Friday night, March 28th was night number two of the XIV running of the King of America event featuring the USMTS Modifieds plus the USRA B Mods and Stock Cars at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland Missouri. Jim Chisholm and Jeffrey Abbey both survived late challenges by other drivers to take feature wins while Jon Sheets drove to a dominating win in the B Mod class.
It was a hazy sunny and very windy Friday in southern Missouri and while the wind made it feel colder than the temperature actually concurred, the weather so far this week has been superior to many of the previous KOA's held in recent years. Everyone is hoping that the storms will hold off for one more night so that the drivers and fans can see a full weekend of racing, something that has been hard to come by for this event for quite a few years past.
Another very large field of entrants were on hand for the Friday night portion of the weekend with one hundred and eighty two drivers entering competition. The Stock Car field was up two, the B Mods one while the Modifieds remained the same with seventy two drivers entering. However, there were an additional fifteen drivers on hand that hadn't raced on Thursday so in total, one hundred and ninety four drivers have raced so far this week.
The format would be identical to Thursday's with the exception that the drivers would be racing for more money come feature time with the laps in all three classes bumped up few. Both of the support classes got a shot at hot laps on Friday before the Modifieds came out cold for their time trial efforts.
Their field was split into three groups once again with New Mexico's Nathan Smith turning the quickest lap of the night at 17.354 seconds. His brother Mark and Jason Hughes would be quickest in the other two groups. Both Smiths have shown great speed this week but so far they haven't been able to transfer that to good finishes and that trend would later continue on Friday. The Modified pits went into a frenzy when Nathan pulled a six for the invert, the highest it could be and sending some of the fastest drivers into apoplexy at the thought of having to start on the outside of row three for their heat races. Perhaps as a result or just coincidentally, the heats is all three classes were exceptional on Friday with much three wide racing and great battling back through the pack. It didn't hurt that for the second straight night the track appeared to be "spot on" with multiple grooves and racing all over the surface while again at the same time having very few yellow flags to slow the action.
Any nasty comments I made about the scoreboard Thursday should now be rescinded after the show on Friday. Perhaps they were having technical issues or maybe the board operator was not on hand on Thursday but no matter, all the things I was hoping the scoreboard would do, well it did them on Friday. Nice, easy to read running orders, plus the time trials and running count on the laps completed were all working on Friday as well as the instant replays for the crowd as well as for the tv audience. The touted scoreboard came through with even more than could be hoped for, thus adding to the pleasure of a visit to the "Diamond of Dirt Tracks."
The Modified feature would be up first again on Friday and apparently there were a lot of drivers guaranteed to make the feature that didn't make it in the old fashioned way called qualifying as a gigantic field of thirty two drivers would take the green flag from Chris Loberg for the forty lap main.
Jim Chisholm had the pole and while he technically would lead all forty laps, he had plenty of company at various times as he fought to hold off the field. Nathan Smith and Stormy Scott battled for second early with Scott taking over the position when the first yellow was triggered by an A.J. Hoff spin. Reece Solander and Chad Wheeler had moved into the top five by this point and with the green reappearing, Scott put pressure on Chisholm for the lead.
Another six laps were completed before Henry Chambers lost a wheel and the action slowed once again. The longest period of green flag racing then took place with a full sixteen straight laps under the green seeing Chisholm still up front with Scott settling into second with Wheeler moving into third ahead of Solander and Bobby Williams as the rookie Modified driver was making a strong move toward the front.
At this point Solander went to the cushion and it paid immediate results as he blew past Wheeler and Scott and closed rapidly on Chisholm for the lead. He was just ready to drive around Chisholm when Jim, monitoring the video board, saw Solander tearing up at him using the cushion and he pulled to the top side of the track, just in time to hold off Solander's charge with the yellow flying just a lap later when Kale Westover hammered the wall in turn four.
The restart went South with a big crash taking out Jason Langford, Tyler Davis, Nathan Smith and Steve Lavasseur in one of the messiest moments of the week so far. The final restarts proved to be a game of "cat and mouse" as Chisholm would select the inside for the double file restarts but then break for the cushion in the first turn, each time beating Solander to the top side which was critical. Reese was just not able to get the jump and had to settle in behind Chisholm and hope for a mistake.
One more yellow with just seven laps to go when Rodney Sanders got a flat tire slowed things, but again, Chisholm got the jump and then moved to the cushion. Solander could do nothing but hope for a mistake but Chisholm made none as he drove home the winner. Cade Dillard made a great late run toward the front. Not even shown in the top five with just those seven laps to go, he moved lower on the track and found success, driving all the way up to third and closing on Solander at the finish. Scott would follow and Kyle Strickler made his own charge, coming from twenty second to round out the top five.
For the first time all week, there were a substantial number of drivers that didn't finish the race with eleven in the pits by the checkers, many with damage from a couple of hard crashes that took place. We also saw the first "killing" of "The Choose Cone" when Jacob Bleess made his move too late and in trying to cut from one lane to the other, "murdered" the cone. For his transgression, he was put to the tail of the field.
Twenty four drivers would start the twenty five lap B Mod feature and on the opening lap, Jake Richards came from the second row to duck inside Boone Evans and Ben Moudry to take the early lead. Moudry battled back and put pressure on Richards with Kris Jackson and Evans close behind. Jon Sheets quickly moved to the cushion where he has shown speed this week and he moved up to third riding the tall side of the track after starting ninth before the lone yellow of the event took place when Moudry was turned with Terry Schultz crashing into the spinning car, eliminating both from the contest.
The green returned and it took Sheets only two laps to blast by Richards and take over the lead and he was spotless running the cushion as he pulled away from the field. Jackson continued to move forward and by the halfway point had raced up to second with Jones being followed by Landyn Randt and Dan Hovden.
The race stayed under the green and Sheets was in the groove as he continued to work the high side of the track. Jackson pushed hard but he wasn't able to cut into the lead that Sheets maintained but Hovden was able to find some traction lower and he drove up to third. The top three would maintain their distance the rest of the way with Sheets driving home for the win, uncontested. Richards held of for fourth and Scott Bintz made a late charge, coming from thirteenth to complete the top five.
The Stock Car feature saw Jeffrey Abbey start on the pole and that was where he remained after twenty five laps of racing. This nonstop event saw Abbey pull away at the start while there was considerable battling for position behind him. Most drivers were running low on the track at this point but Paul Conrad experimented with the high groove and it did work for him for a number of laps until he gradually faded back in the late going.
Darrin Schmidt moved up and took the second spot by the halfway point of the race with Rodney Schweizer next in line. Making a steady charge was Jaylen Wettengel who started fourteenth and was up to third by the halfway point. He continued to move forward, finding traction when others struggled as he moved around and was able to pass for second and then set off after the leader.
Abbey continued to hold the point but in the last five laps Wettengel closed up much of the margin that Abbey had. The green to checkers run helped Abbey and while Wettengel got close to a challenge, he ran out of laps and Abbey drove home for the win. Schmidt had a solid run for third with Schweizer and Pat Graham completing the top five. Just a single driver failed to finish among the twenty five starters and all were on the lead lap at the conclusion.
For the second straight night the racing surface was "spot on" with the drivers able to run multiple grooves all night on a smooth racing surface. They did take their first "farming session" of the week before the three feature races but think the track would have been fine even without the quick extra work. Whatever issues the track may have caused at other times, it has been excellent so far this week, even with another twenty eight races and nearly two hundred cars.
Speaking of busy, the folks that manage the rules in the tech building have been working overtime so far this week. Of course, they got plenty of notice on Thursday night with the DQ for apparent race winner Dustin Sorensen and also Scott but on Friday they were really busy as no less than eight drivers were DQ'd over the course of the night for various issues.
Saturday night the KOA wraps up with another full show for all three classes, topped by a twenty grand to win Modified main.
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