It was yet another cold night for racing at the Boone Speedway this past Saturday night. With the way the weather trend has been, the "heated" seats may be a staple through June! Kudos to the staff for trying to make the fans more comfortable while watching the racing action. Thankfully, the wind was much calmer than it had been the past couple of nights, which helped a bit also.
Twenty-one of the mighty little Dwarf/Mod Lite cars were on hand and all started the feature. Visiting driver from Yorkville, Illinois, Tom Schnabel, made the trip west to try his hand at taming the Boone track and made it pay off. Eric Hendrickson led the field for a few laps, but Schnabel, coming from the 10th starting position, quickly made his way toward the front and into the lead. Jimmy May and Schnabel would swap the top spot, but in the end, it would be Schnabel taking the checkers. Jimmy May came home in the runner-up place, third went to Eric Hendrickson, fourth to Mike Kennedy and fifth was Dusty Masolini.
Though car counts were down in the IMCA Northern SportMods from the huge count of 45 last week, it still took a B main to whittle their starting field to 24. Bill Wears from Des Moines was that winner. The racing action barely got started when a huge pile up happened in the middle of turns three and four. Twelve to fifteen cars were involved resulting in some having to retire to the pits, others tagging the field. Geoff Olson was able to make his way to the point position and maintained it for the win. Chasing him across the line was Matthew Meinecke, third went to Brett Moffit, fourth to Jeremy Embrey and fifth to Cody Hennings. If memory serves me right, I believe Embrey had to come from the rear of the pack after the huge wreck earlier.
Bill Davis, Jr. and Tim Stevens led the charge early in the IMCA modified feature, but Jammin' Jimmy Gustin had other ideas. Davis and Stevens had a comfortable lead when Gustin made his way to the third position. He would steadily reel the leaders in, pass Stevens for second and begin the quest for overtaking Davis. With one lap to go, it was still Davis in the lead, but Gustin nosed ahead to win, coming for the checkered flag. It was a spectacularly close finish, and one we have seen before by Gustin. Davis was, no doubt, a disappointed runner-up, Stevens was third, fourth went to Kelly Lyons and Adam Larson came home in fifth.
Not to be out done, the IMCA stock cars also had a very close finish at the line. Front row starters, Mike Munson and Marcus Fagan fought it out in the early going until Mike VanGenderen, coming from starting ninth, threw his hat into the ring. VanGenderen would then get into that first spot but would soon have the 22 of Wayne Gifford hot on his tail. Meanwhile, point leader Donavon Smith was mounting the charge to the front and running third. VanGenderen took the white flag in first and was able to hold off Gifford out of turn four to take his first win at the track this year. Gifford had to settle for runner up, third went to Donavon Smith, fourth to Ty Hill and fifth to 14th place starter, Brian Irvine. Irvine made the trip over to Boone, after his regular track at Independence had cancelled for the night.
The final feature was the IMCA hobby stocks. Thirty-five cars competing for the night, saw one B Main qualify the final four cars in the 24 car starting A Main. By lap two, Michael Murphy had made his way to the top spot from starting ninth and would hold it to the finish. Cody Gustoff followed him in second all the way to the final checkers of the night, third went to Scott Lograsso, fourth to Chris Hupp and rounding out the top five was Pat Mather.
The racing action was completed at 10:08 p.m. allowing fans and drivers alike to make their way to warmer places. This Iowa weather has not been kind to racing this early Spring season, but let's hope for warmer and dry conditions at the Boone Speedway next week. Racing action continues on May 15 with a regular point event. Be sure and check http://www.raceboone.com/ for complete information concerning the speedway.
More complete results are listed below. Happy racing!
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