Thursday night, June 20th was another steamy day in Northeast Iowa. However, potential rains and storms stayed away from the area and despite some rather wicked looking clouds that drifted through from time to time, things stayed dry and the rescheduled Malvern Bank East Series race, originally scheduled for Memorial Day weekend but whipped out by rain, was held as planned. Along with the Malvern Bank Late Models, the IMCA sanctioned Hobby Stocks, Stock Cars and Modifieds would be the support classes on Thursday.
Thursday night's appearance would be the third ever visit for the Malvern Bank East Series to race at Dubuque and this evening's racing would also produce the third different winner at this track. Twenty seven Late Models signed in to race on Thursday night, which required four heats and a B Feature to set the racing order for the thirty lap main event which paid thirty five hundred dollars to win, which included a nice five hundred dollar bonus from a local sponsor, Affordable Furniture.
The Malvern Bank Series uses a rather convoluted format to establish where everyone lines up for the the main event. The cars time trial but then the heats are inverted with the top six in each inverted. The combination of points earned through qualifying plus passing and finishing points earned in the heats are added together and the top sixteen then start the feature straight up. The rest of the starting field is established by the B Feature and some provisional starters.
Qualifying proved to be the undoing of Charlie McKenna who appeared to blow up a motor and was done for the night. There were also a couple of interesting driver changes noted for Thursday night's show. Chris Simpson would be driving Jason Rauen's car and Tom Berry Jr was in the Dralle ride normally piloted by Jeff Aikey. Dralle even went so far as to turn the seventy seven into the #11x with some duct tape hiding parts of the sevens and adding an X following those numbers. Both drivers did well later with Simpson charging up to third in the late going and Berry's first ride in this Late Model producing a seventh place finish.
For the other three classes racing, the draw/redraw format was used and with rather small numbers in all three classes, there were a couple of instances where everyone that took the green for a heat made the redraw. However, while their heats were a little underwhelming, the main events for all four classes were good. The heats themselves did go very smoothly with all qualifying, except for the Late Model B Feature which was run after one of the heats, took only thirty seven minutes to complete.
The track, I thought, was in excellent shape for the heats but the track prep must have thought otherwise, as they completely reworked it for the mains. However, they did add quite a bit of water and with the night being so humid, it just didn't want to dry back out and the poor Hobby Stocks, slated to run their feature first, got plenty of track time as they circled the track for what seemed like forever until it was suitable for racing to continue.
Following their many laps of rolling in the track, the Hobby Stocks raced fifteen laps for their main event. The redraw suited Nathan Ballard well as he started on the outside pole and led the majority of the fifteen laps in a race that went green to checkers.
It was a bit of slip and slide for a few laps in that Hobby Stock main with Mark Neis leading the first three laps before Ballard would drive by him to take over the top spot and Nathan then would lead the rest of the race. It was tough making up ground with no yellows to help out but Jimmy Doescher worked his way up from the second row to close on the leader at the end. He gave it his best but came up short as Ballard drove on for the win. Doescher actually nipped Ballard at the line in the two to go signal, but then Nathan made a strong last lap, regained the lead and held off a last lap challenge for the win. Nathan reported that the Thursday night win was his fourteenth in sixteen nights of racing so far this year, so my feeling that he seems to have been seen a lot in victory lane pictures was not deceiving.
There were only nine Stock Cars on hand but they still produced an interesting race which amounted to Gage Neal chasing Jeff "Bone" Larson for fifteen laps. Larson started on the pole with Neal next to him and they ran in that fashion for the remainder of the race.
Scott Busch had worked his way up to third before he spun at the halfway point of the contest, triggering the only yellow of the event. Neal continued to put pressure on Larson and one mistake would have been costly but with both running the high side up against the wall, they continued at a fast pace and Larson drove on for the win driving Lee Kinsella's car. Mitchell Evens finished third.
There was plenty going on when the Modifieds took to the track for their twenty lap main event. Despite the fact that there were only eleven of them, they managed to produce some controversy and plenty of action during their main.
The front row of Scott Lemke and Timmy Current were jacking around on the pace lap, slowing and speeding up and trying to gain an advantage over the other. Twice starter Doug Haack waved off the start and following the second nonstart, there was enough contact within the pack that Current got a flat tire and had to retire to the work area for a replacement that put him on the back of the pack. He then managed to nail one of the ute tries on the next attempt, messed up his front end and was done for the event.
Meanwhile, Lemke finally was able to take the lead when racing started, with Jason Schueller really pushing him hard, throwing side jobs at him while Jed Freiberger moved to third. However, Freiberger made only two laps before he slipped on a banana in turn one and spun and would have to go to the tail. Normally that would be the end of a driver's search for victory, but not on this night.
Lemke continued to lead with Schueller all over him while Freiberger had success marching back up through the small field and when Matt Gansen spun on lap five, he was up to fifth.
Then things got really crazy. The double file restart saw a mad scramble in turn one on the restart. Schueller nailed Lemke in the left rear, turning him sideways and at the same time giving him a flat tire. Freiberger had the waters part and he roared through the scrambled field, moving from fifth to the lead in just one lap. Lemke limped to the infield, done for the event but obviously removing Schueller from his Christmas list at the same time.
Freiberger then drove away from the field with Schueller finishing second and Ryan DeShaw coming home third. No doubt there will be some interesting happenings when the Modifieds meet again here on Sunday night.
The Late Models then wrapped up the night with their thirty lap main event and despite having to wait as the last class out, the track remained very good for their race. Andrew Kosiski would be the star of the show, leading all thirty laps to record the win but it was anything but easy as he had driving chasing him hard and running right on his rear bumper for much of the event.
Derrick Stewart chased him early but then Andy Eckrich got past him to move into second and put the heat on the leader. Dave Eckrich then moved to third while Stewart and Spencer Diercks also ran in the lead pack.
A slowing car triggered a yellow with eleven laps done and this proved to be trouble for point leader Chad Holladay as he had to change a flat tire and go to the tail of the field. It remained Kosiski being chased by the Eckrich brothers until Dave pulled up with rear end problems with nineteen laps scored and was done for the event.
This moved Stewart back into third with Simpson and Diercks trailing. I noted that the right rear tire on Kosiski's car looked low at this point and sure enough, he was feeling it too but he hoped to have enough air in it to hold off Eckrich. The groove was getting dangerously close to the walls now, and both Kosiski and Eckrich made trips into the concrete off turn two in the closing laps but both pulled themselves off the concrete and continued.
Kosiski seemed to be slowing some by this point, as his exit speed off the corners just wasn't there but while Eckrich could stay within a few car lengths, he wasn't able to muster a charge at the leader as by this point, he had his hands full with Simpson moving to third and still charging.
Kosiski kept enough air in his right rear to finish the race, where it went flat in victory lane as he held on by a couple car lengths for the win. Ditto for Eckrich who managed to hold off Simpson for second with Stewart and Diercks completing the top five. Only five cars didn't finish the race and all four feature races on this night were smoothly run with few yellows.
Calling the action on this night were the duo of "Big Boy", Jason Frommell who did the local classes plus SLMR Series announcer Anthony Ainslie with both doing a good job. I had to laugh though, as before Ainslie got settled in, he identified Eric Pollard as Bubba Pollard, who most know as a Super Late Model driver on asphalt tracks and likely not in the field on Thursday.
It was a good night of racing on a good racing surface which allowed the drivers to do their thing. Racing started about a quarter after seven with the time trials taking a few extra minutes and the final checkered waved just before 10 pm with things likely done even a few minutes earlier if they hadn't had to spend a little extra time rolling in the track for the features. Still, that extra track prep time likely helped give us a good racing surface for the drivers while a bare minimum amount of dust for we the fans.
Thanks to everyone at the Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway for their help and welcome and for an enjoyable night of racing.
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