It was the first day of summer on Friday and it finally felt like it. It was a warm night for racing at the Marshalltown Speedway and the racing was hot as well. Five of the six classes saw the winners take dominate wins, but the Stock Car feature was a different story!
The IMCA Sport Compacts had eight competitors as they ran their 10-lap feature. Adam Gates led by lap one and never looked back. Gates took the win by a comfortable margin. Veteran Merv Chandler was the one doing the chasing of the leader on this night, scoring the runner up spot. Dave Moorman was third over John Gill and AJ Witten in fourth and fifth respectively.
The MADCRA Mod Lite saw the leader pull away from the pack in taking his win as well, but he had to work his way through traffic to get to that lead. Mike Morrill led in the early laps with Josh May nipping at his heels. A yellow at lap ten of fifteen, bunched up the field. At that point, sitting in third behind leader Morrill and May in second was Andy Hennigar who had flown through the field from starting in eight....the yellow just what he was looking for! Hennigar passed his two opponents for the lead by the following lap and pulled away. Hennigar took the win by a good distance, Morrill fought off Josh May as they finished second and third. Chargin' Charlie Brown was fourth and Eric Hendrickson barely held off Dusty Masolini to score fifth; Masolini getting sixth. This was Hennigar's third win of the 2013 season.
The IMCA Northern SportMods ran their usual 18-lap contest. This one had a tough time getting going as two yellows flew even before the first lap was scored. Those would not be the only cautions though as four more yellow rags waved before it was completed. Carter VanDenBerg made great headway early as he led by lap two, having started sixth. VanDenBerg withstood the ensuing cautions and restarts, maintaining his lead and in the last eight laps, pulled away from his nearest competitor and scored the win. Second place went to Brad Iverson who had chased the winner most of the race. Eric Elliott started ninth to garner a third place finish. Fourth place went to Montezuma's Brett Lowry with a good showing after starting back in twelfth, and rounding out the top five was Geoff Olson. VanDenBerg took his first win at Marshalltown this year as his usual Friday night track is at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson and it was idle last night.
The Hobby Stock feature saw another driver take his win easily as Eric Stanton scored his first win of the season at the speedway. Eric Larson led the opening laps of the 12-lapper, but by lap five, Stanton had copped the lead. From there on, Stanton had little trouble in his quest for the checkers and in the closing moments, pulled away for a comfortable win over Larson in second place. Third went to Nick Murty, Bill Bonnett came from starting eleventh, to take fourth and Gary Pfantz completed the top five.
What an exciting finish to the 18-lap Stock Car feature! This one was looking as though Jay Schmidt was going to continue his winning ways with his new Terminator car by Harris. He took the lead on the first lap, put his ride to his usual top side line, and was sailing along comfortably ahead of his competition. Meanwhile, there was action galore behind him with several cars fighting for positions second through fifth. Steve Meyer overtook Tracy Gienger for second and Damon Murty was fighting hard behind Gienger as he fended off Dusty Vis. The infamous yellow flag would rear it's ugly head at lap fifteen when an incident at the pit road exit left fluid all over the top of the track---and setting up a shoot out for the last three laps. Schmidt had his comfortable lead vanish on the restart as he had Meyer, Murty and Gienger chopping at the bit close behind him. On the restart in turn three, Schmidt hit a bit of the remaining liquid left on the track, faltering just enough for Meyer to get around him and Gienger as well. Meyer would then go on to capture the win, Schmidt recovered to take the second spot ahead of Murty in third, Gienger falling to fourth and Slater's Eric Knutson made a late rally to take fifth. This was Meyer's first regular season win at the track, after taking the Frostbuster win back on April 5.
The night ended with the 20-lap Modified feature. Cayden Carter leaped to the lead from his pole starting position and headed directly to his preferred spot on the topside of the high banked 1/4 mile. While Carter sailed along comfortably in the lead, fighting behind him was Kyle Brown and Ronn Lauritzen. Lauritzen's Angry Bird car soon took over the runner up spot and his chase was on to catch Carter. By lap twelve, it was Jammin' Jimmy Gustin making his move to take over third place and Snyder towed along with him to get fourth past Brown. In the closing laps, Carter continued his dominate run on the topside and scored the easy victory. Ronn Lauritzen took second---the spot he had held most of the race, third went to Jimmy Gustin, Kyle Brown finished fourth after Snyder suffered a flat tire on the final lap, and Kyle Krampe took fifth after starting from row six. Carter snagged his third win at the track this year. He and cousin Carter VanDenBerg who had earlier won the SportMod feature, enjoyed their first victories ever on the same night, at the same track.
It will be right back to racing next Friday night at Marshalltown with hot laps at 7 and racing at 7:30. Tonight we head to the Boone Speedway for our usual Saturday night home. It will kick off racing tonight with the make up feature from last week's rained out Hobby Stock A main. Enjoy a race at your favorite track somewhere in support of the racing passion we love. We enjoyed our evening with cohort with Positively Racing, Ryan Clark. Be sure and check his thoughts of the night's racing as well at www.instaging.blogspot.com. Happy racing!
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