Nigh number one of the South Dakota Challenge took place on Wednesday night, July 15th at the Park Jefferson International Speedway located near Jefferson South Dakota. The USMTS Modifieds were the traveling attraction featured on this night with three other support classes also a part of the program.
The USMTS will race one more night here in South Dakota before moving further North and racing the Mod Wars at three tracks in Minnesota before this long week of racing will be complete for them. Tanner Mullens currently leads the USMTS points but has Brandon Davis, Jim Chisholm and Rodney Sanders all within a hundred points of him and many more nights of racing still left to go in this season.
It was another hot and humid race day in the Midwest, as it has been for nearly a week already but promoter Trent Chinn and his crew did a great job prepping the track for racing action. The track stayed smooth all night with drivers using multiple grooves on this now high banked facility with the old track just a mere memory these days, the new configuration so much vastly superior.
Positively Racing's kingpin, Jeff Broeg was calling the action on Wednesday night, as he will be for most of the weekend, having only to return to Osky on Thursday to call a Sprint Invaders show there before getting back on the highway and making what could be a harrowing trip North through the Twin Cities on a Friday to get to Princeton Speedway, the destination for the USMTS troops as they begin their Minnesota swing.
Car counts for the USMTS events have been a concern at times this year and this swing North would showcase some of those issues. The top thirteen drivers in USMTS points were on hand, but not much else. The problem when racing at a place like Park Jeff is that all the local drivers are of the IMCA persuasion and most of them feel they aren't competitive against the more open motored entrants plus there is also an issue with the tire brand used. USMTS does what they can to make it easier to race, but its is a difficult problem. Once they move North into Minnesota, the more equal WISSOTA competitors will be on hand to protect their home turf.
Eighteen drivers signed in to race on this night, but I heard no complaints from crowd members so it appeared they were just happy to see these drivers in action, even if there weren't a ton of them. And to the credit of USMTS, instead of trying to drag out the proceedings by making three heats out of what they had, they instead lumped the field into two big heats and then just raced a feature event and again, I heard no one complain when they did so.
The USMTS still qualifies their drivers with Jim Chisholm, the seventeenth driver out, setting fast time at 15.796 seconds which is pretty impressive. They then picked their starting spots for their heats, earned points through those events and that set the running order for their forty lap main event.
I thought the top side of the track was slowing down by the time the Modifieds took the green flag for their race, but Talan Willis proved me wrong by getting the jump on Chisholm to take the early lead. Willis was fast and opened up a decent sized lead in the early going but eventually Chisholm, who dragged along Tanner Mullens and Rodney Sanders, started to close up on him.
Willis was having a terrible time getting past the first back marker and was losing his lead quickly as he just couldn't find a way past that slower driver. Finally, just as the race reached its midpoint, that driver pulled into the infield, giving Willis a clear track again. However, things came completely unglued for Willis when he clobbered one of the corner ute tires and spun out, triggering the first yellow flag of the race. Willis retired from the event at this point, either due to damage or perhaps just out of frustration.
In any event, this elevated Chisholm to the top spot but the restart allowed Mullens to get a great run on the top side and take over the lead for a few laps before Chisholm would be able to pass him on the bottom and again claim the top spot. However, things got quite tough for him at the end as his own bouts with the ute tires had left his front end damaged also and his handling seemed to go drastically away on him in the closing laps.
Kyle Brown had muscled his way into second where he battled with Mullens with both putting pressure on Chisholm who was just trying to "horse" his car around the track the last few laps. Near disaster struck when as the leaders came around corner four on the last trip, that same driver that had given Willis so much grief earlier was back at it, spinning right in front of Chisholm and forcing him into evasive action. But what was worse was now the race wasn't over but instead went into a two lap sprint to conclude the race.
However, Chisholm got away well and Brown was fighting with Mullens for second which caused them to lost touch with the leader, and Chisholm took advantage of that to drive home for the win. Mullens out fought Brown for second with Sanders and Brandon Davis completing the top five. Only three drivers failed to finish the event.
There were also three support classes in action with Hobby Stocks, B Mod/Sport Mods and Stock Cars all racing a full show. Their numbers were relatively small in all three classes but again, a disparity between rules packages is and was a problem for some of those classes.
The Hobby Stock feature did see a good race in their main however, with three different leaders in the first four laps. Dustin Gulbranson was followed by Nick Brady and then Landon Krohn as the leader with Krohn taking that spot on lap four and then leading the rest of the way.
It was far from an easy win, as Gulbranson put heavy pressure on in the later laps. In fact, if Krohn hadn't used a lot of track, he likely would have been passed but each time Gulbranson made a run at him down the chutes, Krohn bowed out and cut off his line and Gulbranson played it clean rather than just dumping him. They finished in that order with Brady third. Wyatt Johnson, in fifth, received "Best in Class" honors for IMCA as their DOT tires certainly put them at a disadvantage against the wide tires that USRA allows, which likely explains why there were not more locals entered.
The Stock Car feature was even better with a very close finish favoring Greg Peck over Ryan Harris, two drivers that race here often as the difference in rules for the Stock Cars was not so glaring.
There were actually four different leaders in this eighteen lap race with Peck out front early before Colby Klaassen led a lap, only to have Peck get back in front.
Then Chad Overgaard led for a lap before Harris took the lead on lap sixteen and the final battle was on. Peck moved to the cushion and challenged Harris on the final few circuits and on the last corner got a great run off the banking and swept past Harris on the high side, scrapping right up against the concrete wall to make the winning pass in what was a thrilling finish to the Stock Cars.
The B Mods/Sport Mods often race against each other straight up these days and they seem fairly well suited to each other. They had the biggest field with twenty three drivers signing in to race and all would start the twenty lap main.
Brock Hess led the opening lap but he was passed on the inside by Duke Erickson one lap later who was working well right on the inside. Erickson was getting great bite off the corners and would surge ahead as he stayed nailed to the inside line.
This race had more issues than the others, with the yellow flying five times for spins. However, with pressure on him on each restart, Erickson would again hold off the others and then stretch his advantage further.
The last came with just four laps remaining but again Erickson got a great start and was not challenged as he continued to hit his marks, lap after lap and not give anyone an opening on the inside. His last challenger was Tanner Koster who moved into second on lap thirteen after starting thirteenth on the grid as there was considerable shuffling back in the pack. Koster would hold on for second over a charger Geoff Olson, the first IMCA driver across the line.
It was an excellent night for Erickson as not only did he win the B Mod feature, he finished eighth in the Modified feature using a 604 crate motor, a sign that perhaps more of the local Modifieds should have made an appearance on this night. As an aside, I have known "The Duke" for a lot of years and seen him race at a lot of different tracks across the country under different sanctioning bodies, but this is the first time I believe, that I had seen him win a feature so congrats to the Sioux Falls driver.
We know the humidity helped, but I was impressed with what a nice track Chinn and his group put together for this night's program, which was a good one and promptly run off. The crowd was decent sized but late arriving on a week night which is understandable. They were no doubt also pleased when the racing action was nearly nonstop with an early conclusion. Thanks to Todd, Trenton and all the USMTS staff along with track officials from Park Jeff for their help and hard work.
No comments:
Post a Comment