and it was interesting to watch Sobbing, who was running the high side, try to fight off Beckendorf. Sobbing would climb the banking in turns three and four and then have to knife down across the track down the front chute to get to the low side first in turn one and three times he cut it so close the his car brushed up against the right front wheel of Beckendorf who was running low on the track but each time, amazingly, both would race on like nothing was happening.
Finally, Beckendorf was able to edge by to take the lead and he would then pull away by several car lengths in a race that had only one yellow. Shryock would make a late push that would see him get the runner up spot for the second time this night while Cody Thompson would come from seventeenth to fourth.
For Sobbing, it was a late race decision that even saw him race his Modified on this night. He had originally planned on just racing his Stock Car and hadn't even entered his Modified but when his Stock Car had problems in hot laps and was parked, he was a late race addition to the Modified field, starting tail back in a heat but charging to the third spot in his heat which guaranteed him a good starting spot in the main.
Malik Sampson would lead from start to finish to win the Hobby Stock feature race. Early on their was excitement as pole starter Drew Barglof would get turned and create a mess but when things settled, it was Sampson leading with stiff pressure from Zach Hemmingsen. Eventually it would be Cory Probst, making another of his charges to the front that would see him come from twelfth to move into second and push for the lead but Sampson had the field covered and Probst would have to settle for second with Hemmingsen third.
Sport Mods also battled it out with three different leaders as John Foreman would hold the point for the first few laps until overtaken by Jake Sachau for the lead. However, Foreman wouldn't go away and fought back into the top spot which was traded back and forth a couple times between the two
However, as they fought, Colby Fett moved up strongly and neither could hold off the charging driver, who raced past Sachau to take over the lead. He would go on for the win with Sachau and Matt Looft, up from ninth, to finish third.
A small field of Sport Compacts would see R.J. Esqueda lead from start to finish to win that main over Cade Lehr and Kaytee DeVries.
The regular season is now complete here at Clay County Fairgrounds Speedway and what a year it has been. I have been to all four races that they have held this year and every single one of them was very successful with large car counts and most importantly, great crowds. I was wondered how this quick turnaround from the last race would work but again the grandstand had lots of spectators and the pits was full.
This formula that they have use this year wit only a limited number of races, good pay for all classes and events run on off nights so as not to clash with other tracks seems to have worked spectacularly well and while I'm sure they will again follow that pattern next year, It would perhaps behoove other tracks to consider some kind of similar formula which has certainly turned things around here from a track that was struggling to find their foothold in the busy western Iowa racing scene. Again, thanks to Trent Chinn for his help this year and to all the folks who work at the track that have become familiar faces to me.
A couple of things I would like to put on the wish list that would include a scoreboard which this track desperately needs as I can't believe they haven't had one long ago and some work to the p.a. system so we can hear Chad Meyer if we are seated under the roof. And somehow something has to change so that the races will start a bit more promptly and closer to the advertised starting time which would help get them done a bit earlier, with the late finishes on several nights probably the most glaring thing that could be addressed.
There are still, two Fair races left on the calendar that will feature Sprint Cars, Late Models and the regular five IMCA classes too. Check the Fair website for more information on them.
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