Saturday, January 4th saw round two of the inaugural Battle at the Border take place at Royal Jones' Vado Speedway Park in Vado New Mexico. Once again it would be the World of Outlaws Late Models taking center stage with the USRA Modifieds and X Mods also in action for a full program.
Saturday's show, as well as the upcoming show on Sunday, have been "flexed" on their starting times by the Outlaws and track management with everything starting an hour earlier than previously announced. And with earlier starting starting times already planned for the weekend shows and the evenings still getting quite cool, the show for Saturday saw hot laps for the Late Models and Mods start at 3 pm with the first official race scheduled to hit the track at 4 pm.
With the earlier start times and action starting under a blazing New Mexico sun, there was a concern about what track conditions would be but as it turned out, there really didn't seem to be any noticeable difference in hot the track raced than when they started later on Friday night.
They did do considerably more track prep on Saturday that saw them "rip" the track quickly a couple of times and the track was much wetter to begin the program than it had been on Friday night. While part of this might have been due to the earlier starting time, I'm guessing it was just as much a product of the Friday night racing on the icy slick surface that had even the local weekly racers expressing surprise on how slick it was. In fact, I talked to a couple of the local racers who were surprised how different the track was racing this week than for their normal shows. They told me that weekly they start out right on the bottom and the groove gradually moves up the track until they are up against the wall by feature time. We have not seen that yet this weekend but they also pointed out that this is the first time in the track's short history that this many wide tired Late Models have been pounding the track too. Their track prep skills will really get put to the test later this Spring when the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars stop in Vado for a two night program.
Car counts were remarkably similar to the opening night field in all three classes. Late Models again fielded forty two cars with the only changes being that Jake Gallardo was sidelined on Saturday with valve spring issues while Javier Zapien Jr, who missed the opening night of racing after having practice night problems, was on hand Saturday. It didn't go any better for him on Saturday though, as he pulled into the infield within seconds of rolling on the track, went off on the bad end of the wrecker and was not seen the rest of the night. Don Shaw also had problems in hot laps that caused him to miss his heat race and without a qualifying effort under the Outlaw format, your chances of making the show are about nil unless you have a provisional in your pocket.
One more Mod was on hand than Friday night's show and one less X Mod made an appearance as wrecks and mechanical issues were not in large evidence on Friday. They, however, would be more evident during the Saturday program.
I took the opportunity on Saturday to visit on with local X Mod racer Dickie Gorham, a long time racer in this area at a number of different Southwestern tracks. He told me that the racers of this area are very grateful to Royal Jones for building such a beautiful facility and thankful that they have a place to race. Dickie is a native of Las Cruces and an employee of NASA who have a test and research facility near Las Cruces where he has worked for many years after he got his engineering degree. He is a very interesting person to visit with and has a son who races X Mods also while his daughter races 305 Sprints. He raced Modifieds for years until that class got too expense for his tastes.
The format was the same as Friday night's in all three classes and after all qualifying, for the second straight night management opted to run the Late Model feature first which seemed to be a popular move as approved by the crowd on yet another cool night in the high desert.
The same three cars would end up with podium finishes as on Friday night, only in a different finishing order. Chris Madden would take the early lead after redrawing the pole and would lead the first fourteen laps until Ricky Weiss was able to get under him to take over the lead. Madden appeared to be struggling in the corners and not able to run the bottom as he wished while Weiss seemed able to pick up the pace.
When they got into lapped traffic things got dicey, but Weiss was able to make all the right moves and at the end was able to stretch his lead over Brandon Sheppard and Madden to take the win. For Weiss, it ended a full season of frustration after running strong on many occasions but not being able to secure his first win. Darrell Lanigan had a strong run for fourth with Mike Marlar again strong.
Somewhat surprising was the struggles of Scott Bloomquist who faded quickly quickly and finished seventeenth and for the second straight night Bobby Pierce was a non factor. Sunday night's show will feature a seventy five lap feature race so it will be interesting to see if there is any differences in strategy with the longer race.
Even though there didn't seem to be a problem on Friday night with excessive yellow flags, the Mods and X Mods operated under a one spin rule for the heat races on Saturday night and that did trip up a few competitors early.
For the second straight night, it was Rodney Sanders who won the Modified feature race although he had to work much harder to get the win on Saturday. And the surprise of the weekend to this point was the strong performance of rookie Modified driver Calvin Iverson who led the first half of the main before being overtaken by Sanders.
Iverson is in his fourth year of racing and his backround is in Midwest Mods with a few Street Stock runs also. Iverson is a former WISSOTA National Rookie of the Year in the MidMods and last year they bought an MB Mod from Jimmy Mars that Iverson only raced on a couple of occasions. This year he is going to focus on the Mod but this is the first weekend he has raced that car exclusively. Not known to many was the fact that shortly before the race program started, it was not even known whether he would race or not on Saturday. He had damaged his oil pan during the show on Friday night and his father Kelly had rushed into town to get the pan welded and when I exited the pits, Calvin was still waiting for his return and they were contemplating having to go to the back up motor which was a WISSOTA spec engine that would be well over a hundred horse less than the 413 Tim's motor that he had in the car.
Well, he did make the show and pulled away at the start, leading and putting distance on the field until Sanders, who's bold moves on the high side of the track allowed him to move up from his tenth starting spot, allowed him to race past Iverson for the lead. Calvin was able to stay right with Sanders until Rodney worked through heavy lapped traffic and gradually pulled away. Mitch Keeter finished a strong third with Bumper Jones following him as only ten cars finished on the lead lap at the end.
There was a hard crash during this race, by far the worst of the weekend to date, and the cars of Monte Bolton, Tyler Wolff, Royal Jones and Ricardo Olague Jr were all heavily damaged so we may be down a few cars on Sunday.
The X Mod feature saw several of the same cars up front for the second straight night. After a great early battle between Dillon McCowan and Brock Gronwald, it was the "Brockstar" who made the pass to take the lead. three first half race yellows kept the field packed and Josh Cain came up to challenge Gronwald for the lead.
However, Gronwald settled in and gradually began to pull away from Cain as the last eight laps ran off nonstop. Gronwald, known as a "cushion pusher" back in his Minnesota home area, rides the cushion come Hell or high water and on Saturday night it worked as he gradually pulled away for the win. Cain and McCowan would follow him to the checkered.
Not known to many was the fact that Gronwald could easily have made Saturday night's win his second in a row, except for a controversial situation that happened on Friday night. Gronwald was leading the feature on Friday night when he slowed suddenly and then picked the pace back up , but only after dropping back to fourth. As it turns out, a track official spoke into the one way raceceiver calling for a yellow which Gronwald heard and then slowed, only for the track official to rescind the yellow and keep the race going, but by then Gronwald had lost the lead and wasn't able to regain it from Fito Gallardo.
Officials for the second straight night ran off a very quick program. It did start about twenty minutes late due to some extra track prep called for before time trials but then things moved right along and the show itself lasted three hours nearly to the minute with the final checkered at 7:20 pm.
More on the facility at Vado: this track has more security people that are all packing "heat" than any track I've ever been too but they, along with all the other employees , are very friendly and accommodating.
All driveways into the track and roads within the parking lot are paved and the main parking lot looks more like a mall parking lot with fancy stone walls, angled parking and islands. It reminds me much of the parking lot at U.S.A. Raceway in Tucson in that regard. Check off some more boxes.
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Saturday, January 4, 2020
Madden Starts Strong as New WoO Late Model Season Begins
It may only be the first week of the new decade but the racing season has begun in earnest already as the World of Outlaws Late Models started out their 2020 racing season on Friday night, January 3rd at the Vado Speedway Park located on I-10 between Las Cruces New Mexico and El Paso Texas. It was an exciting way to start a new racing season as the venue was a new one for virtually everyone that was on hand to race along with many of the spectators that have evacuated the cold North and will follow the racing for the next few weeks as they migrate over into Arizona for several other series that will be taking place, depending on their tastes in terms of what kind of cars they prefer to watch race.
Along with the Late Models, a full show of USRA sanctioned Modifieds and the local X Mods would also be in action in a swift three class program that would be high balled through to beat the cold temperatures that greeted all on hand as despite it being a beautiful sunny day, once the sun set the thermometers began to bottom out quickly.
The new racing season always kicks off with an extra sense of excitement in the air as many of the teams are sporting new cars and many of the teams are also new themselves with new driver-owner combinations, new types of chassis and high expectations for 2020. New drivers on hand vying for the rookie of the year titles spice things along with the appearance of the Bloomquist Madden duo which certainly are a strong selling point for the WoO tour this year.
Forty two Late Models signed in to race on opening night as Dr. Dave Deetz and Jay Morris opted not to race on Friday night along with Javier Zapien Jr who had some mechanical issues during practice and was also not on the grounds Friday night.
The usual WoO format was in play on this night with qualifying split into two groups with Chris Madden and Brandon Sheppard topping their flights. Four heat races and a pair of B Features set the field for the Late Model thirty lap finale. As usual there were several provisional starters even though the WoO is going to allow only drivers in the top twenty five in points to take a provisional. Boom Briggs, Brent Larson and Blake Spencer were allowed to join while registered rookie contenders Matt Cosner and Kody Evans also took emergency provisional spots but raced for just points and no money.
Drivers would be facing very different track conditions on Friday night than what they saw for practice on Thursday evening. The track on Thursday was smooth and very fast with much traction, likely the result of some cool temperatures and precipitation in the days leading up to this event. While the cars were screaming around the track, apparently there were those that thought the track too fast and their voices were heard, as the conditions were a 180 degree change on Friday night with a track that was black and slick before hot laps were even completed and speeds were over two seconds slower than the previous night. So, those drivers that didn't adapt were left holding the bag and scratching their heads. Unfortunately, during the feature race the marker tires in turns three and four were bumped down lower toward the infield than they should have been and drivers started dragging the desert sand up onto the track, resulting in a tough corner to negotiate and dusting up the crowd quite a bit.
WoO officials exercised their "flex scheduling", changing the order of events and running the Late Model feature first because of the cool evening with a temperature of 35 degrees recorded as I left the facility. The race itself was excellent with a good five car battle for the lead that saw the drivers go thirty laps nonstop and all twenty seven starters take the checkered with six a lap down.
Madden and Ricky Weiss had a good battle for the lead early with them completed several laps side by side while battling for the point. Eventually Madden was able to edge away by several car lengths while Weiss battled with Sheppard for second. When they got into lapped traffic, Scott Bloomquist and Ashton Winger caught them and it was a five car pack racing for the win.
Winger would lose some ground and Mike Marlar would replace him as part of the five cars up front and the lapped traffic continued to cause problems with the leaders having to be very careful as they tried to get by without opening the door for one of their fellow competitors to slip past them.
Madden continued to hold the point and he didn't slip up as the thirty laps flew by and he held off a late charge by Sheppard for the win with Weiss finishing third. It was three Bloomquist cars and two Rockets that showed the way.
Despite slipping back at the end, rookie Winger showed that he will be a force this year and veteran Rick Eckert, driving for Texas' Allen Murray also had a strong run. All in all, it was a good start to the season for the Late Model group.
There were no surprises in the Modified feature. While there was a nice sized field of twenty nine of them on hand, no one had anything for Rodney Sanders, just as was the case for much of the last year or so. Sanders came from seventh to win a heat race and even though he redrew the worst number in the bucket, he made short word of getting to the front.
Using the middle lane of the track while most were hugging the bottom side, Sanders simply drove right by everyone and in only six laps he was the leader of the main. He weathered four quick yellows in the first nine laps for minor spins but once the race ran clean, he simply checked out.
It appeared he ran only hard enough to maintain his distance over Fito Gallardo who worked his way up to second but had to settle for that spot as he wasn't able to challenge Sanders any further. Tyler Wolff, rookie Nick Rivera and track owner Royal Jones completed the top five. j
It was a good night for Gallardo though, as he also topped the X Mod feature. Local drivers, along with traveling USRA and WISSOTA drivers and a few southern Sport Mod drivers made up the twenty two car field that saw a variety of different looking cars compete, including the local X Mods that couldn't even pass the body test for the Modified class yet were allowed to run in this "run what you brung" type of show.
The X Mod feature was a good one with Gallardo and Minnesota driver Brock Gronwald battling all the way for the win. After they had a duel in their heat race, they came right back to fight it out in the main.
Gronwald was the leader until he suddenly slowed on the back chute momentarily and then got back on the gas, but by then he had dropped back to fourth as Gallardo took full advantage to take over the lead. It was a strange occurrence that cost Gronwald heavily.
He battled back to second and was all over Gallardo the rest of the way but just couldn't quite make the passing move on the local veteran whose construction business actually built the track here at Vado. On the last lap Gronwald went for broke but it was not a good choice. He couldn't catch Gallardo but ended up spinning in the final corner and while he did a good job keeping the car going, by the time he got running he had fallen to sixth at the finish.
Local driver Mark Smith finished behind Gallardo with Missouri visitors Clint Johnson and Dillon McCowan being sandwiched by North Dakota's Lucas Rodin at the wire. McCowan did a great job after starting dead last in the field after he was involved in a heat race crash.
The fast paced program finished in under three hours with the final checkered at 10 pm. There were few yellows and in fact, the entire Late Model program was spun off with only a single yellow flag in their seven events!
I did not notice on practice night but they have a fine scoreboard here also so check off another box in the "must have to be a top notch track" inventory. The owners and promoter must also have plenty of "chops" with the local media as no less than two TV stations in the local media market had crews on hand to film and do reports on the races and the entire weekend event. This track does have a vast grandstand so it is a little hard to tell just how many people were on hand but I believe the cold night plus it being a Friday night may have held the crowd down slightly from expectations but we will see what the early starting times do for that the next two days. Other than the races, the top local sports stories are all about Jason Garrett's firing from the Cowgirls.
Along with the Late Models, a full show of USRA sanctioned Modifieds and the local X Mods would also be in action in a swift three class program that would be high balled through to beat the cold temperatures that greeted all on hand as despite it being a beautiful sunny day, once the sun set the thermometers began to bottom out quickly.
The new racing season always kicks off with an extra sense of excitement in the air as many of the teams are sporting new cars and many of the teams are also new themselves with new driver-owner combinations, new types of chassis and high expectations for 2020. New drivers on hand vying for the rookie of the year titles spice things along with the appearance of the Bloomquist Madden duo which certainly are a strong selling point for the WoO tour this year.
Forty two Late Models signed in to race on opening night as Dr. Dave Deetz and Jay Morris opted not to race on Friday night along with Javier Zapien Jr who had some mechanical issues during practice and was also not on the grounds Friday night.
The usual WoO format was in play on this night with qualifying split into two groups with Chris Madden and Brandon Sheppard topping their flights. Four heat races and a pair of B Features set the field for the Late Model thirty lap finale. As usual there were several provisional starters even though the WoO is going to allow only drivers in the top twenty five in points to take a provisional. Boom Briggs, Brent Larson and Blake Spencer were allowed to join while registered rookie contenders Matt Cosner and Kody Evans also took emergency provisional spots but raced for just points and no money.
Drivers would be facing very different track conditions on Friday night than what they saw for practice on Thursday evening. The track on Thursday was smooth and very fast with much traction, likely the result of some cool temperatures and precipitation in the days leading up to this event. While the cars were screaming around the track, apparently there were those that thought the track too fast and their voices were heard, as the conditions were a 180 degree change on Friday night with a track that was black and slick before hot laps were even completed and speeds were over two seconds slower than the previous night. So, those drivers that didn't adapt were left holding the bag and scratching their heads. Unfortunately, during the feature race the marker tires in turns three and four were bumped down lower toward the infield than they should have been and drivers started dragging the desert sand up onto the track, resulting in a tough corner to negotiate and dusting up the crowd quite a bit.
WoO officials exercised their "flex scheduling", changing the order of events and running the Late Model feature first because of the cool evening with a temperature of 35 degrees recorded as I left the facility. The race itself was excellent with a good five car battle for the lead that saw the drivers go thirty laps nonstop and all twenty seven starters take the checkered with six a lap down.
Madden and Ricky Weiss had a good battle for the lead early with them completed several laps side by side while battling for the point. Eventually Madden was able to edge away by several car lengths while Weiss battled with Sheppard for second. When they got into lapped traffic, Scott Bloomquist and Ashton Winger caught them and it was a five car pack racing for the win.
Winger would lose some ground and Mike Marlar would replace him as part of the five cars up front and the lapped traffic continued to cause problems with the leaders having to be very careful as they tried to get by without opening the door for one of their fellow competitors to slip past them.
Madden continued to hold the point and he didn't slip up as the thirty laps flew by and he held off a late charge by Sheppard for the win with Weiss finishing third. It was three Bloomquist cars and two Rockets that showed the way.
Despite slipping back at the end, rookie Winger showed that he will be a force this year and veteran Rick Eckert, driving for Texas' Allen Murray also had a strong run. All in all, it was a good start to the season for the Late Model group.
There were no surprises in the Modified feature. While there was a nice sized field of twenty nine of them on hand, no one had anything for Rodney Sanders, just as was the case for much of the last year or so. Sanders came from seventh to win a heat race and even though he redrew the worst number in the bucket, he made short word of getting to the front.
Using the middle lane of the track while most were hugging the bottom side, Sanders simply drove right by everyone and in only six laps he was the leader of the main. He weathered four quick yellows in the first nine laps for minor spins but once the race ran clean, he simply checked out.
It appeared he ran only hard enough to maintain his distance over Fito Gallardo who worked his way up to second but had to settle for that spot as he wasn't able to challenge Sanders any further. Tyler Wolff, rookie Nick Rivera and track owner Royal Jones completed the top five. j
It was a good night for Gallardo though, as he also topped the X Mod feature. Local drivers, along with traveling USRA and WISSOTA drivers and a few southern Sport Mod drivers made up the twenty two car field that saw a variety of different looking cars compete, including the local X Mods that couldn't even pass the body test for the Modified class yet were allowed to run in this "run what you brung" type of show.
The X Mod feature was a good one with Gallardo and Minnesota driver Brock Gronwald battling all the way for the win. After they had a duel in their heat race, they came right back to fight it out in the main.
Gronwald was the leader until he suddenly slowed on the back chute momentarily and then got back on the gas, but by then he had dropped back to fourth as Gallardo took full advantage to take over the lead. It was a strange occurrence that cost Gronwald heavily.
He battled back to second and was all over Gallardo the rest of the way but just couldn't quite make the passing move on the local veteran whose construction business actually built the track here at Vado. On the last lap Gronwald went for broke but it was not a good choice. He couldn't catch Gallardo but ended up spinning in the final corner and while he did a good job keeping the car going, by the time he got running he had fallen to sixth at the finish.
Local driver Mark Smith finished behind Gallardo with Missouri visitors Clint Johnson and Dillon McCowan being sandwiched by North Dakota's Lucas Rodin at the wire. McCowan did a great job after starting dead last in the field after he was involved in a heat race crash.
The fast paced program finished in under three hours with the final checkered at 10 pm. There were few yellows and in fact, the entire Late Model program was spun off with only a single yellow flag in their seven events!
I did not notice on practice night but they have a fine scoreboard here also so check off another box in the "must have to be a top notch track" inventory. The owners and promoter must also have plenty of "chops" with the local media as no less than two TV stations in the local media market had crews on hand to film and do reports on the races and the entire weekend event. This track does have a vast grandstand so it is a little hard to tell just how many people were on hand but I believe the cold night plus it being a Friday night may have held the crowd down slightly from expectations but we will see what the early starting times do for that the next two days. Other than the races, the top local sports stories are all about Jason Garrett's firing from the Cowgirls.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Vado Practice Starts a New Racing Season
It seems like I barely had time to unpack the car from the final trip of the 2019 racing season when the 2020 season suddenly is ready to start.
But first, a paragraph or two to wrap up the 2019 season. I was able to attend one hundred and sixty four race events in 2019, a nice increase over the rain plagued 2018 season and one that put me back on my average for the last fifteen years or so. Even though there was plenty of rain in 2019 also(in fact, record one year precipitation totals for our local area), I was more fortunate in finding alternate racing programs and not quite so many last minute or at the track rain outs that just kill an evening.
I now have attended at least one hundred nights of racing for thirty nine straight years. However, for the second year in a row I wasn't able to attend any new tracks, a situation that I hope to take care of for 2020 in the next twenty four hours with both a new track and another new state.
I did see racing at fifty eight different tracks in 2019 in fourteen states plus one Canadian Province. With no new tracks to add to the list, I remain at three hundred and eight different tracks attended in twenty nine states and three Canadian Provinces.
But enough of 2019, let's move on to 2020 which I hope will be even better in many regards for all of us. The new event at the Vado Speedway Park starts this weekend with a three night run at this new facility which was just opened up last Summer. A multi million dollar project and the brain child of owner Royal Jones, this facility was well thought out and combines many of the best points of some of the finest race tracks in America.
I was told it was modeled after and has infused some of the ideas of Lucas Oil Speedway, Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway and Knoxville Raceway and when you tour the grounds, you can see some of those tracks reflected in what has been constructed here.
Now granted, I have yet to see a competitive race run here so I'm basing all my observations on a practice night, but it looks to me like a well planned facility with just about all the required check boxes taken care of.
The grandstands appear to have a nice sight line so every seat is a good one, the walkways are wide and well lit. There are multiple concession stand windows and bathrooms on both ends of the track. There is plenty of seating with the grandstands running the full length of the front chute and a lawn chair area also on the bank surrounding the track. The track lighting seems very good with no shadows and the cars can be seen clearly on the back chute. The pa system also seems to be very good. There is only one gate for all traffic, including pit traffic to both enter and leave the grounds, so we'll have to see how smoothly that flows when the parking lots and pits are both full. The spectator parking lot is kind of creative, much like the one at U.S.A. Raceway in Arizona so we will have to see how well that works.
The pit area is spacious and has concrete slabs running the whole length of the track so most of the cars can pit on concrete. Everything appears to have been well thought out in terms of where everything is placed and the track is literary right on I-10 so getting to the track is easy. The only thing probably not appreciated by the drivers of the big toters is that there is a double round a bout that has to be navigated to get back on the freeway and that was a bit interesting the first time I tried that. I did manage, however, to get on the freeway and going in the right direction thankfully.
Something that must be in great supply around here is razor wire and literally, every fence line on the property, and trust me, that is a lot of fence, is topped with razor wire. I haven't seen that much razor wire since my last visit to the state penitentiary. Folks in this area are certainly lucky to have had someone spend the kind of money that Royal did on this track to make it so fine. Heck, most tracks unfortunately consider it a major revamp if they throw a can of paint at the bleachers.
The track itself is very wide with medium banking. I believe they call it a three eighth mile but it looks a little bit less than that to me. For practice night it was quite tacky and the cars seemed to be flying around the track, once some of them got the push out of their cars as many were running a tight condition early. Tomorrow with a full program we will see just how well it races.
Practice for the World of Outlaw Late Models saw forty two of them take to the track in sessions of four to six cars. The track was smooth right from the get-go and no more than just a few laps to roll it in were required before the cars were able to go full speed. I believe Brandon Sheppard and Scott Bloomquist led the speed charts at the end of the night although there were about a dozen cars that weren't being recorded by the transponders so it's a little hard to tell just how fast everyone was.
Three full programs await the Late Model drivers as a new point season unrolls with plenty of new race cars, new sponsors and new looks for many of the teams. With this major event coming this early in the season and one that likely will be huge success, we have now managed to make the race season nearly around the calendar with just Christmas to interrupt the action.
The open wheel cars are the support classes this weekend with both USRA Mods and X Mods to be in action all three nights too. Between the two classes, there were about thirty of them practicing on Thursday and it was just a bit impossible to give a complete breakdown by class because many of the drivers were unfamiliar to me and nearly impossible to determine for some just which class they were racing in with just a cursory look.
I thought that the B Mods were to be USRA sanctioned but that is clearly not the case as the local X Mods are running big spoilers and there are a few IMCA Sport Mods all in action so we have ourselves a conglomeration or X Mods for simplicity sake. Without transponders working, it was tough to tell just who was turning in the best laps but it appeared that Rodney Sanders and Modified rookie Calvin Iverson were among the quick Mods while no one really stood out in the X Mods. This track has solid fields of these two classes on a regular basis and I would expect that many more will be in the pits as the weekend filters on.
Stay tuned tomorrow as we drop the first green flag to officially start the 2020 racing season.
But first, a paragraph or two to wrap up the 2019 season. I was able to attend one hundred and sixty four race events in 2019, a nice increase over the rain plagued 2018 season and one that put me back on my average for the last fifteen years or so. Even though there was plenty of rain in 2019 also(in fact, record one year precipitation totals for our local area), I was more fortunate in finding alternate racing programs and not quite so many last minute or at the track rain outs that just kill an evening.
I now have attended at least one hundred nights of racing for thirty nine straight years. However, for the second year in a row I wasn't able to attend any new tracks, a situation that I hope to take care of for 2020 in the next twenty four hours with both a new track and another new state.
I did see racing at fifty eight different tracks in 2019 in fourteen states plus one Canadian Province. With no new tracks to add to the list, I remain at three hundred and eight different tracks attended in twenty nine states and three Canadian Provinces.
But enough of 2019, let's move on to 2020 which I hope will be even better in many regards for all of us. The new event at the Vado Speedway Park starts this weekend with a three night run at this new facility which was just opened up last Summer. A multi million dollar project and the brain child of owner Royal Jones, this facility was well thought out and combines many of the best points of some of the finest race tracks in America.
I was told it was modeled after and has infused some of the ideas of Lucas Oil Speedway, Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway and Knoxville Raceway and when you tour the grounds, you can see some of those tracks reflected in what has been constructed here.
Now granted, I have yet to see a competitive race run here so I'm basing all my observations on a practice night, but it looks to me like a well planned facility with just about all the required check boxes taken care of.
The grandstands appear to have a nice sight line so every seat is a good one, the walkways are wide and well lit. There are multiple concession stand windows and bathrooms on both ends of the track. There is plenty of seating with the grandstands running the full length of the front chute and a lawn chair area also on the bank surrounding the track. The track lighting seems very good with no shadows and the cars can be seen clearly on the back chute. The pa system also seems to be very good. There is only one gate for all traffic, including pit traffic to both enter and leave the grounds, so we'll have to see how smoothly that flows when the parking lots and pits are both full. The spectator parking lot is kind of creative, much like the one at U.S.A. Raceway in Arizona so we will have to see how well that works.
The pit area is spacious and has concrete slabs running the whole length of the track so most of the cars can pit on concrete. Everything appears to have been well thought out in terms of where everything is placed and the track is literary right on I-10 so getting to the track is easy. The only thing probably not appreciated by the drivers of the big toters is that there is a double round a bout that has to be navigated to get back on the freeway and that was a bit interesting the first time I tried that. I did manage, however, to get on the freeway and going in the right direction thankfully.
Something that must be in great supply around here is razor wire and literally, every fence line on the property, and trust me, that is a lot of fence, is topped with razor wire. I haven't seen that much razor wire since my last visit to the state penitentiary. Folks in this area are certainly lucky to have had someone spend the kind of money that Royal did on this track to make it so fine. Heck, most tracks unfortunately consider it a major revamp if they throw a can of paint at the bleachers.
The track itself is very wide with medium banking. I believe they call it a three eighth mile but it looks a little bit less than that to me. For practice night it was quite tacky and the cars seemed to be flying around the track, once some of them got the push out of their cars as many were running a tight condition early. Tomorrow with a full program we will see just how well it races.
Practice for the World of Outlaw Late Models saw forty two of them take to the track in sessions of four to six cars. The track was smooth right from the get-go and no more than just a few laps to roll it in were required before the cars were able to go full speed. I believe Brandon Sheppard and Scott Bloomquist led the speed charts at the end of the night although there were about a dozen cars that weren't being recorded by the transponders so it's a little hard to tell just how fast everyone was.
Three full programs await the Late Model drivers as a new point season unrolls with plenty of new race cars, new sponsors and new looks for many of the teams. With this major event coming this early in the season and one that likely will be huge success, we have now managed to make the race season nearly around the calendar with just Christmas to interrupt the action.
The open wheel cars are the support classes this weekend with both USRA Mods and X Mods to be in action all three nights too. Between the two classes, there were about thirty of them practicing on Thursday and it was just a bit impossible to give a complete breakdown by class because many of the drivers were unfamiliar to me and nearly impossible to determine for some just which class they were racing in with just a cursory look.
I thought that the B Mods were to be USRA sanctioned but that is clearly not the case as the local X Mods are running big spoilers and there are a few IMCA Sport Mods all in action so we have ourselves a conglomeration or X Mods for simplicity sake. Without transponders working, it was tough to tell just who was turning in the best laps but it appeared that Rodney Sanders and Modified rookie Calvin Iverson were among the quick Mods while no one really stood out in the X Mods. This track has solid fields of these two classes on a regular basis and I would expect that many more will be in the pits as the weekend filters on.
Stay tuned tomorrow as we drop the first green flag to officially start the 2020 racing season.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Carpenter, Larson and Losh Top The Madness at Gateway
Every year it seems like there can be no way that the Arizona Sport Shirts Gateway Nationals can top the previous year. And then they drop the green flag, the barking hounds are released and the madness starts. After three nights of chaos, Tyler Carpenter, Kyle Larson and Derek Losh stood on the smoldering ruins of their race cars to accept the awards as winners of the three feature races that were run in front of a huge and raucous crowd of dirt track fans.
This is really not racing in what you might imagine as the normal sense. It's more like racing fighter planes inside a gymnasium. A gymnasium that is filled with dust, ruts, race car parts sheared off and "whoop de doos" that seem to shift position around the track from lap to lap. But one thing is definitely is not, and that is boring or predictable. It seems like this track is the great equalizer and all weekend we have seen local and regional favorites racing elbow to elbow with the biggest names in the sport, and often coming out as the victors. And all this just adds to the infinite uniqueness of this event.
Granted, this race does have its share of warts. The track is incredibly rough, the down time is long and tedious, everything from parking to concessions is over priced, the air inside the area is not the best and the dust was flying in copious amounts on Saturday night and it is a very spendy weekend for all that attend. But all it takes is to watch one of three main events and all those things are just mere inconveniences not worth mentioning. In fact, mere words can not do justice to describe the action that took place on the track during those three races and I would suggest that anyone that didn't see the race either live or on video, get a hold of a replay and prepare to watch something that just isn't fairly describable with mere words.
Last Chance races started at 3 pm as event organizers wisely decided to only hot lap those drivers that were already in the main event and by 7 pm we were ready for the big shows.
The "lights out" driver introductions and indoor fireworks were spectacular as usual, all leading up to the three main events. The Late Models were first and Tyler Carpenter, live and direct and full of spunk from the mountains of West Virginia, held off the challenges of several drivers to win the forty lap main event. Incredibly, with all that was happening on the track, the yellow flag waved only twice during the Late Model main.
Shannon Babb, Ryan Unzicker, Tanner English and Brandon Sheppard all had legitimate chances to win the race but all sorts of issues plagued them and Carpenter was able to hold off the last lap charge by Sheppard to get the win by a fender length. Only eight of the twenty starters were still on the track at the end and everyone was showing some sort of damage.
Larson was the class of the Midget field and after coming from fifth to take over the lead, he held off challenges to take the win. This race were smoothly for the first half of the distance and then was plagued by yellow flags thereafter including two reds for flipping cars. However, Larson was head and shoulder over everyone else and only bad luck or mechanical failure could stop him. Neither happened and he took the win over Chris Windom and Tyler Courtney. The Midget feature was the only one of three where at least half the starting field was still on the track at the finish.
The Modified feature came right down to the wire also. In fact, a last corner pass by Losh saw him sneak under Kyle Bronson for the ten grand win. Bronson had been holding off the challenges of Losh for the last half of the race but on the final corner Kyle hooked a big rut, went skittering out to the wall and Losh was able to drive under him for the spectacular win. Most of the crowd stuck around to watch the Mods and they went wild at the unexpected finish.
There is no doubt that this race is truly one of a kind and not able to be duplicated anywhere else currently. I don't know if it's because it is the last race of the year or if it is the unique atmosphere or the fact that it is on TV live or what, but all the drivers seem to address this event slightly different than they do the rest of the year. They take chances here that they wouldn't do at other places and the whole event feels more like "Monster Jam" than a dirt track race. We were even "treated" to some WWF type antics on track and while at most events what happened would resulted in a DQ for the night, at this race instead they give the chief combatant a provisional to start the feature! It is as much show as it is go and perhaps that is part of the secret of its success.
Dates are already set for the next two years of this race with next year's coming close to Christmas again while the 2021 race will be earlier in the month of December.
The one thing that I keep having trouble wrapping my head around is that while many in the field in all three classes go home with wrecked equipment, they still are right at the head of the list the following year to get on the entry list. I keep thinking that eventually drivers and teams are going to get tired of wrecking their stuff year after year but I guess as long as there are some that want to take the risk, there are a very large group of spectators salivating at the thought of watching them tear into each other on the track.
My next reports after the first of the new year should be from Vado Speedway Park for the World of Outlaws Late Models Battle at the Border at this new facility, IMCA TV Winternationals at Cocopah Speedway and the Wild West Shootout at FK Rod Ends Arizona Speedway.
This is really not racing in what you might imagine as the normal sense. It's more like racing fighter planes inside a gymnasium. A gymnasium that is filled with dust, ruts, race car parts sheared off and "whoop de doos" that seem to shift position around the track from lap to lap. But one thing is definitely is not, and that is boring or predictable. It seems like this track is the great equalizer and all weekend we have seen local and regional favorites racing elbow to elbow with the biggest names in the sport, and often coming out as the victors. And all this just adds to the infinite uniqueness of this event.
Granted, this race does have its share of warts. The track is incredibly rough, the down time is long and tedious, everything from parking to concessions is over priced, the air inside the area is not the best and the dust was flying in copious amounts on Saturday night and it is a very spendy weekend for all that attend. But all it takes is to watch one of three main events and all those things are just mere inconveniences not worth mentioning. In fact, mere words can not do justice to describe the action that took place on the track during those three races and I would suggest that anyone that didn't see the race either live or on video, get a hold of a replay and prepare to watch something that just isn't fairly describable with mere words.
Last Chance races started at 3 pm as event organizers wisely decided to only hot lap those drivers that were already in the main event and by 7 pm we were ready for the big shows.
The "lights out" driver introductions and indoor fireworks were spectacular as usual, all leading up to the three main events. The Late Models were first and Tyler Carpenter, live and direct and full of spunk from the mountains of West Virginia, held off the challenges of several drivers to win the forty lap main event. Incredibly, with all that was happening on the track, the yellow flag waved only twice during the Late Model main.
Shannon Babb, Ryan Unzicker, Tanner English and Brandon Sheppard all had legitimate chances to win the race but all sorts of issues plagued them and Carpenter was able to hold off the last lap charge by Sheppard to get the win by a fender length. Only eight of the twenty starters were still on the track at the end and everyone was showing some sort of damage.
Larson was the class of the Midget field and after coming from fifth to take over the lead, he held off challenges to take the win. This race were smoothly for the first half of the distance and then was plagued by yellow flags thereafter including two reds for flipping cars. However, Larson was head and shoulder over everyone else and only bad luck or mechanical failure could stop him. Neither happened and he took the win over Chris Windom and Tyler Courtney. The Midget feature was the only one of three where at least half the starting field was still on the track at the finish.
The Modified feature came right down to the wire also. In fact, a last corner pass by Losh saw him sneak under Kyle Bronson for the ten grand win. Bronson had been holding off the challenges of Losh for the last half of the race but on the final corner Kyle hooked a big rut, went skittering out to the wall and Losh was able to drive under him for the spectacular win. Most of the crowd stuck around to watch the Mods and they went wild at the unexpected finish.
There is no doubt that this race is truly one of a kind and not able to be duplicated anywhere else currently. I don't know if it's because it is the last race of the year or if it is the unique atmosphere or the fact that it is on TV live or what, but all the drivers seem to address this event slightly different than they do the rest of the year. They take chances here that they wouldn't do at other places and the whole event feels more like "Monster Jam" than a dirt track race. We were even "treated" to some WWF type antics on track and while at most events what happened would resulted in a DQ for the night, at this race instead they give the chief combatant a provisional to start the feature! It is as much show as it is go and perhaps that is part of the secret of its success.
Dates are already set for the next two years of this race with next year's coming close to Christmas again while the 2021 race will be earlier in the month of December.
The one thing that I keep having trouble wrapping my head around is that while many in the field in all three classes go home with wrecked equipment, they still are right at the head of the list the following year to get on the entry list. I keep thinking that eventually drivers and teams are going to get tired of wrecking their stuff year after year but I guess as long as there are some that want to take the risk, there are a very large group of spectators salivating at the thought of watching them tear into each other on the track.
My next reports after the first of the new year should be from Vado Speedway Park for the World of Outlaws Late Models Battle at the Border at this new facility, IMCA TV Winternationals at Cocopah Speedway and the Wild West Shootout at FK Rod Ends Arizona Speedway.
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Harrison, Larson, T. Carpenter and Babb Second Night Dome Winners
Action at the Gateway Dirt Nationals Continued on Friday night, December 20th with all three classes in action once again. The second half of the invited Midget and Modified fields ran their qualifying events leading up to one feature in each class while the Late Models finally got on track for some racing action themselves. The field for them was split in half with double feature races qualifying a pair of three driver entries into Saturday night's finale.
With much more racing on tap for Friday night, the suspicion was that it was going to be a long night and unfortunately, those fears were not only accurate, the end result was even worse than most would have imaged. With fierce racing action that produced an almost incalculable number of yellows and wrecks, poor track conditions that led to more track prep periods than I would have the energy to keep track of, damage to the catch fence and wall from accidents that required three long breaks for repairs, some poor driving decisions by racers and some poor choices made by management and the sum total was two calendar days of racing for the price of one! This however, was not the type of racing bargain that most were looking for.
Here is the unvarnished truth. As long as they are going to try to make a racing surface out of the material that they are currently using, I believe they never are going to produce a surface that is worthy of racing on. I don't care how many experts they bring in to prepare the track and how much they pack, blade, scrape, feather, cut and pound on it, this "beach sand" they are using is never going to compact into anything worth racing on. No matter what they do to it, and no matter how they try to improve it, it just rolls right back up into waves of loose material that digs holes and doesn't smooth out. They keep trying to fill in the holes with loose material they scrape off the track, and that just digs right back out and forms new holes. And the most maddening thing is that we have seen literally hours of track packing going on that is negated in a couple laps, thus wasting all our time and not helping track conditions by one iota. They might as well just give in to the inevitable, throw a little water on the track to keep the dust down and let the drivers bounce through the holes because all the wasted time on track prep is just that, time wasted that we could have been done with the shows in hours less time.
Even the announcers have given up trying to "sugar coat" the truth as they halfway through the evening stopped referring to the track as "challenging" and one that the track prep crew could and would fix and they just went to describing the track as "rough."
And it's a car killer. The amount of damage done on Friday night to cars in all three classes was just staggering with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of equipment being wrecked. But the racing was spectacular in all three classes too. Somewhere there needs to be a happy medium to where the racing can still be good but doesn't cause so much damage to the race cars. Somehow they need to get their hands on some real clay and let Kevin Gundaker and his crew have something that they can really work on rather than playing with the sand they currently have.
Apparently the Modifieds have been declared to be the "bad guys." It has been determined that they were the worst offenders at tearing up the track so for Friday night, the whole program for the other two classes was completed before they were even allowed to hit the track for time trials which were followed up by their three heats and main event. However, based on the number of yellows across the board and the track conditions which didn't seem any different whether or not the Modifieds had been out earlier in the evening or not, that theory didn't seem to hold water either. And they got to run their program in the wee hours of the morning with most of the crowd having vacated the building on a night that got so late I literally saw adults sleeping in their seats from track prep boredom and the lateness of the hour.
The drivers didn't help the situation either. Apparently there is a group that comes to this race with the notion that actually slowing down for the corners would be a sign of weakness. So, they "flatfoot" the accelerator from the moment the green flag drops and don't slow for anything or anyone. The results is a demo derby on wheels with many of the cars looking much the worse for the wear.
It was a "perfect storm" also in terms of what could go wrong to slow the program with three different wrecks that saw cars get into and tear down the wheel fence which necessitated long delays to replace fence and posts. The repair crew did an amazing job of fixing what the drivers did as fast as possible but it does take time to replace the posts and put fence back up and we had to suffer three times when that happened.
Management made a poor choice in terms of moving the show along when they allowed all eighty plus of the Late Models to hot lap again on Friday after all were allowed to do so on Thursday night too. All other classes got only one shot at hot laps so I don't understand why the Late Models had to go through a second tedious set of hot laps that only did more damage to the track. Worst of all, instead of starting at 3 pm it was two hours later than that before the first race took the green. That was two hours they desperately could have used later. It was disappointing that such a crack management team would make such decisions, particularly when they have been preaching all week about getting the show done early so that all the spectators can spend their money in downtown St. Louis when by the time the races have been completed, there is no place open still to spend money in.
As far as the racing itself, it was spectacular with all three classes putting on a great show. However, only one driver can walk away from this weekend with the big check, and with all the damage inflicted on so many cars, one wonders when the "light bulb" will come on and some of these racers will stay home and save on their equipment. It appears that has already happened in the Mods and Midgets with neither class filling out their invited field fully.
Drama started early when the first Late Model heat was stacked and the unexpected occurred, with Scott Bloomquist going up in smoke on the green after he and Freddie Carpenter spent time trying to "one up" each other on the opening green. Reportedly, "Bloomer's" problem stemmed from someone not putting oil in the engine while Carpenter was out shortly after when he lost a driveshaft after being quick qualifier for group A. So they ran off two spectacular heats and then the track equipment came out to try and fiddle with the surface and made something out of it. Thus the pattern of the night was set. Race a little and then watch track prep for what extended into hours.
Freddie's son Tyler was one of the "talking points" of the night. First he engaged in a wild slide job contest with Tanner English in his heat, following by an "F Bomb" interview that fired up the crowd but seemed not very appropriate. Then, in the first Late Model feature he came from third to pass Illinois' drivers Mike Spatola and Ryan Unzicker to take a thrilling win. This was followed by a lengthy rambling interview that included more profanity and branded Carpenter to what he is, a true West Virginia "hillbilly" who can also wheel a race car spectacularly and sometimes also successfully.
Shannon Babb was slightly more restrained but still excited when he won the second feature race for the Late Models by passing Patrik Daniel who most people were flipping through their program to find out just who this was that was beating the indoor expert in Babb. Babb's win was not unexpected but a bit of a surprise in that he got beat initially by Daniel and had to work very hard to make the winning pass.
As was the case on Thursday night, the Midgets had just two heats and a feature race. Kyle Larson showed much strength as he made the winning pass on Michael Pickens and then pulled away. Truthfully, the Midgets are able to negotiate the choppy conditions much better than the other two classes and don't seem to tear up near as much equipment. Young Cannon McIntosh charged up at the end to take second and will be a serious contender for Saturday night honors.
With a largely empty building left for the Modifieds after a very good crowd was on hand earlier, Mike Harrison bounced his way to the win after starting on the pole and fighting off Kyle Bronson. Bronson and Michael Long had a good battle for second and despite Bronson's car pumping out much water in the late going, he was able to hand of for third before a cloud of steam erupted on the slow down lap. Kevin Wallace also ventilated a motor during this race as many cars were running hot due to all the dust plugging up the radiators.
The final checkered flag flew at 1:48 am on Saturday morning. Yikes! As I say, there was much positive to say about tonight's racing but also many things that did go wrong with some that need to be corrected and some that should have been foreseen but apparently overlooked. Saturday's program is promised to begin with racing at 3 pm for the Last Chance races so we will see how this all plays out.
With much more racing on tap for Friday night, the suspicion was that it was going to be a long night and unfortunately, those fears were not only accurate, the end result was even worse than most would have imaged. With fierce racing action that produced an almost incalculable number of yellows and wrecks, poor track conditions that led to more track prep periods than I would have the energy to keep track of, damage to the catch fence and wall from accidents that required three long breaks for repairs, some poor driving decisions by racers and some poor choices made by management and the sum total was two calendar days of racing for the price of one! This however, was not the type of racing bargain that most were looking for.
Here is the unvarnished truth. As long as they are going to try to make a racing surface out of the material that they are currently using, I believe they never are going to produce a surface that is worthy of racing on. I don't care how many experts they bring in to prepare the track and how much they pack, blade, scrape, feather, cut and pound on it, this "beach sand" they are using is never going to compact into anything worth racing on. No matter what they do to it, and no matter how they try to improve it, it just rolls right back up into waves of loose material that digs holes and doesn't smooth out. They keep trying to fill in the holes with loose material they scrape off the track, and that just digs right back out and forms new holes. And the most maddening thing is that we have seen literally hours of track packing going on that is negated in a couple laps, thus wasting all our time and not helping track conditions by one iota. They might as well just give in to the inevitable, throw a little water on the track to keep the dust down and let the drivers bounce through the holes because all the wasted time on track prep is just that, time wasted that we could have been done with the shows in hours less time.
Even the announcers have given up trying to "sugar coat" the truth as they halfway through the evening stopped referring to the track as "challenging" and one that the track prep crew could and would fix and they just went to describing the track as "rough."
And it's a car killer. The amount of damage done on Friday night to cars in all three classes was just staggering with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of equipment being wrecked. But the racing was spectacular in all three classes too. Somewhere there needs to be a happy medium to where the racing can still be good but doesn't cause so much damage to the race cars. Somehow they need to get their hands on some real clay and let Kevin Gundaker and his crew have something that they can really work on rather than playing with the sand they currently have.
Apparently the Modifieds have been declared to be the "bad guys." It has been determined that they were the worst offenders at tearing up the track so for Friday night, the whole program for the other two classes was completed before they were even allowed to hit the track for time trials which were followed up by their three heats and main event. However, based on the number of yellows across the board and the track conditions which didn't seem any different whether or not the Modifieds had been out earlier in the evening or not, that theory didn't seem to hold water either. And they got to run their program in the wee hours of the morning with most of the crowd having vacated the building on a night that got so late I literally saw adults sleeping in their seats from track prep boredom and the lateness of the hour.
The drivers didn't help the situation either. Apparently there is a group that comes to this race with the notion that actually slowing down for the corners would be a sign of weakness. So, they "flatfoot" the accelerator from the moment the green flag drops and don't slow for anything or anyone. The results is a demo derby on wheels with many of the cars looking much the worse for the wear.
It was a "perfect storm" also in terms of what could go wrong to slow the program with three different wrecks that saw cars get into and tear down the wheel fence which necessitated long delays to replace fence and posts. The repair crew did an amazing job of fixing what the drivers did as fast as possible but it does take time to replace the posts and put fence back up and we had to suffer three times when that happened.
Management made a poor choice in terms of moving the show along when they allowed all eighty plus of the Late Models to hot lap again on Friday after all were allowed to do so on Thursday night too. All other classes got only one shot at hot laps so I don't understand why the Late Models had to go through a second tedious set of hot laps that only did more damage to the track. Worst of all, instead of starting at 3 pm it was two hours later than that before the first race took the green. That was two hours they desperately could have used later. It was disappointing that such a crack management team would make such decisions, particularly when they have been preaching all week about getting the show done early so that all the spectators can spend their money in downtown St. Louis when by the time the races have been completed, there is no place open still to spend money in.
As far as the racing itself, it was spectacular with all three classes putting on a great show. However, only one driver can walk away from this weekend with the big check, and with all the damage inflicted on so many cars, one wonders when the "light bulb" will come on and some of these racers will stay home and save on their equipment. It appears that has already happened in the Mods and Midgets with neither class filling out their invited field fully.
Drama started early when the first Late Model heat was stacked and the unexpected occurred, with Scott Bloomquist going up in smoke on the green after he and Freddie Carpenter spent time trying to "one up" each other on the opening green. Reportedly, "Bloomer's" problem stemmed from someone not putting oil in the engine while Carpenter was out shortly after when he lost a driveshaft after being quick qualifier for group A. So they ran off two spectacular heats and then the track equipment came out to try and fiddle with the surface and made something out of it. Thus the pattern of the night was set. Race a little and then watch track prep for what extended into hours.
Freddie's son Tyler was one of the "talking points" of the night. First he engaged in a wild slide job contest with Tanner English in his heat, following by an "F Bomb" interview that fired up the crowd but seemed not very appropriate. Then, in the first Late Model feature he came from third to pass Illinois' drivers Mike Spatola and Ryan Unzicker to take a thrilling win. This was followed by a lengthy rambling interview that included more profanity and branded Carpenter to what he is, a true West Virginia "hillbilly" who can also wheel a race car spectacularly and sometimes also successfully.
Shannon Babb was slightly more restrained but still excited when he won the second feature race for the Late Models by passing Patrik Daniel who most people were flipping through their program to find out just who this was that was beating the indoor expert in Babb. Babb's win was not unexpected but a bit of a surprise in that he got beat initially by Daniel and had to work very hard to make the winning pass.
As was the case on Thursday night, the Midgets had just two heats and a feature race. Kyle Larson showed much strength as he made the winning pass on Michael Pickens and then pulled away. Truthfully, the Midgets are able to negotiate the choppy conditions much better than the other two classes and don't seem to tear up near as much equipment. Young Cannon McIntosh charged up at the end to take second and will be a serious contender for Saturday night honors.
With a largely empty building left for the Modifieds after a very good crowd was on hand earlier, Mike Harrison bounced his way to the win after starting on the pole and fighting off Kyle Bronson. Bronson and Michael Long had a good battle for second and despite Bronson's car pumping out much water in the late going, he was able to hand of for third before a cloud of steam erupted on the slow down lap. Kevin Wallace also ventilated a motor during this race as many cars were running hot due to all the dust plugging up the radiators.
The final checkered flag flew at 1:48 am on Saturday morning. Yikes! As I say, there was much positive to say about tonight's racing but also many things that did go wrong with some that need to be corrected and some that should have been foreseen but apparently overlooked. Saturday's program is promised to begin with racing at 3 pm for the Last Chance races so we will see how this all plays out.
Friday, December 20, 2019
Kissinger and Meseraull Top Gateway Dirt Opener
The fourth annual Gateway Dirt Nationals presented by Arizona Sport Shirts kicked of its three night run on Thursday night, December 19th at the Dome at America's Center in St. Louis Missouri. For the first time, there was snow on the ground for this event, the result of a snow storm that crossed the Midwest earlier this week, but everything was cleared away and all was in readiness for the racers and fans by Thursday when the action started.
Once again this year, three classes of cars would be racing in the Dome with the Late Models the highlight division with all entrants being allowed to race up to one hundred and fifty cars. And again this year, they did not come close to that number with eighty six actually on hand and two of those never made it to the track. Actually, the car count in the Late Models was the lowest it has been for the four years of this race.
For the second year, Modifieds and Midgets also raced but their format was changed up a bit this year. Those receiving invitations and accepting were then divided into two groups with half the car qualifying and racing their preliminary show on this night and the other half running on Friday night. Then everyone comes back on Saturday night for the big finale with everyone getting one last shot to make the "show." The numbers in these two classes were down this year with the Midget count being particularly low. There were only twenty five Mods and nineteen Midgets on hand on Thursday with the number expected to be similar on Friday night. Perhaps this might be a good time to step back and maybe reduce the number of classes to two for next year and perhaps maybe finally be able to maintain their posted schedule of events. It appears that the Midgets don't want to race so close to the upcoming Chili Bowl for fear of tearing up their cars or perhaps they just don't want to allocate a week for this event and then soon after have to spend another week in Tulsa. In any event, lesser just might be better in terms of number of cars racing here in St. Louis.
The track looked a little bit different this year. There is an inside wall in the corners instead of those insufferable tires that caused many of the yellow flags last year and tore up a bunch of equipment. Opening night action seemed to bear out the fact that the wall works much better, keeping people out of the infield without causing all the damage that the tires inflicted last year.
The track has been banked a bit more this year and in a different manner, as track officials seek to widen out the racing groove and move the cars up the track more. The inside line is quite flat for the first car length and then the banking increases as you move higher on the track. With just time trials for the Late Models, we will have to wait until Friday night to see if the track races any different than it did before. I would have to say that I didn't notice any large difference in the way that the Mods and Midgets raced the track than last year, but we will see.
The same issues of the rough track continued as it seems that it is almost impossible to build a track indoors in a week and then expect it to stay smooth and bump free. And I think that the heavier Late Models and Mods make this problem even worse than if it were to be a Midget only track such as in Tulsa. Some of the drivers made the point that with the banking being higher, track speeds are actually faster than last year so the cars hit the corners even faster and tend to dig in even harder which leads to the higher likelihood of bumping around and getting airborne.
Another good point made by the announcers was the fact that the dirt used here is the same as the dirt used for Motocross and other arena events and is much sandier than that of many racing surfaces, including Tulsa's indoor dirt. The stuff doesn't want to pack in very well and doesn't seem to bind well either and while the bike racers want the surface to rut up, just the opposite is the desire here. But it is what it is and while the track prep crew will work their hardest to get it better, anyone entering this event should have been aware just what kind of race surface they would be dealing with. And it is hard on the cars, as they tear up a lot of equipment for sure, but again that is part of the understanding of entering this event. And for sure, the track prep and this race surface is probably the most analysed of any all year, to the point of nausea.
Time trials were first on the card and this did provide some surprises with a number of what I would call surprise drivers that ranked among the quickest of the entire night. But the most dramatic moment of this event was when Shannon Babb came out as the last car of the eighty four that would qualify and he set fast time by over a tenth of a second over the entire field. The crowd went wild as they should have as it was quite a stunning moment but given Babb's expertise on "bullrings", something that perhaps should have been expected. An amusing moment saw Billy Moyer manage to snag some of the advertising banners against the outside wall with his spoiler when he clipped the wall during his qualifying effort and a stretch of about two hundred feet of banner followed him down the track before finally becoming disengaged. Moyer did have a very fast lap and interestingly, was driving a Capital chassis this weekend.
So, after time trials, the Late Models were done for the night with their heats, B Features and qualifying feature races taking place on Friday night.
The Midgets then qualified and were then directly followed by their heats and their feature as their entire program was run off next. My guess was that they wanted to get this class done while the track was as smooth as it would be. However, this dragged things out some as there needed to be time after qualifying to set the lineups and then a few minutes for the feature to be formed after heats. The Midget field was so small that no B Feature was needed and will likely be the same on Friday.
However, the Midget feature race was by far the best event of the night. It was dry and slick on the inside lane but had some bite up a lane so it was perfect for throwing "side jobs" and we saw a number of those in the main event. Justin Grant led for most of the race but Thomas Meseraull moved into second and on the last two laps, they exchanged the lead twice each lap as they dive bomber each other in the corners. On the final corner, Grant dove in low to take the lead but when he slid up the track, Meseraull was right there to cut under him and beat him to the line in a race that was appreciated by the fans. There were three quick yellow flags that included two roll overs but the lat fifteen laps went nonstop and provided the kind of action that the fans were waiting for.
The Mods then qualified after both the other two classes were done for the night and then they raced their program, but the same kind of breaks were necessary with only the one class left. As it was, teams were terribly rushed to get back to the track following heats for the B, and the same for the main following the B Feature.
The Modified feature saw Josh Harris lead for the first half of the race before Levi Kissinger took advantage of a restart to blast past him and take over the top spot. Harris was slowed by a deflating tire and Derek Losh made a charge that saw him challenge Kissinger at the end for the win.
The Mod feature was a pretty good race also with only three yellows and all came in the first half of the race. A surprise saw Bobby Pierce, pressing for the lead, make a mistake on a restart and tip over in turn one which ended his event. There were five roll overs during the night which was more than I would have expected including a couple in the Mods. There were also plenty of torn up race cars in all three classes but that is the norm in this type of racing.
It was a very long day of racing with the first on track activity starting at 3 pm and the final checkered waving toward the Midnight hour. The first actual racing took place about forty five minutes later than scheduled and we actually saw only eight real races all night as hot laps and qualifying does take a long, long time. This was a night for the hard core race fan only as we saw more of the track prep equipment on the racing surface by far than any race cars. But in their defense, they are just trying to make the racing surface as good as possible and the coming two nights will be telling as to whether or not their efforts prove fruitful.
Once again this year, three classes of cars would be racing in the Dome with the Late Models the highlight division with all entrants being allowed to race up to one hundred and fifty cars. And again this year, they did not come close to that number with eighty six actually on hand and two of those never made it to the track. Actually, the car count in the Late Models was the lowest it has been for the four years of this race.
For the second year, Modifieds and Midgets also raced but their format was changed up a bit this year. Those receiving invitations and accepting were then divided into two groups with half the car qualifying and racing their preliminary show on this night and the other half running on Friday night. Then everyone comes back on Saturday night for the big finale with everyone getting one last shot to make the "show." The numbers in these two classes were down this year with the Midget count being particularly low. There were only twenty five Mods and nineteen Midgets on hand on Thursday with the number expected to be similar on Friday night. Perhaps this might be a good time to step back and maybe reduce the number of classes to two for next year and perhaps maybe finally be able to maintain their posted schedule of events. It appears that the Midgets don't want to race so close to the upcoming Chili Bowl for fear of tearing up their cars or perhaps they just don't want to allocate a week for this event and then soon after have to spend another week in Tulsa. In any event, lesser just might be better in terms of number of cars racing here in St. Louis.
The track looked a little bit different this year. There is an inside wall in the corners instead of those insufferable tires that caused many of the yellow flags last year and tore up a bunch of equipment. Opening night action seemed to bear out the fact that the wall works much better, keeping people out of the infield without causing all the damage that the tires inflicted last year.
The track has been banked a bit more this year and in a different manner, as track officials seek to widen out the racing groove and move the cars up the track more. The inside line is quite flat for the first car length and then the banking increases as you move higher on the track. With just time trials for the Late Models, we will have to wait until Friday night to see if the track races any different than it did before. I would have to say that I didn't notice any large difference in the way that the Mods and Midgets raced the track than last year, but we will see.
The same issues of the rough track continued as it seems that it is almost impossible to build a track indoors in a week and then expect it to stay smooth and bump free. And I think that the heavier Late Models and Mods make this problem even worse than if it were to be a Midget only track such as in Tulsa. Some of the drivers made the point that with the banking being higher, track speeds are actually faster than last year so the cars hit the corners even faster and tend to dig in even harder which leads to the higher likelihood of bumping around and getting airborne.
Another good point made by the announcers was the fact that the dirt used here is the same as the dirt used for Motocross and other arena events and is much sandier than that of many racing surfaces, including Tulsa's indoor dirt. The stuff doesn't want to pack in very well and doesn't seem to bind well either and while the bike racers want the surface to rut up, just the opposite is the desire here. But it is what it is and while the track prep crew will work their hardest to get it better, anyone entering this event should have been aware just what kind of race surface they would be dealing with. And it is hard on the cars, as they tear up a lot of equipment for sure, but again that is part of the understanding of entering this event. And for sure, the track prep and this race surface is probably the most analysed of any all year, to the point of nausea.
Time trials were first on the card and this did provide some surprises with a number of what I would call surprise drivers that ranked among the quickest of the entire night. But the most dramatic moment of this event was when Shannon Babb came out as the last car of the eighty four that would qualify and he set fast time by over a tenth of a second over the entire field. The crowd went wild as they should have as it was quite a stunning moment but given Babb's expertise on "bullrings", something that perhaps should have been expected. An amusing moment saw Billy Moyer manage to snag some of the advertising banners against the outside wall with his spoiler when he clipped the wall during his qualifying effort and a stretch of about two hundred feet of banner followed him down the track before finally becoming disengaged. Moyer did have a very fast lap and interestingly, was driving a Capital chassis this weekend.
So, after time trials, the Late Models were done for the night with their heats, B Features and qualifying feature races taking place on Friday night.
The Midgets then qualified and were then directly followed by their heats and their feature as their entire program was run off next. My guess was that they wanted to get this class done while the track was as smooth as it would be. However, this dragged things out some as there needed to be time after qualifying to set the lineups and then a few minutes for the feature to be formed after heats. The Midget field was so small that no B Feature was needed and will likely be the same on Friday.
However, the Midget feature race was by far the best event of the night. It was dry and slick on the inside lane but had some bite up a lane so it was perfect for throwing "side jobs" and we saw a number of those in the main event. Justin Grant led for most of the race but Thomas Meseraull moved into second and on the last two laps, they exchanged the lead twice each lap as they dive bomber each other in the corners. On the final corner, Grant dove in low to take the lead but when he slid up the track, Meseraull was right there to cut under him and beat him to the line in a race that was appreciated by the fans. There were three quick yellow flags that included two roll overs but the lat fifteen laps went nonstop and provided the kind of action that the fans were waiting for.
The Mods then qualified after both the other two classes were done for the night and then they raced their program, but the same kind of breaks were necessary with only the one class left. As it was, teams were terribly rushed to get back to the track following heats for the B, and the same for the main following the B Feature.
The Modified feature saw Josh Harris lead for the first half of the race before Levi Kissinger took advantage of a restart to blast past him and take over the top spot. Harris was slowed by a deflating tire and Derek Losh made a charge that saw him challenge Kissinger at the end for the win.
The Mod feature was a pretty good race also with only three yellows and all came in the first half of the race. A surprise saw Bobby Pierce, pressing for the lead, make a mistake on a restart and tip over in turn one which ended his event. There were five roll overs during the night which was more than I would have expected including a couple in the Mods. There were also plenty of torn up race cars in all three classes but that is the norm in this type of racing.
It was a very long day of racing with the first on track activity starting at 3 pm and the final checkered waving toward the Midnight hour. The first actual racing took place about forty five minutes later than scheduled and we actually saw only eight real races all night as hot laps and qualifying does take a long, long time. This was a night for the hard core race fan only as we saw more of the track prep equipment on the racing surface by far than any race cars. But in their defense, they are just trying to make the racing surface as good as possible and the coming two nights will be telling as to whether or not their efforts prove fruitful.
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Bleess Tops Junghans Memorial at 81 Speedway
The Grant Junghans Memorial Race was the highlight event of the night on Saturday, November 16th and the cap to a weekend of racing at Park City Kansas' 81 Speedway. Forty nine Modifieds were on hand to fight for a season high ten thousand and two dollar top prize and it was Minnesota driver Jacob Bleess who led all fifty laps to win the big prize. The B Mods also were in action and their main event, worth one thousand and two dollars went to Ethan Isaacs.
It was also a huge night for the management team at 81 Speedway as promoter C. Ray Hall and his staff shut the gates for the last time as the track has been sold and will be under new management starting next Spring. C. Ray took over management of the track from his parents and has been running the track continuously since 1971 along with starting and running the NCRA sanctioning body. The seventy seven year old Hall had an emotional day as earlier in the afternoon all the family members were on hand at the track for photo taking and they then followed that up by being involved in an emotion opening ceremony before the first green flag of the evening was waved by C. Ray.
He said that he will now focus more energy on his other promotions in Hutchinson Kansas along with Belleville and the NCRA series.
I made a point of seeking out USMTS head Todd Staley to find out what was in his plan for the 2020 racing season. He said while the schedule is not yet finalized, he expects to run somewhere between forty and forty five races next year. He also plans to have just one region and crown just one champion in 2020. He also won't require drivers to attend every race with their best thirty five or so races being counted toward the points title. he hopes to beef up the point fund for next year and also increase the travel allowance for those drivers in the top ten.
He rated the 2019 racing season as a good but not great one. He said that he felt the competition was among some of the best years he has had but the car counts were down this year also. He lost track of the number of rain outs suffered in 2019 but said it really hurt his early season plans and then they never fully recovered. He plans to open the 2020 season in Vado N.M. in early March but has not ruled out an earlier opening in either Arizona, California or even perhaps Florida.
He sees no significant rule changes on the horizon and is very excite about what the 2020 racing season will be at both his weekly tracks, Webster City and Mason City.
I also had the chance to speak with another high profile promoter briefly and that was Ryan Whitworth of the Humboldt Speedway. He said that the date for his B Mod race in March had been changed by one week due to the unusual calendar that falls in 2020. While it probably won't affect either event, it will be a problem for some race fans as the Spring races at Humboldt and Beatrice fall on the same weekend for 2020.
Ryan was a little coy about saying much more about his plans for the coming year. He did say that he was waiting to work with new 81 promoter John Allen and some things and hoping for some ways to get cars traveling back and forth from Humboldt to 81 and he wouldn't commit to which sanctioning body he would be working with in 2020 with much left to be decided before wheels turned next year.
Even with hit being their last race ever at 81, the unique method of selling concessions in the pits continued, with a golf cart making the rounds in the pits and selling items out of the back of the cart since there is no concession stand in the pits. I would think that the new management group would take a look at that situation as well as the one where pit passes are sold on the front chute and there is really no security keeping people from just entering the pits on a whim. I would guess they lose some revenue over the course of a racing year.
Along with the forty nine Modifieds on hand, there were also twenty two B Mods as ten different Mods and four B Mods showed for the first time on Saturday. These helped replace some that were wrecked on Friday night as Modified drivers Cory Crapser, Paden Phillips, Beau Davis, Cody Schniepp, Brian Franz, JD Choate and Dan Powers did not return after most were involved in the big feature wreck last night.
Additionally, Ryan Gustin drove for Chris Kratzer and Josh Lanterman for Bobby Bills on this night as those two cars were also damaged in that big pileup.
Keeping to the race schedule was not a big item this weekend as for the second straight night the program started considerably later than advertised with Saturday night's show almost an hour late in starting. However, due to only two classes racing, the program was done just a few minutes after 9 pm, making it the second straight night that the racing was done early and appreciated by the wind swept fans in attendance, of which there were many on Saturday night after the grandstands were quite empty on Friday night.
The program was nearly identical to Friday night's show with five heats, two B Features and the main in the Modifieds while the B Mods ran three heats and a feature. The only significant difference was that the Mods ran an extra ten laps tonight.
Early on, the track was quite similar to Friday night's with it being heavy and having a big cushion which is why extra packing was needed and delayed the start of the show. However, the track was starting to widen out and take shape just like it did on Friday night when it provided some great side by side racing in the mains and most particularly, in the Modified main.
However, after the heat races, they did the unthinkable thing and forgive me if I'm not maintaining our positive attitude here, but the appearance of the grader wrecked the rest of the show with out a doubt. Whoever was operating that machine totally ruined the track for the rest of the show and a wide, rapidly developing racy surface became a one lane track right on the bottom with outside passing nearly impossible. Seldom if ever have I seen the character of a track changed so rapidly and unfortunately, not for the better.
The Modifieds had two follow the leader, hug the bottom events before the features came out with the B Mods first on the agenda. Mike Striegel had the pole and it seemed that he would run away with the show but he was having to pinch his car so hard in the corners that he killed his momentum and got passed by Ethan Isaacs. Isaacs then ran away from the pack with the only driver able to make any significant being Dustin Daniels.
Daniels found a way to pass in the middle lane of the track and he drove by car after car, coming from fourteenth to get to second. It looked like he might have something for Isaacs but Ethan picked up the pace and pulled away for the impressive win. Isaacs was one driver that was not on hand on Friday so he made his one day trip very worthwhile.
Twenty four cars would start the Modified main that with extra bonus money would pay twelve hundred bucks just to take the green flag. The redraw would prove to be even more important than normal with Bleess drawing the pole and then leading all the way. Brandon Sheppard drew the outside pole and he stayed there for fifty laps, sometimes closing in on Bleess some but never in a position to really challenge for the lead. In fact, after the first couple of laps there was no change among at least the ten ten cars in the running order. Even the lapped cars were strung out such that they never really caused Bleess any consternation.
There was only one yellow in the fifty laps and that was for a lapped car, running dead last that still felt it was important for him to stop on the track for his flat tire so that he could go change it , return to the tail of the pack and stay right there. A wise choice by the race director saw the restart done single file as a double file restart on such a one lane track would have been grossly unfair.
Bleess pulled away again over the last six laps and drove to an impressive win and certainly one of the biggest of his career. Sheppard finished a solid second with Lucas Schott, Tyler Wolff and Rodney Sanders completing the top five.
Again forgive me for saying so, but it was very disappointing to go from one of the best features of,the year on Friday night to one of the very worst on Saturday, simply because they couldn't leave well enough alone and let the track develop and instead over thought and out engineered themselves.
The announcing trio of Chris Stepan, Warren Hardy and infield announcer Scott Stiles was as good as any group I have heard from all year. After sitting dark on Friday night, it was also good to see the scoreboard up and operating on Saturday as the lap count, if nothing else, is a valuable and appreciated thing by the spectators.
However, let it also be said that it has been great to be attending racing in mid November and for that fact I am appreciative to both 81 Speedway and its officials and the folks from the USMTS that put this event together. An ordinary night at the races still beats just about all the other alternatives.
It was also a huge night for the management team at 81 Speedway as promoter C. Ray Hall and his staff shut the gates for the last time as the track has been sold and will be under new management starting next Spring. C. Ray took over management of the track from his parents and has been running the track continuously since 1971 along with starting and running the NCRA sanctioning body. The seventy seven year old Hall had an emotional day as earlier in the afternoon all the family members were on hand at the track for photo taking and they then followed that up by being involved in an emotion opening ceremony before the first green flag of the evening was waved by C. Ray.
He said that he will now focus more energy on his other promotions in Hutchinson Kansas along with Belleville and the NCRA series.
I made a point of seeking out USMTS head Todd Staley to find out what was in his plan for the 2020 racing season. He said while the schedule is not yet finalized, he expects to run somewhere between forty and forty five races next year. He also plans to have just one region and crown just one champion in 2020. He also won't require drivers to attend every race with their best thirty five or so races being counted toward the points title. he hopes to beef up the point fund for next year and also increase the travel allowance for those drivers in the top ten.
He rated the 2019 racing season as a good but not great one. He said that he felt the competition was among some of the best years he has had but the car counts were down this year also. He lost track of the number of rain outs suffered in 2019 but said it really hurt his early season plans and then they never fully recovered. He plans to open the 2020 season in Vado N.M. in early March but has not ruled out an earlier opening in either Arizona, California or even perhaps Florida.
He sees no significant rule changes on the horizon and is very excite about what the 2020 racing season will be at both his weekly tracks, Webster City and Mason City.
I also had the chance to speak with another high profile promoter briefly and that was Ryan Whitworth of the Humboldt Speedway. He said that the date for his B Mod race in March had been changed by one week due to the unusual calendar that falls in 2020. While it probably won't affect either event, it will be a problem for some race fans as the Spring races at Humboldt and Beatrice fall on the same weekend for 2020.
Ryan was a little coy about saying much more about his plans for the coming year. He did say that he was waiting to work with new 81 promoter John Allen and some things and hoping for some ways to get cars traveling back and forth from Humboldt to 81 and he wouldn't commit to which sanctioning body he would be working with in 2020 with much left to be decided before wheels turned next year.
Even with hit being their last race ever at 81, the unique method of selling concessions in the pits continued, with a golf cart making the rounds in the pits and selling items out of the back of the cart since there is no concession stand in the pits. I would think that the new management group would take a look at that situation as well as the one where pit passes are sold on the front chute and there is really no security keeping people from just entering the pits on a whim. I would guess they lose some revenue over the course of a racing year.
Along with the forty nine Modifieds on hand, there were also twenty two B Mods as ten different Mods and four B Mods showed for the first time on Saturday. These helped replace some that were wrecked on Friday night as Modified drivers Cory Crapser, Paden Phillips, Beau Davis, Cody Schniepp, Brian Franz, JD Choate and Dan Powers did not return after most were involved in the big feature wreck last night.
Additionally, Ryan Gustin drove for Chris Kratzer and Josh Lanterman for Bobby Bills on this night as those two cars were also damaged in that big pileup.
Keeping to the race schedule was not a big item this weekend as for the second straight night the program started considerably later than advertised with Saturday night's show almost an hour late in starting. However, due to only two classes racing, the program was done just a few minutes after 9 pm, making it the second straight night that the racing was done early and appreciated by the wind swept fans in attendance, of which there were many on Saturday night after the grandstands were quite empty on Friday night.
The program was nearly identical to Friday night's show with five heats, two B Features and the main in the Modifieds while the B Mods ran three heats and a feature. The only significant difference was that the Mods ran an extra ten laps tonight.
Early on, the track was quite similar to Friday night's with it being heavy and having a big cushion which is why extra packing was needed and delayed the start of the show. However, the track was starting to widen out and take shape just like it did on Friday night when it provided some great side by side racing in the mains and most particularly, in the Modified main.
However, after the heat races, they did the unthinkable thing and forgive me if I'm not maintaining our positive attitude here, but the appearance of the grader wrecked the rest of the show with out a doubt. Whoever was operating that machine totally ruined the track for the rest of the show and a wide, rapidly developing racy surface became a one lane track right on the bottom with outside passing nearly impossible. Seldom if ever have I seen the character of a track changed so rapidly and unfortunately, not for the better.
The Modifieds had two follow the leader, hug the bottom events before the features came out with the B Mods first on the agenda. Mike Striegel had the pole and it seemed that he would run away with the show but he was having to pinch his car so hard in the corners that he killed his momentum and got passed by Ethan Isaacs. Isaacs then ran away from the pack with the only driver able to make any significant being Dustin Daniels.
Daniels found a way to pass in the middle lane of the track and he drove by car after car, coming from fourteenth to get to second. It looked like he might have something for Isaacs but Ethan picked up the pace and pulled away for the impressive win. Isaacs was one driver that was not on hand on Friday so he made his one day trip very worthwhile.
Twenty four cars would start the Modified main that with extra bonus money would pay twelve hundred bucks just to take the green flag. The redraw would prove to be even more important than normal with Bleess drawing the pole and then leading all the way. Brandon Sheppard drew the outside pole and he stayed there for fifty laps, sometimes closing in on Bleess some but never in a position to really challenge for the lead. In fact, after the first couple of laps there was no change among at least the ten ten cars in the running order. Even the lapped cars were strung out such that they never really caused Bleess any consternation.
There was only one yellow in the fifty laps and that was for a lapped car, running dead last that still felt it was important for him to stop on the track for his flat tire so that he could go change it , return to the tail of the pack and stay right there. A wise choice by the race director saw the restart done single file as a double file restart on such a one lane track would have been grossly unfair.
Bleess pulled away again over the last six laps and drove to an impressive win and certainly one of the biggest of his career. Sheppard finished a solid second with Lucas Schott, Tyler Wolff and Rodney Sanders completing the top five.
Again forgive me for saying so, but it was very disappointing to go from one of the best features of,the year on Friday night to one of the very worst on Saturday, simply because they couldn't leave well enough alone and let the track develop and instead over thought and out engineered themselves.
The announcing trio of Chris Stepan, Warren Hardy and infield announcer Scott Stiles was as good as any group I have heard from all year. After sitting dark on Friday night, it was also good to see the scoreboard up and operating on Saturday as the lap count, if nothing else, is a valuable and appreciated thing by the spectators.
However, let it also be said that it has been great to be attending racing in mid November and for that fact I am appreciative to both 81 Speedway and its officials and the folks from the USMTS that put this event together. An ordinary night at the races still beats just about all the other alternatives.
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