The Gateway Dirt Nationals were completed on Saturday night, December 7th at the Dome at America's Center in St. Louis with a spectacular night of racing with Brandon Sheppard winning the Late Model feature for the second straight year while Trevor Neville surprised a very tough field of Modified drivers by leading from start to finish to win the open wheel main.
The Saturday finale is a grind with lots of racing and many hours spent butt to butt in the packed spectator seating which this year was opened up even to the 400 section(nose bleed section) because the crowd was so gigantic. Say what you will about some of the draw backs of this event but each year the crowds keep getting bigger and bigger with many wondering just how much bigger can they get?
All drivers in both classes are invited back on Saturday, no matter how poorly they ran earlier in the week with everyone getting once chance to move up and perhaps work their way into a feature starting spot. No hot laps are held on Saturday, the exception being those few cars that were already qualified from earlier action and the racing started right out shortly after 3 pm.
Starting positions are so critical for success here, perhaps even more so than your average time trial event. I did the calculating and of the forty seven races run off over the three nights, forty two of them were won from the front row with the biggest charger being Thornton Jr. when he won the opening night Modified feature from fifth.
Non Qualifier races for the Late Models started out the afternoon and with twenty or more cars battling for a pair of finishing positions to move up to the Qualifier races, you should be able to predict just what kind of races these turned out to be. Bombastic was the adjective that came to mind to me. Two of the three races were cut off by the time limit and in both those, not a single green flag lap could be completed before the gong sounded as it was multi car crash after crash in both. The third one did get two laps completed before the gong sounded in that one also. The Late Model qualifiers were not much better to start off but gradually things settled down just a bit although to say that the racing was smooth would be stretching things just a bit.
Darin Weisinger's record of getting partially out of the ball park was quickly topped by Logan Veloz as the Quad City Modified driver managed to go all the way through the fence and end up wheels up on the pavement outside turn four. He was OK but the whole turn fence had to be rebuilt, one of at least three times during the Saturday show that the fence had to be patched and repaired. I'm sure over the last couple nights there was at least two and a half hours of down time due to fence repairs. I'm not sure what the answer is but something must be done in this regard.
Two Last Chance races with only the winner moving into the feature completed the qualifying events and finally twenty drivers were determined in each class to run the main events. The driver introductions were interesting although they didn't seem to meet the expectations of some years but another Bloomer/Rico moment is never likely to happen once again. The fireworks and light show are always spectacular and finally we were ready for some Late Model feature racing somewhere past 10 pm.
Despite starting on the pole, Sheppard got beat to the first turn by Gordy Gundaker and he took the early lead. Sheppard would slip into second with Ashton Winger, Ricky Thornton Jr and Nick Hoffman filling out the top five early.
Sheppard was wasting little time, pushing for the lead on every lap as he tried to slip under Gundaker and take over the top spot. Following a spin by Jonathan Davenport and Steve Sheppard, Brandon put real heat on Gundaker and one lap later slipped under him down the back chute and took over the lead. Sheppard would be scored the leader the rest of the race, during much of which he would maintain a comfortable lead if such a thing is possible in this race inside a barrel.
Thornton Jr was on the move, taking over second and while pushing hard, not seemingly able to cut into Sheppard's lead. Bobby Pierce was also on the move after starting twelfth and by the halfway point he had moved up to second. He continued to hustle, getting by both Hoffman and Winger into third, after which Winger had motor problems and pulled into the infield
As Sheppard cruised, Pierce was all over Thornton Jr, and finally got to the second spot with twelve laps to go. Bobby was really pushing and soon it was clear he was the fastest on the track and cutting into the lead of Sheppard. Lapped cars loomed ahead of Sheppard but they all moved over so the top two could race. Pierce got within a car length as the final lap started and folks were bracing for a "Hail Mary" slider perhaps on the last corner but just then Pierce slowed with drive shaft problems, Sheppard pulled away for a comfortable win and Pierce barely eased across the line for second. Thornton Jr settled for third with Mike Spatola and Hoffman completing the top five.
Sheppard is always a popular winner here with his fan base just across the river and they celebrated long and hard in victory lane. And this is certainly the type of track that best fits Brandon's skill set and back round. Fifteen cars would still be running at the conclusion with three a lap down. There were five yellow flags but no big wrecks as this was one of the smoother features for the Late Models in several years.
Not many people probably had Trevor Neville on the score card for the win in the Modifieds, but he ran very well all week, took advantage of any breaks and never made a mistake, driving to the win. He started on the pole and led the entire race although he was challenged hard a couple of times.
First it was Carlos Ahumada Jr that pressured him with Trent Young, Ricky Thornton Jr and Jordan Grabouski then following him tightly. Grabouski went out early with problems but Young and Thornton Jr had a dandy battle for second with them swapping the spot several times. Four yellow in the first half of the race kept the field bunched but each time, Neville would pull away.
Finally things got sorted out and the last fourteen laps of the race would go green to checkers. Young moved into second when Thornton Jr broke and he moved in to challenge the leader. Thornton Jr had the best chance to make a pass and was beside Neville but was saved by the yellow flag. Thornton Jr dropped out and the advantage shrunk as Young was a challenger right up to the finish. Neville did a good job of moving around on the track and keeping Young guessing as Trent just couldn't muster a full run at the leader. Several times Young went sliding dangerously close to the rear end of Neville but each time he washed up the track and Neville would again pull away.
Neville never made a slip however, and he would drive home for the win with Young a few car lengths behind. Mike Harrison and Tyler Peterson made nice runs up from the fifth and fourth rows respectively to finish behind those two with Ahumada Jr. completing the top five. The final checkered flag of the night flew just at Midnight.
Previous to the Saturday night finale, promoter Cody Sommer made some big announcements at the driver's meeting. The purse will receive around an extra $120,000 added to it in 2025 with the winner's share of the Late Model feature being raised to fifty grand but more importantly, more money to start and to the other finishing positions also.
A Late Model pool will be developed next year and all drivers that enter by the time limit will not necessarily be allowed to run the race as they try to limit the number of entries and establish some sort of pecking order as to who will be allowed to race. In my opinion, this was overdue and shown in this year's event when there simply were some drivers trying to race that just weren't qualified to be racing and didn't even have cars appropriate to try and race. The Modifieds will still be by invitation only with the number apparently similar to this year.
This is certainly quite the unique event with probably nothing quite like it in the work of dirt track racing. There are some parts of it that I like and some not so much. It was very dirt all three nights this year and the air quality got more than bad a few times. The shows do get very long sometimes and there seemed to be more down time than ever this year, possibly because there was so much fence repair to be done.
When the racing was good, it could be spectacular but it seemed to me that the track overall just wasn't quite up to par this year as it started out so dry and it seemed like it was a struggle to develop two lane racing. However, it must be said that probably the best overall racing of the week was the last two main events with there being more passing, racing and consistent green flag laps than at any other time all week. At its best, this event is about one part racing and an equal measure of Barnum and Bailey sideshow. And it should also be pointed out that with over thirty thousand tickets sold on Saturday night alone, this might be the best attended short track event, dirt or otherwise, in the entire country. Perhaps only Eldora could compare. In any event, this event seems to be continuing on an upward trend and I'm sure that there are literally thousands of folks that watched on tv but have now vowed that they will be there live in 2025. As an example of the crowd size, the 50/50 drawing, with half the total going to the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame, was $91,006!
Putting on this event must be a tremendous under taking so thanks to promoter Cody Sommers, his staff and the staff at America's Dome for their tireless work. And we can't forget the track prep crew that put in endless hours building this track and prepping for the race. Now they get the thankless job of tearing everything back apart and stock piling it for 2025.
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