The sights and sounds...and smells...of county fair time in Iowa greeted us at the Southern Iowa Fairgrounds in Oskaloosa on Tuesday night. But it was the grandstand show that we were most interested in as the IMCA Hawkeye Dirt Tour for Modifieds was in town. This was the HDT's first time at the big old Monster Half-Mile and we were looking forward to it. Stock cars, SportMods, Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts were also on the docket. Only one yellow flag would fly in all of those features, but the HDT Modified feature was a different story.
The Northern SportMods started off feature event racing. Fourteen year old Sam Wieben led the opening lap but Curtis VanDerWal took command by lap two. VanDerWal was soon minus his air cleaner filter, which landed up near the fence and out of harms way. A yellow flew at lap six for Corey VanZante stopped up in turn four...one of his wheels rolling across the track. With but that single yellow flag, the race resumed and went caution free the remainder of the way, VanDerWal keeping the lead and taking the win. Jesse Sobbing, the point leader had started back in the fifth row, but had quickly advanced through the pack. Sobbing was unable to run down VanDerWal on this night however, and had to settle for second. Third went to Brett Lowry in a good run to capture third, and young Sam Wieben finished fourth and Carter VandenBerg finished fifth from starting at the back of the field. This was VanDerWal's first win at the track since nabbing the 2011 season finale.
The Hobby Stocks ran off their 15-lapper caution free. Dustin Griffiths went to the lead on the first lap, and would pull away. While Griffiths was on cruise control, it was Craig Brown and Mike Hughes in hot pursuit. Hughes would establish second place, but then there was a heated battle for third place with five cars going at it. Craig Brown was having a hard time holding off Bobby Greene, Nick Ulin, Kevin Fee and Danny Thrasher, all running wheel to wheel at times. Griffiths took the win--his second of the year--Hughes keeping second. Third went to Craig Brown, and Bobby Greene held off Nick Ulin as they finished fourth and fifth.
The IMCA Stock Cars followed up with another caution free race. With the draw/redraw format in place again last night, we saw the orange #33Z in the lucky #1 starting spot. We thought it just might be another runaway. We were right, as Zack VanderBeek immediately took charge and drove off into the sunset--far ahead of any competition.--"out in front and showing the way" as announcer Tony Paris puts it. A lot of good racing was going on behind him though as a pack of six cars clawed for position. Damon Murty won out for the runner up spot. Corey "from just across the street" Stout finished third. Tama's Jay Schmidt brought his new car to play again last night, and fought his way to a fourth place finish. Alex Buffington rounded out the top five. Close behind were Matt Greiner and veteran Don Killen in sixth and seventh.
A field of eight IMCA Sport Compacts were present last night. There was still some car and driver swapping going on last night. Dallas Chandler and Bill Whalen swapped rides again as they had last week. Chandler led all eight laps of the caution free feature event. Bill Whalen chased him the entire way to finish second. Tyler Whalen finished a close third over Merv Chandler in fourth and John Whalen in fifth. It was a Chandler/Whalen show last night for sure!
Now came time for the Hawkeye Dirt Tour 25-lap main attraction. Earlier, the top 12 drivers had established their starting positions through a little contest of "I'll keep my unknown draw number, or pass it to someone else". It worked to race manager Mike VanGenderen's advantage to get his original unknown number back from Richie Gustin, who opted to send it back to him. Yup...the #1 pill!
This one was a hard one to get started! A caution at lap two took three tries to get another lap in as incidents on the track would halt racing. The drivers were told after three attempts of double file restarts, if they could not get a lap in, it would revert to single file starting order. The warning must have worked as this time we got to lap eight before any stoppage when the 48J of Jacob Murray brought out the yellow. On lap nine, it was debris bringing out the caution another time. Thankfully, that was the final time the yellow would fly on the evening. Michael Long, Quincy, Illinois, had meanwhile been keeping well ahead of his competition after taking the lead at lap one. Long would never be seriously challenged and took the win. Luke Wanninger, who was driving the IMCA crate test motor and sporting a spoiler, (I think I've got that right THIS week, as we heard it announced several times over the PA last night) finished second having made it from his twelfth starting position. Third was point leader in the HDT series, Richie Gustin, fourth went to Jay Noteboom driving the car usually piloted by Joel Bushore, and the man in charge at the weekly shows, Mike "The Flyin' Dutchman" VanGenderen finished fifth.
Twenty-seven Modifieds were in attendance last night. Among those in the field not normally in the area were David Murray, Oberlin, Kansas, Kyle "The High-side Tickler" Strickler from Mooresville, NC, and Jeremy Frenier from Ft. Morgan, Colorado. We would assume that those drivers came a bit early for the Thursday night Harris Clash at Knoxville, and hopefully may be in attendance at the regular Osky show tonight. Once again, we were happy to be enjoying the races with great racing friends. Be sure and catch fellow blogger Jeff Broeg's take of the night's action on "The Backstretch" at Positively Racing. We will be heading back down for that regular show again tonight, which will no doubt be another scorcher. Hope to see you there. Happy racing!
No comments:
Post a Comment