The Larry Phillips Memorial Turkey Bowl XVII kicked off on Thursday night, November 16th at Jerry Hoffman's Springfield Raceway in Springfield Missouri.
Under the format established for the 2023 version of this race, the event would be a three night show featuring seven different divisions of racing with all getting their chance to run a full show during that three night run with only the Late Model portion of the event being a one night, complete show. The rest of the six divisions would run their event over two nights, those nights depending on the class.
On Thursday night the Pure Stocks and Midwest Modz B would run their heat races while the other classes would be running multiple hot lap sessions staggered over the course of the evening. The Legend Cars would also run their heat races on Thursday night also. So there would be cars also on hand from the Midwest Modz A, B Mods. Modifieds and Late Models on hand practicing. To say the least, there were plenty of open wheel cars on hand and one has to have a pretty sharp eye to tell one from the other since just about all of them now use quick change rear ends and all spoilers are off the cars this weekend, open Mod or not.
Hoffman, among other improvements he has made over the last few years, is an expansion of the pit area and he now has a considerable amount of space available to park race cars. Just about all that space was being used already on Thursday night and certainly not all the cars for the weekend were on the grounds by Thursday, including some of the bigger rigs used by the Late Model teams.
Forty Four Pure Stocks and fifty one Midwest Modz B signed in to race on Thursday night which would require five heat races in each class. There were also twenty some Legend Cars to race. And somewhere around another hundred cars in the other four classes also hot lapped which meant that somewhere North of two hundred race cars were on the grounds on Thursday night.
The evening would start off with hot laps for all divisions around 6:30 pm, including the three divisions racing on this night. After all classes got one set of hot laps in, the Midwest Modz B, Legends and Pure Stocks would then run their heat races. Then it would be more hot laps for all classes, rotating the order.
The three classes racing on this night would qualify using passing points but there was not provision to protect heat race winners as one driver in the Pure Stocks would win a heat and ultimately still be scheduled to race a B Feature on Friday night. Only the top eight in passing points would move into the mains on Friday, thus assuring some large, Jeff Broeg sized B Features on Friday night for those three classes.
Heat race winners in the Pure Stocks would include Karla Lampe, Robbie Jones, Josh Marshall, Justin Pike and Michael McKnight. Other highlights would include the second and third place finishers in the first heat being disqualified for technical issues, a certain heat race win by Dale Senters ended by a mechanical breakdown within sight of the checkered and a return to racing by Rex McCroskey. Some fans will no doubt remember Rex who was a top notch Late Model driver for years and has returned to racing this year running in the Pure Stock class. There were only three yellows in the five heats total as the racing was tough but nonstop in most cases.
Heat race winners in the Midwest Modz B were Zackary Martin, Tyler Pearish, Nathan Bresee, Keith Nutter and Cody Arnett. The Midwest Modz B did almost as well as the Pure Stocks as there were a total of only six yellows in their five heats.
Seventeen Late Models were among those that practiced on Thursday with many on the pre entered list not among those on hand. Some of the noteworthy drivers that took practice included Shane DeMey, Tony Jackson Jr and Logan Martin. Ryan Gustin made his first laps in his new Longhorn ride from Todd Cooney but shut down early and took a push off the track. Gustin also had a Modified to drive also.
Other noted Modified drivers on hand for practice included Ken Schrader, Tanner Mullens, Tom Berry Jr, Anthony Roth and Peyton Taylor. Terry Phillips showed his loyalty to the KC Chiefs with a special eye catching wrap, even if one doesn't care much for the Chiefs.
The track was in excellent shape for the opening night. With the unusually warm temperatures and moist conditions, they actually had to stop a couple of times to roll in the track both on the top and inside lanes as the water was actually seeping up and making the surface slippery. Gradually through the night it did dry out and black slick started to show but the drivers were racing all over what was a fast track.
The thirteen heats were completed sometime after 8:30 pm after starting about an hour earlier, after which more practice time was given, as it seems like some drivers just can't get enough laps, even if they have been racing all Summer and it is now Mid November. The pit area was packed, as you might imagine, with crew members and families making this night a profitable one for management while there were a surprisingly large number of folks just spectating on this rather balmy November night.
Heat races for all other classes are scheduled for Friday night along with B Features and main events for the three classes that kicked things off on Thursday.
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