After Friday night action at Arrowhead Speedway in Oklahoma, most of the Late Model racers made the two and a half hour pull North into Missouri and to Jerry Hoffman's Springfield Raceway for "March Madness", another Comp Cams series points race. Along with the Late Models, Hoffman would be serving up five other classes of fast break action that likely might extend into overtime before the final outcomes would be determined. There would also be plenty of traveling calls, a few illegal picks and even a couple of technical fouls in a spirited night of racing action. This would be the first race of the year at Springfield and there were plenty of drivers eager to make their first runs of the year with right at one hundred and thirty signing in to race. The Late Model division would be tops with thirty five of them on hand including five that didn't make the trip to Arrowhead on Friday night.
Among the headlines for this night's race would be the fact that Late Model feature winner Clayton Stuckey, while winning his first ever Comp Cams feature race would come from the nineteenth starting position although to be fair that statistic might be slightly misleading based on events that happened during that main. We also got to see the venerable Missouri hero, Ken Schrader, who was the most popular driver of the night based on fan reaction, would win his fourth feature race of the season in various classes across the country already and it is not yet even April first and I also witnessed a couple of events that I can never remember seeing at a race track before. More on that later.
It was a pleasant but very windy race day in southern Missouri and Hoffman and the rest of his track prep crew get high marks for providing a racy and wide racing surface without any dust on top of that. We did have to sacrifice some time to keep that happening from start to finish but on balance it was probably a fair trade off.
Thirty five Late Models would sign in to race with the normal format of qualifying, four heats and a pair of B Features to set the field for the main event. Tristan Chamberlain, the first car out to qualify, would set the fast time at 11.980 seconds as the track would slick up and slow down rapidly. Scott Crigler would be quick in group two.
The heat races would provide sliders from start to finish and the Comp Cams boys were playing hard for the second straight night with a couple of instances of finger pointing and waving and noncompleted dive bombs on each other as contact was carried out on the action packed quarter mile.
Hoffman sent quite a bit of time prepping the track for the Late Model main so the drivers would see the whole gamut from hammer down , to quickly slicking off and then the fast cushion with sliders and dive bombs again breaking out. The drivers were using many lines and despite the fact that the leaders were pounding the cushion, there were some, including Stuckey that were marching forward hugging the low side of the track.
The first half of the race would be a two car battle with Chamberlain leading and Logan Martin in his tire tracks as they both pounded the cushion. There was a gap behind them but a good battle for third between Sawyer Crigler, Daniel Hilsabeck and Tony Jackson Jr. They exchanged spots and Martin continued to press for the lead.
Stuckey had yet to crack the top five by the halfway point but would move into fifth one lap later when second place driver Martin would fly off the third corner and over the hill. He would return to the back of the pack. On the restart, Hilsabeck would get dumped and he was hot but he retired to the pits. Stuckey was now up to fourth and minding his own business as others were getting tangled with each other.
Amazingly, one lap later leader Chamberlain would get too hot into turn three and he would spin himself right out of the lead. This would put Crigler into the lead but Stuckey had surged up to second and on the green, the two young drivers would run wheel to wheel down the back chute with Stuckey surging into the lead on lap twenty eight and he would pull away from the field over the last dozen laps to score a resounding win. Jackson Jr made a late charge to take second from Crigler with Kyle Beard and Jace Parmley taking advantage of all that was going on in front of them to complete the top five. It was an interesting race and it appears that the Comp Cams series has a lot of balance this year with many drivers having a reasonable chance of success every week.
Schrader had one of the many race cars he owns on hand Saturday to race in the B Mod division. And while Schrader in recent years has turned into mostly a "catfish", running the low line at most tracks, for some reason he feels comfortable up on the cushion here at Springfield and he does really well using that line. The feature race would see a surprise before the green flag even waved as prohibitive favorite Kris Jackson stalled on the track before the green even waved and he left on the wrong end of the wrecker instead of starting on the pole.
Terry Schultz would take the early lead but would only hold the top spot for two laps as he left the cushion uncovered and Schrader blew right by him down the front chute to take over the lead. Kenny was clearly on his game on this night as he pulled away from the field. Despite two yellows in the first seven laps, each time he would pull away and while Ryan Gillmore would close up some on him, Schrader was never really challenged as he drove on for the win. Jon Sheets would come from twelfth to finish third.
We had all kinds of Modifieds on hand Saturday as not only were there B Mods, there were also Midwest Modifieds and Midwest Modifieds B class, divided by which ones should be in the top class and the others in the B class. I'm still not sure who makes the call on who races where and when they have to move up if they get too good, but I'll let the track sort that out. Interestingly, these two classes did provide the closest finishes of the night.
The Midwest B class had their share of troubles with six yellows and half the field eliminated but there was a very good battle for the lead between Braxton Rupp and Blake Ellis. Ellis spent the whole race trying to get a nose inside of Rupp but Braxton had just enough to hold him off every lap and right to the finish.
The Midwest A class saw Sundance Keepper make a lap three pass on "Downtown" Jerry Brown and then hold off the field to get the win. Jerad McIntire and Pete Richardson were both challenging for the lead until McIntire tried too hard and spun with just three laps to go. Richardson then put on a charge on the low side with Keepper just holding him off by mere thousandth of a second for the win.
Apparently the difference between the Midwest Mod A class and the B Mod class is pretty minimal as Friday night at Arrowhead, Keepper led many laps of the B Mod feature before he was finally passed and he still finished in the top five. This looks like another of the many cases where a "bargain" class is started to save money but soon the teams outspend themselves and the lines between classes blur.
Pure Stocks would also be on the card with thirteen of them racing on Saturday. Michael McKnight would lead the first six laps until he was passed by Mark Simon for the point. McKnight would eventually get "walled" by another competitor and be done for the night. A late rush was put on by Jody Tillman and Simon made his car very wide, as his "mirror" driving was very good. Tillman took the high road and tried to make a clean pass which saw him settle for second then with Simon the winner with Karla Lampe third.
Rounding out the evening would be the Front Wheel Drives or Mini Stocks as both names were used interchangeably during the evening by the announcing duo. Robert Tosh and Tyrel Jones trading the lead back and forth before Tosh secured the front spot with only three laps to go.
Now for the two interesting situations that occurred. Somehow a dispute broke out between one of the Late Model teams and management on where this team could park. There seemed to be plenty of room in the pits and I have no idea what exactly the problem was and what happened, but the next thing I knew one of the large transporters went roaring out of the pits at high speed and did not return. First time I've seen that.
Also, when was the last time you saw a collision between a Late Model and the water truck? Well, it happened Saturday. Hoffman likes to apply water while the cars are already rolling in the track and during one of these times, Hoffman was zig zagging between cars when he cut it a bit tight and there was contact. Fortunately, no damage was done to either vehicle and everyone carried on.
It was a long show and there are times that I would like the number of classes to be limited just a bit more than it was on this night, but there are also arguments why all the classes are needed. It was good that the Late Models were run as the third feature so if folks wanted to leave early and still catch the premier division on this night, they could. The entire program lasted just at five hours.
Thanks to all the officials from the Comp Cams Series for a very nice weekend of racing and also to track promoters Bryce Hall at Arrowhead and Jerry Hoffman here at Springfield.
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