It was a classically hot July night at the Southern Iowa Speedway for the rescheduled "USMTS Spring Classic", weathered out several months back. The car count for the modifieds only numbered eighteen, but we venture to guess that no one went home disappointed in the exciting finish to the 30-lap feature! The USRA B modifieds and stock cars were also competing in their "Ironman Series" along with the USRA hobby stocks in a regular season's point race.
The USRA B modifieds ran a 20-lap feature in their "Ironman Challenge" series. Cayden Carter took his ride to the front early and went away with another of his numerous wins this year. Carter VandenBerg, who had just won his first ever feature at Eldon on Saturday night, had a nice run to take the runner-up spot. Third went to Andrew Schroeder, fourth to John VandenBerg, fifth to Curtis VanDerWal and Jenae Gustin finished sixth.
The 15-lap hobby stock feature was another easy win for Dustin Griffiths---his fourth-in-a-row at Oskaloosa. He was leading early and never challenged. Donovan Nunnikhoven and Todd Reitzler finished second and third. The best race on the track was for fourth through sixth with Steve Allen, Kris Walker and Craig Brown finishing in that order.
The 20-lap USRA stock car "Ironman Challenge" found lots of action around the track with cars going multi-lanes wide at times. Jason Minnehan held the top spot for the first few circuits until Justin Temeyer grabbed the lead with five laps down. A couple of laps later, with Temeyer still leading, he was off power, and into the pits. We had noticed a wet right front tire, and evidently an overheating problem was what forced him from the race. This handed the lead over to Mike VanGenderen who had slipped past Minnehan for the runner-up spot. VanGenderen had little trouble in maintaining his top spot from there on out, even after a restart bunched the field at fourteen laps down. He took the checkers and his second win at Osky, over Jason Minnehan in second, and Kevin Donlan, last week's second-night Shootout winner, in third. McClelland, Iowa's Jeff Joldersma finished in fourth and Nathan Wood recovered from a lap one incident that sent him to the tail, to finish in fifth.
Thirty laps awaited the USMTS modified drivers. By this time, even the Southern Iowa Fair going on behind the grandstand, was nearly closed down and dark. All attention was now on the powerhouses before us on the track. After the top eight in passing points had drawn for their starting positions, it was "The Reaper", Ryan Gustin to the point position, questioning many if it was even going to be a contest. Gustin has been one successful young man in the USMTS the past couple of seasons. It was to few people's surprise, that Gustin took off to a sizable lead through the halfway mark. A couple of other guys had some differing opinions on the outcome however, as Zack VanderBeek and Cory Dripps each threw their hats in the ring. Dripps made a spectacular run on the topside cushion powering his way to the lead past Gustin, and hoping for the win. With a mere three laps left in the books, it was looking to be Dripps in the winner's circle, but in the meantime, VanderBeek had gotten past Gustin to give chase to Dripps. Dripps led at the white flag, but the home track was good to VanderBeek on this night, as he made the final couple of turns work for him, and took the checkers first. Dripps took the runner up spot, Gustin was third, fourth went to Colt Mather and veteran Kelly Shryock, took fifth, making it a clean sweep through five for Iowa drivers. The next three positions went to Terry Phillips out of Springfield, Missouri, Rodney Sanders from Happy, Texas and Jeremy Payne also from Springfield, Missouri.
We enjoyed spending the night at the races with fellow Positively Racing buddies and other racing friends. Check out Tapfan's Tours, Back Stretch and maybe even Barry will get in on the act this time at Running the High Side. No doubt, we all had some different takes on the night's racing. You can also find the full results at www.usmts.com, www.usraracing.com and www.raceosky.com. Until next time, get out and find a race to attend and support our great sport of dirt track racing. Happy racing!
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