The Turkey Bowl continued on Friday night, November 17th at the Springfield Raceway. The first feature winners of the weekend would be crowned on Friday night as both the Pure Stocks and the Midwest Modz B would have their main events on this night after qualifying on Thursday night. Along with multiple B Features in those two classes to set the final running order for their two main events, heat races would be held for the Midwest Modz A along with the B Mods and Modifieds.
To say the least, this would be an open wheel fan's night to revel in as along with the fifty two Midwest Modz B's already on hand, there would be an additional forty six Midwest Modz A along with sixty four B Mods and fifty eight Mods added to the show. One hundred sixty eight Modifieds in various classes but all looking identical would be either an open wheel fan's dream or perhaps a nightmare, depending on how things went. There were virtually as many Modifieds on hand as there were letters in the alphabet to describe them!
Throw in another fifty two Pure Stocks and there were over two hundred and twenty cars jammed into the Springfield Speedway pits and parking lots. Yikes, that is a lot of race cars.
Granted, the show was much more compact on Thursday night with not nearly as much racing but as smoothly as things went on Thursday, quite the opposite would be the case on Friday. Twenty nine races would fill the dance card on Friday but along with that and to complicate the situation, there would be two flips, four disqualifications, two serious race car fires and a parking lot so jammed and disorganized that no one could drive into the pits and the fire department temporarily shut down the racing due to the safety issues presented by the clogged parking lot. It was quite the night! Racing would begin just before 7 pm and despite nearly nonstop racing except for the mandated shut down that was quite brief, racing would wrap up just around the witching hour of Midnight. And did I mention that after a very comfortable night on Thursday, a cold front plowed through southern Missouri during the day today, and temperatures fell off the table with it falling into the thirties before the final checkered flag flew.
Both the flips were of the violent nature right in front of the crowd but both drivers were just fine. You could probably attend races for many years and not see a race car fire as serious as the one witnessed on Friday but then to see nearly back to back ones, both of the very serious nature, right in front of the grandstand, was both remarkable and plenty scary. Fortunately both cars were upright when the fires broke out and both drivers were able to get out quickly but I shiver to think what might have happened if they were upside down, given the slow and inept response of track officials. The first fire saw just one person respond to the situation with an extinguisher and after he emptied that with absolutely to impact, he flung it to the ground and walked away.
It took forever for more officials to respond it seemed, and in the meantime the race car just burned away while the driver rushed around trying to gather some help before finally giving up and flinging his arms to the sky. Spectators in the crowd got rather upset and it turned into an ugly situation. Having nearly exhausting their limited resources on the first fire, when the second one broke out in nearly the same place on the track, this was even worse, taking longer to put out and watching the car burn down.
The odds of something like this happening back to back were almost nil, but unfortunately, that is exactly what happened and the response was a scary thing moving forward. I don't want to point fingers but I'm guessing other people have already "toasted" the track on social media so I don't need to go any farther on this. However, this should set a lot of tracks and promoters thinking because my guess is that a lot of race tracks are no better prepared to handle this kind of situation than they were here tonight. Fire and fire prevention at the race track is one of those "elephants in the closet" that no one wants to think about.
Twenty cars would start the Pure Stock feature which turned into one of the smoothest races of the night. Mark Simon would start on the pole and lead the opening lap but he was soon passed by the station wagon of Allen Thompson. Thompson was quick and he began to pull away from the field as the race remained under the green flag. Thompson found a fast line on the bottom of the track and he would continue to stretch his lead.
Thompson was way out in front but there was a great battle for second and back as a group of around a half dozen cars jockeyed for position, swapping lines and positions on nearly every lap. Jody Tillman moved into second by the halfway point with Robbie Jones third but that was just temporary as they continued to swap spots.
Thompson would continue to dominate with no one providing any kind of challenge to him. He would build up nearly a full straightaway lead over the field and cruise home for the win. Trenton Houston would make a great drive up from the fifth row as he found the top side to work for him. In the last few laps he passed Tillman for second with Jones settling for fourth and Chris Tonoli rounding out the top five.
The Midwest Modz B feature would round out the night with only the tough fans sticking it out for this one. Cody Arnett would lead the opening lap after starting on the pole. However, just as he got passed for the lead by Zackary Martin on lap two, a grinding three car crash occurred right in front of the grandstand with Nathan Bresee flipping while Jake Carter rode up on the overturned car. Fortunately, all drivers were fine.
However, the red would negate the pass by Martin and Arnett would retain the lead. This time, though, it was Tyler Pearish that would move into second and he began to put much pressure on the leader. At the halfway point, he threw a slider on Arnett in turn one and made it stick as he took over the top spot.
While Arnett would never let him get away, Pearish would control the rest of the race and go on for the win by several car lengths. Arnett would settle for second and Austin Harrell would round out the top three.
The Turkey Bowl will wrap up on Saturday night with B Features and main events for the Midwest Modz A, the B Mods and Mods while the Late Models will be added for a full show also. And the Legend Cars will also run their main.
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