The Monster Half-Mile at the Southern Iowa Speedway hosted the IMCA Deery Brothers Late Models on Wednesday night. It was "The Boys of Summer"....on the first night of Summer coincidentally...taking their turn for some fun at Osky. Would it happen? The radar was once again rearing it's ugly head and everyone crossed their fingers that the show would get in. As a note, the IMCA Modifieds took a night off on Wednesday.
The IMCA Sport Compacts had eight cars come to play last night. It was looking like Merv Chandler's choice to bring his son Brad along for the night, may have been the wrong thing to do for him! Brad Chandler had won his heat earlier and started off by leading the eight lap feature race---for the first two laps anyway. On lap three, his dad, Merv Chandler, stuck his #2 machine in front of the field and from there on, he motored home to another win; his sixth of the year at the Southern Iowa Speedway. Brad Chandler finished second, third went to Bill Whalen, Jr., fourth was Cody Thompson and Ricky Kay (maybe related to the late model driver Justin Kay, but not for sure) was fifth.
The IMCA Stock Car class was in it's usual entertaining form for their 16-lap event. It could have been a disastrous moment before one lap was scored! Cars were going three-wide coming to the starter's stand when Zack VanderBeek found himself shoved to the inside with his car pointed into the inside guardrail and about to be launched into the scoring tower! Thankfully, his driving skills avoided anything more than causing a restart situation after he was able to gather the car beneath him. Of course, this put him at the tail of the starting field, and a lot of ground to make up. Alan VanGorp, Matt Greiner and Damon Murty put the show on for the fans up front in the early portion of the race--going at it tooth and nail for the lead. About lap ten, Matt Greiner established the point position, Van Gorp chasing him in second, and Murty began to fade a bit. At the finish, Greiner took a comfortable win--his second this year at Osky--VanGorp finished a distant second, and Zack VanderBeek was the man on the move, taking third. Murty hung on for fourth place and Nathan Wood was fifth.
By the time the IMCA Hobby Stocks pulled on the track, we were nervously watching radar on our phones (as were many) and hoping that the rain just to the west would hold off for two more features! They ran in a pack for a while, but things got sorted out by the halfway mark of the 15-lap event. The leader, Jamie Songer, was pretty much on cruise control and would sail to his first win of the year over Bobby Greene in second. Shannon Anderson, point leader, came from starting tenth on the grid, to finish in third. Fourth went to Danny Thrasher and Mike Hughes rounded out the top five.
Now it was time for those Boys of Summer, and their scheduled 35-lapper. The top 12-drivers on the night who had qualified through their heat events, had earlier played a card game to determine starting positions. We always enjoy this portion of the Deery events, as it is fun to actually SEE the drivers, and hear them interact with IMCA's Kevin Yoder. After the cards were passed around at the driver's calling--keep your card or give away--the lucky guy on the night was Denny Eckrich as he held the coveted ace.
The race went pretty much incident free except for one yellow flag flying at lap 20 when Justin Diercks ended up in the turn two wall. Denny Eckrich had been unchallenged so far, but would this bunch the field and change the whole complexion of the race? It wasn't to be as Eckrich just drove off from his competitors and took the checkers. Veteran Ray Guss, Jr. had run second the entire time, and snagged a runner up finish. Todd Cooney took third place over Jeff Aikey, who started in twelfth spot, was scored in fourth. The winner's brother, Andy Eckrich took the fifth spot.
Yay! We avoided the rain. Not sure how, as we ran into rain just a bit north of the track, and drove in it the entire way home. We enjoyed our night at the races sharing it with racing friends and fellow PRer's. Be sure and check out Jeff Broeg's "Back Stretch" and Ryan Clark's "In Staging" at www.positivelyracing.com for their takes on the night's action. Everyone can see it differently, you know! Happy racing!
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