The Hell Tour Summer Nationals returned to the West Liberty Raceway in West Liberty Iowa for the first time since 1995 and it appeared that Iowa racers had taken umbrage to the long snub, as they were waiting in force for its return, dominating the Late Model racing in an impressive fashion. Led by feature winner Chris Simpson, the top three finishers in the thirty lap main event call Iowa home with fifth place finisher Dylan Thornton now calling Iowa his home base after escaping from California. Only fourth place finisher Cade Dillard kept the Iowa forces from a clean sweep as sixth place finisher Billy Moyer, now enjoying the sun in Arizona, is also an Iowa native.
Chris Simpson was on point all night, setting fast time while at the same time breaking the existing track record with a lap clocked at 18.165 seconds, winning the first heat race and then, after starting on the pole for the feature race, leading all thirty laps to claim the five grand top prize. It was very much a home coming for Simpson as both he and his brother Chad started their racing careers at this track and I can remember many years ago making a visit here and watching them as they dominated in the Pro Stock class before moving up to Late Models.
Three other divisions of IMCA racing were also on the card with Spencer Diercks winning the Modified feature, Nathan Wood the Stock Cars and Colton Livezey the Sport Mods.
Twenty seven Late Model drivers signed in to race on Tuesday night, a number that pleased just about everyone either associated with the series or with the track as there are not a lot of open motor Late Models left in the state but there turned out to be more than enough to put on a full show on this night. It was also an interesting mix of drivers that normally are not seen very often racing together which also helped spice things up.
For some of us, particularly fans that are complimentarily referred to as "veterans", a return to a track like West Liberty for some hard core Late Model racing is like a trip back in time to a more pleasant time of racing. West Liberty is the classic fairgrounds track with its big covered grandstand, race cars pitting in the infield and a well maintained fairgrounds area. Forget that the grandstands badly need a coat of paint, the many posts holding up the roof make finding a good viewing spot from the grandstands hard, knee space is nonexistent, the sight lines in the grandstands are bad and the scoreboard is so far away that field glasses are necessary to read the numbers. All this is only minor inconveniences, what is important is that it is fairgrounds racing like the best of times.
What was impressive was the large crowd that filled the stands, crowds like I remember seeing back in the glory days of this and other dirt tracks in the area. And the track was in impressive shape also. Considering it was only the second race on the track this year, the surface remained smooth and while it did take a bit of rubber in the Late Model feature, overall the racing was as good as any time I can remember from the past.
The crowd did some digging in their pockets on this night also as the 50/50 split the pot was up over eleven hundred dollars.
Along with Simpson, Michael Leach and Tanner English were the quick qualifiers in their groups. It went downhill for point leader English from that point on as a flat tire ruined his heat race run. He took a provisional for the main event and started nineteenth and finished tenth which was his first non podium finish so far in over a week.
Chris Simpson had only one bad period of racing through the whole night and that was when he caught the back of the pack shortly after the halfway point of the race. The track started to take rubber at this point and when he couldn't get past Curt Schroder for several laps, Dallon Murty and brother Chad quickly caught up to him with Murty making a rather serious challenge for the lead with Chris caught out of the rubber a couple times while trying to get past Schroder.
A lap twenty yellow though, for a slowing Mark Voigt was his saving grace. Once back under the green with an open track, he was again able to put some distance on Murty and Chad to take the win. Seventeen of the starters were still racing at the finish.
The most dominating winner was Diercks who started on the outside pole for the Modified feature, rapidly pulled away from the pack and cruised for eighteen laps to get the win. He was over a full straightaway ahead of the field at the finish and on the big West Liberty track, a full straightaway is a considerable distance. Kurt Kile ran second for the entire contest with Jace Echrich third.
The Stock Car feature saw four different leaders during its eighteen lap main but it could have been so much better than it was if we could have avoided all the yellow flags that broke up some great racing so many times. The leaders were dicing back and forth, trading spots on the track but it seemed like just about when things were really getting interesting, the dang yellow would again fly. They never got more than five consecutive green flag laps in with the yellow waving seven times.
Greg Gill led early with John Oliver Jr passing him on lap seven for the first lead change. He could only hold the top spot for a single lap though before David Brandies passed him. Nathan Wood started ninth and with just three laps to go, was able to drive under Brandies and take over the lead, after which he stretched it out some to complete a strong drive for the win. Brandies would settle for second with Oliver Jr third.
There were several crashes and a considerable amount of wrecked cars in this race. The most violent one occurred right on the front straight when Rusty Zook spun in front of most of the field. He got hit head on once and then was packed by a couple more drivers with Zook being pushed over on to his roof. All drivers were OK as crashes on this high speed track are all hard ones.
A small field of Sport Mods was on hand but in the early going, they put on a good competitive race. Bryson Echrich took the early lead but Shaun Slaughter liked the outside line and drove into the lead on lap four. Echrich fought back and retook the front spot on lap eight and they battled for a couple laps, going side by side.
Unfortunately, Shaughter got run high down the front stretch and hit the wall hard, he slowed and was done for the event. Echrich gained the lead back but he couldn't hold off the charge of Colton Livezey who passed him on lap ten and then pulled away over the final half of the race to score the win. Echrich settled for second with Trey Rock third.
Two groups of old time racers were also on the card but I. among with most fans, were on the way out of the grandstand by the time they hit the track. If there's one thing we should have learned from Tuesday, its that six classes of racing is about three too many.
If I was the DIRTcar officials, I would insist that the number of support classes be limited and that the main event the folks came to see, the Late Model feature, was early on the agenda while the track was still lively and the kids were still awake! Midweek shows should be quick and spun off in rapid fashion, focusing extra time needed for interviews to just the main division.
Thanks go out to promoter Jeff Struck and his crew from the Davenport Speedway who put on this show, along with all the DIRTcar officials on hand. It was great to see FLO impresario Dustin Jarrett in the house while photos from the event were covered by one of the sports best, Mike Ruefer from Davenport.
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