Night number two of the fifteenth annual King of America took place at the Lucas Oil Speedway on Friday night, March 27th. Again in the limelight for the second straight night would be the USMTS Modifieds along with the USRA B Mods and Stock Cars.
Some early morning rain rolled through the mid Missouri region leaving sunny skies and winds that had switched from the much more comfortable Southwest to howling right out of the North. Temperatures had dropped at least forty degrees from Thursday's Summer like feel and everyone was left scrambling for their heavier wear.
One hundred and seventy one drivers would sign in to race on Friday, surprising in that just a single lone new entrant entered the B Mod racing with any other changes the result of a few drivers opting out of Friday night racing due to perhaps mechanical issues or wrecks that put them on the sidelines.
The first repeat winner of the weekend was crowned when Johnny Fennewald won the Stock Car feature for the second straight night as much speed and perhaps just a bit of racing luck sent him to victory lane for the second straight night.
The Hodges Team out of Kansas continued their hot pursuit of a KOA title but on Friday night it was Reece Solander, runner up on Thursday, that would win the Modified feature .
In the B Mods, Oklahoma driver Cody King showed the rest of the field where the cushion was as he quickly moved to the lead and then drove on for the feature win.
Other than the perhaps dramatically changeable weather, the topic of most discussion was the new format used by the USMTS to line up their heat races. Honestly though, I really didn't hear much talk from the fans about it but it was certainly by far the biggest topic of discussion by the announcing trio who covered the topic in the prerace action extensively.
Truthfully, most fans don't care what format is used to line the cars up, they are more concerned about the races starting on time than anything. Sure, they would like to see exciting heat races and passing, but most don't have any idea how such a combination could be produced and neither do most of the "experts" either for that matter.
And anyone that thinks that fans like time trials is really very misled. Once glance at the grandstand should answer that question quickly as virtually no one is even paying any attention to time trials and many folks, knowing that time trials are leading off the program, simply wait in their vehicles in the parking lot until time trials are over and racing is ready to start.
Any promoter or sanctioning body that thinks they are adding to the show by offering time trials is sadly mistaken in my opinion. Time trials are strictly for the drivers, either to satisfy them or appease them in most cases. And the drivers most vocal about having time trials are the fast ones, following the human way of wanting to win as much as they can as easy as they can and to them, that means starting in front and having to pass as few cars as possible in order to take home their prize money. And if that doesn't always produce an exciting show, oh well.
A real fan will show up for a race no matter what the format is, but they would like to see the show run off in a reasonable amount of time. If fans really didn't show up if there was no heat race passing, there would never be a fan in the stands for any big time Late Model event because we all know what their heat races look like.
I have not seen the time trial, heat race and passing charts so I don't know exactly what the numbers are but a quick look at who started in the front of the USMTS feature on Friday night lets me make some quick observations.
For the four cars starting in the front two rows, all timed within the top eight of the field. All four then opted to start in the back of their heat races and while all four passed at least five cars, no one finished their heat any higher than fourth.
This lends me to believe that time trial points are very key and that passing points in the heats are much more important than the finishing points in those heats. So the formula to start up front in the features is to qualify very well, opt for the back of a heat race and then pass as many cars as possible, not worrying so much about just where you finish.
Clearly heat race wins alone don't help much. I don't think I've ever seen a situation like occurred on Friday night before. Zack VanderBeek had a battery go bad while he was waiting to time trial and he couldn't get his car to fire. He took a push to the pits and didn't get a qualifying effort completed. So with the new format where everyone wants to start in the back of a heat race and get passing points, he ended up starting on the pole for his heat because no one else wanted that spot! He went on to win that heat but without time trial points he ended up starting in the seventh row of a B Feature and never made the main event.
When infield announcer Trenton Berry made the point that he wasn't sure that he liked the new format because it didn't guarantee the heat winners a spot in the feature, one of the other announcers, Jeff Broeg, made an even better point when he said that with circumstances like VanderBeek's, there is no way that a heat winner in that situation should be guaranteed a feature starting spot.
One thing not even mentioned by the announcers but I believe to be the case for the upcoming Saturday night finale where the big bucks are distributed is that I don't believe time trials will even be held as the points earned by the drivers through the first two nights of racing will determine who is automatically in the main event and where everyone else will start their qualifying events. We will now have to see if that is indeed the case or if some changes have been made in the program, which would not be unheard of.
Friday night's format was identical to the previous night until a certain point. Promoter Todd Staley must have decided at the certain point that it was getting cold and to help out the suffering fans in the stands, the running order was changed with the Modifieds set to run their main event first.
Twenty five drivers started the thirty three lap USMTS feature race with provisional starter Trevor Hughes missing the race after he had trouble in his B Feature. Solander, who had the second quickest time trial run plus went from eleventh to fourth in his heat race, started on the pole and took the immediate lead. He was challenged early by Tyler Stevens and those two gradually pulled away from the field.
Stormy Scott moved into third with Brandon Davis starting to reel him in. The race continued under the green unabated and by the halfway point, Solander had opened up some space on Stevens. Davis was on the march as he got by Scott for third and was starting to reel in Stevens for second.
Solander caught the back of the packk and did have a bit of difficulty getting by a couple of the tail end cars. Davis continued his grind to the front and passed Stevens for second and actually started to catch up to Solander who was still struggling with one particular slower car that proved to be tough to get past.
Finally Solander was able to clear that slower car and he was able to put just a bit of distance between himself and Davis. The race could continue under the green and go nonstop for the distance. Solander still had a comfortable lead over Davis at the finish but Brandon had showed that he was perhaps the quickest car at the end. Stevens hung on for third with Talon Willis making a steady charge from the fourth row to finish fourth. Tanner Mullens completed the top five. Only one driver failed to finish the race and only two were a lap behind.
Cayden Stacye and Chad Clancy battled for the lead on the opening lap of the B Mod feature, the next main event to be held. Stacye was able to edge into the lead but the two continued to battle hard for the top spot.
However, they didn't see Cody King coming as after starting in the third row, he moved to the cushion more than the others and found it to be very fast. He came flying forward and on lap four passed both the race lead challengers to sweep past them and move into the top spot.
And once in front, he was gone, opening up a considerable distance over the field as no one was able to match his pace or make his part of the track work as well as he did. But while King was long gone, the battle for second proved to be a good one as Stacye and Clancy swapped that spot back and forth on nearly every lap, with Clancy securing the position at the halfway point. Stephen Clancy had moved up to fourth at this point with J.T. Carroll also running in the top five.
The best battle continued to be for second as King continued to motor away from the field. However, the only yellow of the race came with just three laps to go for a spinning trio of drivers and the race restarted for a three lap dash to the finish.
Once again King pulled away and there would be no challenging his run to the finish as he took the win. However, the battle for second continued and in fact, now included three drivers and at the line, on the final lap, Stacye came back to take secone with Stephen Clancy edging out Chad for third. Andy Bryant came from tenth to complete the top five. This was another smooth race with only two drivers not finishing in the one yellow event.
Johnny Fennewald earned the pole position for the finale of the night, the Stock Car feature and it appeared that he would have an easy route to victory lane. And that was the case early as he took the lead after a brief battle with Rodney Schweizer who then settled into second. Kyle Falck raced up to third in the early going as the pack remained quite tight.
A spinning car triggered the first yellow with six laps complete and Fennewald regained the lead once racing resumed. Bad luck struck Schweizer when he clipped a ute tire on the inside of the track, broke his front end and eventually called it a night.
This moved Falck into second but meanwhile, Jeffrey Abbey and Justin Carter were putting on a show. Both had won B Features and as such, started in the seventh row of the feature but they were hard charging to the front and by the halfway point, Abbey was up to second with Carter still having some cars to pass.
Eleven straight green flag laps would see Abbey catch up to Fennewald who was starting to adjust his racing line as Abbey closed up on him. Jeffrey then changed his own line and was just ready to make a pass on the leader when the yellow flew for a spinner with just three laps to go.
To his credit, Fennewald then had a great restart as he put several car lengths on the field. Abbey, meanwhile, didn't get away near as well and had Carter to contend with as they raced hard for second.
Fennewald used his good restart to control the field the last three laps and he drove home for the second time in two nights as the winner. Abbey was able to fight off Carter but had to settle for second while Falck ended up running fourth. Shayne Bailey completed the top five in what was the third straight smoothly run feature race.
And while things went smoothly on the track, for some it wasn't quite so smooth in the tech building as five drivers , all B Mod drivers, were disqualified during the night and this list included Thursday night runner up Jon Sheets and NASCAR legend Ken Schrader. Incorrect pull bar location and deck height seemed to be the "problem of the week" but I can't say just what tripped up those listed above.
On Saturday night, the KoA concludes with the largest prize money of the weekend awarded including fifteen thousand dollars to the winner of the Modified feature.
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