Despite rain most of the day in the St. Louis area, the Dome provided the shelter and warmth needed and the Gateway Dirt Nationals was completed in a spectacular way on Saturday night, December 19th. In front of what was reported to be the largest crowd ever to attend this race, Brandon Sheppard and Drake Troutman would be the winners of the Late Model and Modified feature races to climax three wild nights of racing.
For the first time ever, in anticipation of a large walk up ticket sale, the top section of the grandstands at the Dome had the tarp uncovered in sections 401-13 of this huge building. Amazingly, even these sections were mostly filled with fans despite the fact that they were farther away from the starting line than if you were watching the race on tv in Peoria!
And the crowd was electric as the atmosphere here, particularly for the final night, is one that rivals just about any other event on the racing calendar. Even the 50/50 drawing is one that tops most others as with the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame running this as a fund raiser, the split amounted to $109,098! That would certainly be a nice surprise Christmas present.
All drivers would get the opportunity to come back and race on Saturday, no matter how poorly they may have run or unlucky they might have been earlier in the week. In many cases this is not good news for the fans because the unvarnished truth is that there is a lot of "iron" racing here that probably shouldn't be on the track but one of the beauties/problems of this event is if you get your entry in early, virtually anyone can enter a car and while many drivers each year are knocking off a bucket list item by racing this event, so of the races are like a trip to the dentist's office with no Novocain offered.
The Late Models would run non qualifier races for those who did really poorly on the qualifying night, followed by a series of qualifier races and a Last Chance race to set the field for their forty lap main event.
With a smaller field of cars, the Modifieds would just run qualifiers and the Last Chance race to set their running order for their main.
The nine Late Model prelims had a total of thirty yellow flags and one that was actually checkered early due to a time limit. The Modifieds did slightly better with only ten yellows in their five races but it took some time to cut the field down to the feature size. There was plenty of action going on though between all the yellows and several dramatic passes, spins and wrecks that changed up the running order. The fence got knocked down at least three times that required fixing and in at least two cases, the replacement of the fence posts also. The drivers really get pumped up for this event and their emotions are on display, for better or worse.
One of the more dramatic finishes in the prelims was the last lap of the Modified Last Chance race when Brandon Copp, after leading the whole race and close to making the main, hung his car in the fence in turn one on the final tour and missed the main. I know Brandon quite well as he races in my area and he so badly wanted to make the feature, having received an invitational this year for the first time. He got a whole group of friends and backers that helped him get to St. Louis from his home in northern Wisconsin as his is not a big buck team by any means. In fact, he told me that he set the cruise on his old Ford Dually at 65 and hoped that it would make it all the way to St. Louis. Now he just has to get it back home on Sunday!
One thing that continues to bother me is the foul mouthed interviews that too many of the drivers are providing. Now, I'm not so naïve as to believe that stick and ball players don't swear either, but they have been coached so that they at least keep it clean for their interviews on tv. If the drivers in this sport can't learn a little self discipline, then perhaps they shouldn't have the opportunity to talk on tv. It's gotten so bad and so frequent that the announcers don't even apologize for it afterward any more. We keep advancing the façade that this is a family sport yet seem to do everything to the opposite of promoting it as that.
When all the prelims were completed, twenty drivers made the show for each of the two features with Tyler Erb and Tyler Peterson taking provisionals as the most recent winners not in the field. Three drivers were able to make the field in both classes and they included Ricky Thornton Jr, Jimmy Owens and Mike Harrison. Of those, Harrison would do the best overall between the two features.
The driver introductions were spectacular as usual and all involved with this production really do a fantastic job. No matter how you feel about the actual racing, one way of the other, the introductions are a must see part of the show.
The track was even wetter on Saturday than it had been all week which helped cut down the dust to a reasonable level but also turned the track into a "cowboy up" affair, something that almost seems inevitable. While the statistics will show that both feature winners led all laps, it really was a much better race than that. With the cream rising to the top, the Late Model drivers only had two yellow flags in forty laps and the Modifieds just one more in their thirty lap main.
Brandon Sheppard would take the lead right from the start in the Late Model feature and would be firmly in control for most of the contest. In the last ten laps or so, he would start to get bogged down with traffic which slowed his pace.
Thornton Jr was mired in sixth spot until he realized that the laps were winding down quickly and he really picked up the pace. Showing a marked increase in speed, he was able to race his way all the way up to second and was able to put a scare into Sheppard on the last lap when he dove low in turn one, a move that brought the crowd to its collective feet. However, Sheppard had just enough space that he was able to hold off that last lap bid and drive home for the win. One wonders just what the result would have been if this race had a few more laps or Thornton Jr would have picked up the pace just a bit sooner.
Another strong and consistent finish would see Tanner English come for tenth to finish third ahead of Devin Moran and Chris Simpson. Only three drivers wouldn't finish the race and there was not even a single grinding crash.
Troutman would get the jump on Thornton Jr to take the early lead in the Modified thirty lap feature. Jordan Grabouski, Michael Ledford and Harrison would quickly fill the top five in the early going. Troutman was working the cushion and while it was rough, it was also fast as long as you hit it correctly. Thornton Jr would continue to pressure for the lead but Harrison, who loves to bang the wall, was on the move as he and Ricky battled for second.
Harrison would move into second and close on the leader but Thornton would fight back as that battle raged. A strange set of circumstances changed things on lap twenty two. Harrison got sideways and killed his car in turn three, seemingly forfeiting second. Thornton Jr actually contacted him, straightening him out and allowing Harrison to refire his car. When Thornton Jr stalled seconds later with a lost drive shaft, Harrison would catch a break and be restored to second.
The last eight laps would see Harrison throw the kitchen sink at Troutman but Drake would not buckle as he maintained his line and made no mistakes as he drove on for the ten grand win. Harrison would finish a strong second with Grabouski, Ledford and Kyle Steffens completing the top five.
It was such a pleasure to listen to the Troutman interview. Only eighteen years old, he shows the maturity and level headedness of a veteran of many more years as he calmly and clearly answered the questions with no screaming, finger pointing and foaming at the mouth of some of the others. And in the last few years, he has had to overcome heartbreak and set backs that most of the others could not even imagine.
It's hard to believe but this spectacular gets bigger each and every year. I've made it clear that there are some parts of this event that cause me to grind my teeth but it is hard to argue with the success that it has produced and continues to do so. Whatever the formula for success for this event is, they have managed to bottle it and break it out every December with more and more folks wanting to be a part of it.
Thanks to the three lead announcers, Ben Shelton, Dustin Jarrett and Jerry VanSickel for their usual great job of calling the action. I particularly appreciate when Jarrett is calling the main event action and just before the green flag waves, he politely but firmly asks the crowd to maintain their seats so that all can see the action and for the most part, it seems to work. Thanks also to Cody Sommer for allowing me to be a very small part of the program and to all the employees of both Sommer and the Dome for their tireless work in this long three days of racing.
The 2024 version of this event will be on December 5-7 and tickets will go on sale this coming Tuesday. I'm guessing that next year they are going to have to open up even more of the seats to accommodate all who desire to attend.
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