Night number two of the eighteenth annual Turkey Bowl at the Springfield Raceway was a busy night indeed. Not only were there multiple B Features for both the Pure Stocks and Midwest Modz B prior to their main events, there was also qualifying heats for three more divisions that started out their weekend of racing on Friday. Not only that, but the Modifieds ran double heat races so if it was lots of racing you were hankering for, the Springfield Raceway should have been your "go to" place on Friday night.
So somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred and thirty open wheel cars, all looking very similar if not exactly alike, along with the Pure Stocks raced a total of thirty two racing events which lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Some of the open wheel cars even ran their same cars in multiple divisions as apparently they just couldn't get enough racing on this November weekend.
And not only were the scorers, lineup folks and the flagman busy almost beyond belief, the tech folks kept busy also. Although it was not noted by the announcers, the feature race lineup looked somewhat different than those that apparently qualified out of the B Features as six Midwest Modz B cars got disqualified in those races, many of which had qualified for the mains and then were replaced. Just to keep the Pure Stock drivers on their toes also, three of them got DQ'd in their B mains also. However, not a single driver in the other three classes which ran their heat races on Friday fell victim to the tech axe.
The gloves seemed to come off on Friday, likely I suppose because there was more on the line on Friday with multiple big wrecks, plenty of drivers mad at their fellow drivers and two drivers that rolled over during the night also. No injuries were reported but plenty of hurt feelings for sure.
With Midwest Modz A, B Mods and Mods all running their B Features on Saturday, along with a full show of Late Models, some of which have been here since Wednesday to catch all the practice sessions allowed, the Pure Stocks and Midwest Modz B were center stage on Friday night as two more great turkey trophies were handed out.
And these two main events were as dissimilar as was possible with the Midwest Modz B running a very clean race while the Pure Stocks were wrecking and crashing at an alarming rate with barely enough left running to complete their main.
The Midwest Modz B feature was dominated by Blake Ellis who started on the pole after a very successful run on Thursday night. He took the lead immediately but was challenged hard by Jordan Bryant. In the early going, they would swap lanes as it seemed like Ellis was moving around on the track so as to break any run that Bryant might produce.
The only yellow occurred with four laps complete as Jordan Holloway flew off the turn one corner and into the concrete wall. He was able to drive away from the scene but his evening was complete.
Once the green came back out, Ellis seemed to pick up the pace and he then pulled away from Bryant who now had his hands full with Carter Harrison. While Ellis did a great job of moving through the traffic and maintaining his lead. Bryant and Harrison had a great battle for second, culminated when Harrison made the pass for second with just a couple of laps left.
Ellis, however, was far in front and there would be no catching him as he drove home for the finish. The axe fell on second place Harrison however, as in tech he was found to be illegal, was DQ'd and Bryant was moved back up to second. Cody Arnett, Jordan Cater and James Lee would then complete the top five.
The Pure Stock feature was a slam, bang event that saw the yellow wave six times during the twenty lap main. No more than six laps could be strung together at any one time and that was too bad as there were some great battles that just seemed to develop and then the yellow would spoil the fun.
Chris Tonoli took the early lead from the outside pole and led the first lap but then the first multi car wreck eliminated front runner Bobby Brown. Mark Simon was very fast and he challenged Tonoli for the lead, only to be joined by Michael McKnight in the fight for the lead. Things really started to get heated up front as Tonoli continued to show the way but he was under constant pressure by McKnight who slipped past Simon for second.
Things really got wild for that second spot as Simon threw a wicked slider on McKnight to take the spot. McKnight was obviously upset and he tried to return the favor in spades but it back fired when after he threw his return slider, he clipped the berm and went spinning across the track, drawing the yellow and sending him to the tail.
Simon was really getting strong as on the lap nine restart, drove around Tonoli to take over the lead and he then began to put just a little distance on the field before the yellows started to accumulate with a couple more spins and grinders coming soon afterward.
And while Simon had just a little distance on the field, the battle behind him was great with Tonoli trying to fight off Derek Lampe in his "grocery getter" along with Aaron Gustin and Scotty Carter. Unfortunately, they couldn't keep the race from one more yellow as a grinding crash on the back chute with just four laps to go eliminated two of those three and really shuffled the running order.
Simon would pull away following the last yellow and drive on unchallenged for the win with Tonoli second and Carter third. James Redus and Blake Billean, back from a first lap crash, completed the top five.
It was well after 1 am when the final checkers waved but a tough core of fans held on to see the completion of the program which started on a comfortable evening but ended up with it being quite cool and breezy.
B Features and main events for three classes are on the agenda on Saturday night plus a full show of Late Models as the Turkey Bowl is completed.
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