On Wednesday night, May 8th, I made the trip to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa Iowa for their regular Wednesday racing program that would present five classes of racing action. It would be my first trip of the year here but there would be many familiar faces on hand as Osky has been a staple for midweek racing action for as long as I can remember.
Wednesday night was Hall of Fame voting night at the speedway with fans encouraged to vote for their candidates to be added to the speedway Hall of Fame. It was also a good night to be a driver at Osky as plenty of extra cash was on the line for the competitors with over $7,500 added to the regular purse with no entry fees for the drivers. Numerous sponsors pitched in to help out this week, as they do here all year with the local support for the Southern Iowa Fair and activities at the Fairgrounds at a high level. The Race Committee wants to keep racing alive and well at Osky and they find many supporters within the Mahaska County area to do so.
The track officials here are among the very best around and it doesn't hurt that they have two hundred years of experience between them! That might be slightly exaggerated but there is no doubt that with Jerry Mackey behind the mic, Doug Haack waving the sticks and Kevin Feller doing the scoring they have three key employees that have seen it all and are up to handling any situation. When they are in charge, you know that there will not be any missteps taken.
Sixty nine drivers would sign in to race on Wednesday with the largest car count in the Hobby Stock division. Osky is not sanctioned by any organization and their procedure is to do a draw/redraw program every Wednesday. Normally the do handicap the previous week's winner to the back of the redraw cars but since this was a special with more money on the line, they did not do this on Wednesday. And this would turn out to benefit three winners from last week's show later.
Track packing and hot laps would start at around 7:15 pm and the first race hit the track at 7:46 pm. The heat races would click off smoothly with only three slowdowns to stop the action. One however, was for a hard flip in turn three by Hobby Stock driver Cory Vanderwilt. He was OK but in a borrowed ride for the night, he might have to do some explaining to the car owner when he sees his race car!
An improving weather forecast throughout the day made racing possible on Wednesday but with lightning flashing in the Northwestern sky as the heats concluded, the track management wisely went directly into the main events.
Sport Compacts would roll on to the track first with thirteen of them to take the green flag. This race would be a good, close contest with Nathan Moody taking the early lead. He had Brandon Pickney right on his tail from the start, poking a nose under Moody in every corner as he looked for an opening. On lap four Pickney got past but Moody was saved by a yellow flag and retained the lead.
Pickney would continue to press and on lap nine when Moody got just a bit high in turn two, Pickney ducked under him and took over the top spot. Moody would then return the favor, pressing Pickney to retake the lead but Brandon would not yield and would drive on for the win. He would deliver the news to Mackey in his victory lane interview that this was his first ever feature win, which brought a nice ovation from the crowd.
The Non Winged Sprints, who have been a part of the program here for several years now, would then get pushed off for their main event. Nine of them would take the green including Ed Adams who was driving a car that was probably older than half the crowd in the stands! This rather unbalanced division would see A.J. Johnson, winner of both the previous shows here, jump from his second row starting spot into the lead before one lap was completed and he then would disappear into the Iowa evening, leaving the rest of the field miles behind.
At the finish, he was over a full straightaway in front while running the last half of the race at what sounded like half throttle. Doug Sylvester would fight off a challenge from Lance Schlicher for second.
Then it would be time for the hometown driving brothers, the Carters, to shine. Stock Cars were up next and while Nathan Wood jumped into the early lead from the outside pole, Cayden Carter would quickly move in on him and with a strong effort, drive around Wood on lap three to take over the lead. With this race going green to checkers, there would be no stopping Cayden as he would pull to a comfortable advantage and not be challenged the rest of the way. Wood racing second throughout the contest but the driver that moved up the most was Zack Vanderbeek who debuted his new Stock Car to a promising result.
Following his victory lane interview with Mackey, Cayden pulled his car down the front stretch on his way to tech inspection. He was door to door with the Sport Mods, who were coming out on to the track and with his brother Brayton on the pole, sharp eyed fans would see Cayden give a subtle signal to his brother to get to the bottom of the track, where the speed was.
Not that Brayton needed any help figuring that out but on the green for the Sport Mod main, he got a good jump on Logan Anderson and took the lead. Carter wins with handling, not speed, and while Anderson was sliding up just a bit in the corners, Carter was nailed to the bottom and started to pull away as the leader.
Near the midpoint of the race, Anderson seemed to be gaining just a bit but then Carter made a nice move to get past lapped traffic while Anderson got held up a bit and then Carter pulled away again, to repeat last week's win here. The fastest driver at the end was Maguire DeJong who started eighth and worked his way up to third at the end and made up nearly a full straightaway on the two leaders.
The Hobby Stocks then would conclude the evening and what a wild start their race had! A first lap accident exiting turn two saw the car of Jim Alexander Jr. climb up on the car of Rick Goldsberry with both then flipping. While Goldsberry's flip was a minor one(if there is such a thing), Alexander Jr took a very wild ride, getting high in the air as his car cartwheeled. An object came flying out of the car as it was tumbling and I at first thought it to be the fuel cell as when it landed there was a small fire. Turns out I had my ends of the car bass ackward and it was the engine that was hurdled right out of the car as it flipped! Talk about a wild tumble! Fortunately there were no injuries.
The race was restarted and two time winner Dustin Griffiths, who drew the pole, would pull away from the pack and join Johnson as an undefeated driver at the track, winning his third straight main event. He built up a big lead and was never challenged in the event. The driver that made the most moves, however, was Eric Stanton who started eleventh and worked his way up through the field. Right at the end of the race, he passed Peyton Stephens to claim the second spot and wished he could have started just a little closer to the front, likely.
All racing was concluded about a quarter past 10 pm and would have been sooner except for the long clean up following the Hobby Stock feature wreck. Thanks to all the members of the Race Committee for their help and it was good sharing a few moments with Jerry Mackey, one of the best in the business.
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