What is it with weekend weather? The rain seems to always threaten and this past Saturday night, the forecast had that darn "R" word back in it. When we arrived at the Boone Speedway Saturday night, the track was already prepared and looking good to go. We had noticed a lot of standing water on our drive over and learned that the area had had up to 2 inches of rain within the last 24 hours. Thanks to good drainage and track prep, it wasn't appearing to be a concern for racing that night. However, the forecast was still calling for "stuff" to be firing up from the southwest, so we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.
The show started a bit early with the running of the make-up hobby stock feature from last week. Michael Murphy took his ride from starting 10th, to capture the win---his fourth of the season---and it sent him into the points lead. Cory Adams took the runner-up spot and Shaun Wirtz crossed in the third position. Post race tech would null Wirtz's finish as he was disqualified for an illegal carburetor. That would then put Curt Reed into the third finishing position, fourth would go to Tyler Pickett and fifth to Aaron Rudolph.
The heat races for the regular show were quickly run and the usual farming session was eliminated with the Dwarf/Mod Lites lined up immediately for their feature. Colby Oberembt, last week's feature winner, led the first few go-arounds, only to have point leader Josh May come calling, and take over the lead. Tim Hennigar would put a bit of pressure on May, but May held him off and took his second win of the season. Tim Hennigar finished the close second, third went to Dusty Masolini, Oberembt held on for a fourth place position, and Charlie Brown rounded out the top five.
The IMCA Northern SportMods started all 27 cars on hand in their feature event. The first lap saw 4-wide racing going into corner one---not always a good situation---and was not so on this night. A "mess" ensured in corner one which took some time to sort out. Randy Roberts took the lead by the half-way mark of the 18-lap contest and would take the win comfortably ahead of the cars dueling it out for position behind him at the checkers. It was a scramble amongst those cars, but Racer Hulin put his #505 in the runner-up spot, followed by Geoff Olson in third, (from starting 22nd) Beau Kaplan took fourth and Eric Elliott came home in fifth.
Near the end of the SportMod feature, sprinkles started falling. We had been checking the radar throughout the evening--watching a "blob" to the southwest, blossoming into a bigger and redder mass. With the modifieds awaiting in the staging area, rain became harder and boy, did the wind blow! It didn't take long for the program to be called, so next week, we will again be seeing some make-up features along with an entire new show. The modifieds, stock cars and hobby stock features will start the show next Saturday night. Results for the night's show are listed below this blog.
Iowa Speedway NASCAR Nationwide Race
Sunday morning, we headed to the Iowa Speedway for the first of two NASCAR Nationwide series races on the schedule this year at the track. Once again, we were hearing an "iffy" forecast for the day. With a short 20-mile trip, we opted not to even get to the track until around 10 a.m. We had no trouble parking but did find the lots pretty spongy and saturated from the recent rains. We met up with a couple of other parties who, though coming from the Des Moines area, arrived shortly after we did, and parked not far from us. It was overcast and pretty breezy, but the temperature was great. We grabbed a bite to eat inside the grandstand area, and then headed to our seats. By this time, the sun was shining and the skies were blue, and we were hoping against hope that predicted storms to be firing up later, would not happen.
The John Deere Dealer's 250 began shortly after the 1 p.m. scheduled start time. The race was being broadcast live on ABC television...a great thing for the nation to get a glimpse of the standing-room only crowd of the near 40,000 fans on hand. It showcased the beautiful Iowa Speedway facility born from a cornfield just a few years back. From what we hear from the interviews of the drivers that have raced at the track, they love the place too! Another case for Iowa held true for the saying, "if you build it, they will come".
The first few laps saw a handful of cars leaving the track and making that hard left hand turn into the garage area as pole sitter Drew Herring in the #20 car was cruising along in the lead. At lap 50, the caution flag flew, and although we could not hear the PA announcer say it was a "competition yellow" we suspected so, and found out later, that was the case. The main reason being because the teams had had very little track time due to the weather-related cancellation of the practice on Friday as well as the qualifying on Saturday. It allowed teams to see "how things were going" so to speak, and gauge their plan for the rest of the race. Tire wear did not seem to be an issue.
When the race got started again, the #32 of Reed Sorenson was pacing the field with Michael McDowell giving chase in the #18 car. Sorenson would hold the lead through halfway of the 250-lap event. Caution flags and pit stops would shake up the field a bit with the lead being swapped amongst the #22 of NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski, the #6 of Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., and Sprint Cup driver and area favorite, Carl Edwards. Edwards had already had a remarkable weekend of racing as the previous night he had won the Sprint Cup All-Star race in North Carolina, and pocketed a cool $1.2 million dollars!
About this time, the cell phone kept getting my attention as I was getting weather warnings about nasty stuff possibly in the area. We were still sitting in sunshine, but the sky was split with clouds to the north of us and huge, towering thunderheads to our south. We kept an eye on those especially to the south, as those weather warnings were calling for storms with large hail and then later, a tornado warning was thrown in! Thankfully, the storm stayed to the south and east of us and we did not receive any of the hail that was golf and baseball sized in the not too distant Brooklyn, Iowa area.
As the laps wound down, it was becoming a battle between Stenhouse and Edwards as they swapped the lead several times. Most of our area in the stands were pulling hard for Edwards, a Mid-Westerner from Missouri with dirt track roots. Keselowski was trailing the pair as he rode along in third with Sorenson in fourth. Edwards was not able to catch Stenhouse, who took the checkered flag in his 51st Nationwide start and Edwards getting the runner-up spot. Keselowski kept the third position, and Sorenson the fourth. The fifth place went to Elliott Sadler, making, I believe, his first appearance at the track. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. became the first Nationwide-only driver to win a Nationwide Series race since early in the 2010 season.
Racing was completed right at 3:20 p.m. and a great day of racing it was. We are usually in no rush to leave and let the crowd thin a bit. It was a bit of a trek to our vehicle, but by the time we got to it, we were out of the lot and headed east on I-80 in ten minutes.
The full results of the Nationwide race can be found at the following link:
http://nationwide.nascar.com/nationwide-series/races/2011/results-official/12
Also check out www.iowaspeedway.com for information on the track and upcoming events. If you have not been to the Iowa Speedway, we encourage anyone to make the trip to the "born in the corn" facility. Pretty impressive in our book.
Happy racing!
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