When it continued to rain and rain on Wednesday and Thursday..with inches and inches accumulating, the doubt was once again put in our minds about Marshalltown racing on Friday. Dreary and overcast skies greeted us on Friday morning, but by early afternoon, the sun was shining. Promoter Toby Kruse indicated that more than 5 inches of rain had fallen earlier in the week, but he was confident that Friday night would see racing at the Marshalltown Speedway.
The track was worked for hours and hours on Friday and then around 5:15 p.m., according to announcer Denny Grabenbauer, the water truck was called into action. Fans were treated to another great night of racing at the highbanks of Marshalltown and Mother Nature was defeated again.
Nostalgia cars were on hand and ran their feature first. It's always fun to see those "cars of yesteryear" on a track once again. Jim Clayton in the #66 Mercury Cyclone took the feature win over the #00 of John Schroyer. Third was the #5 driven by I believe, a Graybel.
For the fifth time this year, Joel Huggins visited Victory Lane in his #X50 Dwarf/Mod Lite car. He was chased early by Johnny Mordock and Josh May, however point leader Mike Morrill would come from 10th starting spot of the eleven cars starting, to take the runner-up position as the checkers flew. Mordock held on for third, Josh May was fourth, and his dad James May, rounded out the top five.
The Northern SportMods at the end of the night, would see a new point leader. Kevin Sather captured the win and took over that point lead when Scott Davis spun while in fifth position, recovered and still managed to finish tenth. Unofficially, it appears Sather now leads by four points over Davis making for a down-to-the-wire season championship feature next week.
Sather came through the field to grab the win as cousin Austin Kaplan chased him to the finish line. Jake Strayer had a good run and finished third, Brad Iverson was fourth, and the green-machine of Neil Follett was fifth.
The IMCA stock car feature went flag to flag as all eighteen cars started the A main event. It was two Smith brothers that put the show on for the lead with David Smith in the #8X leading for many of the laps with brother Dustin, point leader at the track, chasing him. Dustin was able to get under David on the backstretch with a few laps remaining, to take the number one spot as he went on to the win. With David Smith in second, third went to Jeff Wollam who had charged through the field with a great run. Fourth went to Dusty Vis and fifth to Damon Murty who had started eighth and ninth respectively. It was announced there was a claim after the feature with the #22K of Kevin Rose claiming Dustin Smith. We understood later, that it was only the shocks that were claimed, but this is unofficial.
The A main for the modifieds, saw the dust flying and with the wind from the north, us fans felt the true meaning of "dirt" track racing. Visitors for the night from Kansas, were David Murray (all time win leader in IMCA racing and who broke the record of the Keokuk, Iowa driver from the '50's and '60's, Ernie Derr) and Jason Schoenberger, the Super Nationals stock car champion from a couple of years back. Schoenberger would be piloting his own #6 modified, while Murray was not in his familiar #97M ride, but in the #23 of Matt Gilbertson from Minnesota. Last week's winner, Brett Ladehoff put his new Dirtworks ride up front early and raced his line consistently even though that visitor from Kansas, David Murray was coming fast. Murray would be able to position himself in second place...coming from starting twelfth, but Ladehoff skillfully maintained that lead on the slick track, to take back-to-back wins. Murray was runner-up, Jimmy Gustin wound through traffic to take third, fourth went to Adam Larson with a great run, and fifth was Jon Snyder who came from near the back of the starting field of nineteen. Ladehoff was excited in Victory Lane after his consecutive wins. David Murray congratulated him on a fine run, exclaiming how it's nice to see new young talent like Ladehoff in the modified ranks.
The night-ending feature was the IMCA hobby stock division. All night long, turn number two had grabbed cars right and left, sending them into spin after spin. This would continue in this main event as well. Todd Reitzler put his car up front early and though he had pressure from both Michael Murphy and Terry Shaffar, he was able to keep the lead and come home to the checkers first. Terry Shaffar was second at the finish line, third was Michael Murphy, fourth went to Devin Smith, anf fifth was "Pistol Pete" Hutzel. Going into next week's season championship night, unofficially it appears that Devin Smith holds a slim 3 point lead over Murphy, which will also make for another interesting season-ending feature event.
This coming Tuesday night, September 1, Marshalltown Speedway will be hosting the rescheduled Deery Brothers Late Model series with races starting at 7 p.m. Also on tap will be the Dirt Trucks, SportMods, and Dwarf/Mod Lites. Then on Friday night, September 4th, the season championship will be held. It was announced that there will be the traditional out-of-car introductions on the frontstretch and an added attraction at the end of the night will be an Australian pursuit contest in each class.
The season is winding down fast but there is still plenty of racing events to be seen, including the IMCA Super Nationals coming up Labor Day week at Boone. Make plans to attend a race before the season is gone. Happy racing!
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