It was finally a pleasant night to sit and watch racing at the Boone Speedway on Saturday night. We heard many comment that this was more like it! The track was fast and watching two features, the IMCA modified and the IMCA Northern SportMods, go caution free in intense racing, was crowd pleasing.
The Mod Lites ran their 15-lap A main first. A red flag waved off the start of the race when the 19 car of Brad Melton took a tumble off the track. The driver was okay. A complete restart then resulted, and pole sitter Bryan Zehm took advantage and pulled away. A yellow at a handful of laps down, didn't deter his determination as he continued to lead. However, twelfth place starter, Mike Morrill was coming through the field quickly and was soon on the leaders tail. Morrill took the lead on lap eleven and would then sail on to the win. Zehm had to settle for the runner up spot, Mike Kennedy was third, fourth went to Josh May and Joel Keenan finished fifth.
The IMCA Northern SportMods brought 34 drivers to test their skills. A B main was needed to whittle the starting feature to 24 cars. That consy race was won by veteran Scott Davis. Jerry Hinton led briefly at the start but Randy Roberts took over by lap three. Hinton tailed Roberts the rest of the way but further back in the field, a pack of cars were battling it out for positions 3-4 wide. It finally got sorted out and it ended with Cody Hennings taking third behind the winner Roberts and Hinton in second. Fourth was Clint Luellen and fifth, Nick Roberts. The race went caution free.
The IMCA modifieds was a "hold your breath" race, as the racing up front was intense. Jon Snyder took the lead immediately from starting outside front row. By lap seven, Mike VanGenderen had made it into the second position, from starting in row three. From then on, it was a battle for the lead between those two. The lead was swapping back and forth in the final five laps, the racing intense, but clean. It's always great to see a race like that when the two drivers go at it! No doubt, it was fun for them as well. Snyder was able to hold off VanGenderen, taking the close fought win. Following runner up VanGenderen was Jimmy Gustin in third, after starting twelfth, fourth went to Josh Gilman and Russ Dickerson rounded out the top five. The race went flag to flag.
The IMCA stock cars didn't quite make it caution free for their 18-lap event, but with only one yellow flag flying, it was a near miss. Several cars got caught up in that yellow flag situation at lap nine, piling up at the bottom of turn one. On the restart, Jerry Gifford continued where he had left off, in command of the lead. Gifford took the win, followed by Robert Stofer in the runner up spot, Wayne Gifford was third, fourth went to Trent Murphy, and Jay Schmidt tallied fifth.
The IMCA hobby stocks turned out to be a two car race. Austin Luellen would lead the entire race with John Watson tagged firmly on his rear bumper. With Watson's success at the track, many were thinking he was just waiting for the time to swing past Luellen for the win, but on this night, it wasn't to be. Luellen drove a smooth, unwavering race and took the checkers. Brandon Brinton was third, followed by Aaron Rudolph and Matt McDonald in fourth and fifth.
A good field of 150 cars was on hand for the evening. The Flying Hall Brothers even made their annual appearance to "test and tune"....same cars as usual, which must be at least three or four decades old. A few cars from the Algona area came to play last night as well, since that track had to chalk up another rain out. Next week the Boone Speedway has a "Mother's Day Special" listed and race car rides for the kids. Hot laps are 6:45 and races at 7:30. Last night's program was completed right at 10:30.
Below are more complete results, Happy racing!
No comments:
Post a Comment