The 34th Annual IMCA Super Nationals held at Boone Speedway has come and gone. It was an unforgettable one for sure what with all of the torrential rains and long night's of racing, just to get them in. But get them in they did, but it was a marathon. I truly doubt that anyone else but Boone could have done so.
On Monday, September 5, there was IMCA Hobby Stock and Northern SportMod qualifying and a complete show for the IMCA Southern SportMods was on tap. This was the first time that the Southern SportMods had been to Boone and included in the Super National's lineup. Thirty-three drivers ran the event. Taking home the title as the Inaugural winner of the IMCA Southern SportMod championship was Jeffrey Abbey from Comanche, Texas. He passed Cody Smith from Kaufman, Texas with seven laps left in the 30-lapper, and pulled away to take the comfortable win. Smith finished as the runner up, Jake Upchurch from Grand Prairie, Texas took third, fourth went to Rodney White out of Ector, Texas, and Mickey Helms from Victoria, Texas made it a clean sweep for the state of Texas for the top five. Drivers in the class were also from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas.
Tuesday, September 6 had the IMCA Sport Compacts running their entire show and they came out in full force with a record 84 of the "half the cylinders, twice the fun" entrance. Qualifying also continued for the Hobby Stocks and the Northern SportMods. Last year's second place finisher, Josh Barnes, from Keokuk, Iowa started on the pole...by luck of the redraw...and led all of the 25-lap feature that went flag to flag. Mitch Bolton, Grand Junction, Colorado chased him across the line to take second place. Third was female entrant, Kimberly Abbott from Olin, Iowa, fourth went to Ramsey Meyer out of Pierce, Nebraska and Nate Coopman, Mankato, Minnesota and last year's Super Nationals champion, rounded out the top five.
Wednesday...and as far as I can piece it back together, this is what occurred. After some overnight rain, and then rain in the morning until after 2:30 p.m. it was time to break out the jet dryer. From my notes, it appears the first cars on the track for hot laps, was right at 6 p.m. and then the first race at 6:47 p.m. Unfortunately, all that got in for racing was a qualifying Northern SportMod A, and a qualifying Hobby Stock A....that was called complete at 14 laps down at approximately 7:25 p.m. It was announced that racing would begin on Thursday morning at 9 a.m., with the show picking up on Wednesday's schedule, where it left off and then running all of the Thursday show.
Thursday is somewhat of a blur. We raced from 9:43 in the morning, until 5:55 a.m.---20 hours and 12 minutes, and 126 non-stop races. Wednesday's show was completed, the grandstands cleared, and fans re-entered with their Thursday tickets. Thursday's regularly schedule IMCA Late Model show was the headliner.
The Late Models ran their championship 50-lap feature I'm guesstimating around midnight. Joel Callahan led the early portion of the race but each lap was seeing the familiar #77 of Jeff Aikey, inch closer to the front. A yellow flew at lap thirteen, and on the restart, Aikey surged past both leader Callahan and Jason Rauen who had been running second, to take the lead. It was all over from there on out as Aikey paced the field well ahead of any competition. Aikey scored a record sixth Super Nationals win. Callahan held on to the runner up spot, Rauen was third, Tyler Bruening took fourth and Joe Zrostlik rounded out the top five.
Friday was another one of those days when Mother Nature was throwing a fit. Racing did begin at 2:16 p.m. with the sky growing darker, and darker by the minute. The ominous clouds, turned into a downpour somewhere around 7:30 p.m. and racing was put on hold, until further notice. When the rain finally stopped, and the jet dryer was sent out to do it's "squeegeeing" (throw in a heart stopping moment when it quit on the track, only to have to have a broken wire replaced) then the John Deere's farming the track, and racing resumed at 11:40 p.m. Here we go again!
The format for Friday's show was also adjusted, pushing some of the action originally scheduled for Friday, into the Saturday show. Racing for the adjusted Friday show ended at 2:38 a.m.
Saturday was the Big Dance day, but before getting into the Saturday schedule, the Friday schedule was still to be completed. That began at 9:24 a.m. running until 1:50 p.m. Once again, the grandstand was cleared and Saturday's ticket holders were allowed to enter.
The track was re-farmed, and after the points were recalculated for Saturday's racing, we were off and running again at about 4 p.m.
It was a full show of championship Super National racing then. Race of Champions was for the IMCA Hobby Stocks, Northern SportMods, Stock Cars, and Modifieds. Hobby Stock winner was Brandon Nielsen from Spencer, Iowa. The Northern SportMod R.O.C. winner was Lanesboro, Iowa racer, Doug Smith. The Stock Car champion was defending Super Nationals winner, Dustin Larson from Rushmore, Minnesota. Ricky Thornton, Jr. who spent his summer racing in Iowa while living in Harcourt, Iowa, but calls Chandler, Arizona home, took the Modified Race of Champions trophy.
The Modified Fast Shafts All Star race was an exciting one! Ricky Thornton, Jr. took the immediate lead from his middle front-row starting spot. While he sailed along at the point, Marshalltown's Jimmy Gustin was FLYING through the field. Gustin started inside row five, and caught Thorton by lap ten. Then the battle began! After a yellow flew at lap twenty-three, Gustin got up on the wheel once more, and it didn't take long until he snagged the lead. Gustin then held on to that coveted spot, and took the All Star feature win.
The first of four championship races began with the IMCA Hobby Stocks. Andrew Burg put his stamp on a Super Nationals win by leading the 30-lap feature from start to finish. Second place finisher, John Watson, chased him the entire distance. Shannon Anderson made it from starting thirteenth, to claim third, fourth was Nashua, Iowa's Matt White, who started ninth, and hometown racer Dustin Graham took fifth.
The Northern SportMod "Big Dance" winner went to Doug Smith. Smith made the pass on last year's winner, Clint Luellen to take command and then went on to pull away, taking the double checkers by a lengthy margin. Luellen held the runner up spot, third went to Randy Roberts, Daniel Gottschalk was fourth and Tyler Soppe finished fifth. As a note, the second through fifth place winners were all sporting the #3.
Elijah Zevenbergen, from Ocheyedan, Iowa, an IMCA Stock Car racer that has been quite successful on the Dakota Series tour as well as his own area racing, put his name in the Super Nationals record book by winning the 30-lap feature. Zevenbergen, who had never raced at Boone, out ran second place finisher, Mike Nichols, and took the comfortable win. Third place finisher was Derek Green. Green, from Granada, Minnesota, started tenth. Fourth was Adair, Iowa's Marcus Fagan, and last year's winner, Dustin Larson from Rushmore, Minnesota, hiked up his left front and motored from nineteenth, to a top five finish.
The grand finale was the 40-lap IMCA Modified feature. The front row was Mike VanGenderen, Jay Noteboom, and Ricky Thornton, Jr., with a lot of heavy hitters looming behind them. Thornton quickly grabbed the lead but by lap thirteen, Mike VanGenderen had become the man at the helm. Then who was that car charging from fifteenth spot, to grab third place, but Jimmy Gustin, your earlier popular All Star winner. Gustin wasn't content to run third, so snapped up the lead at lap seventeen and roared off with now Thornton in tow, and VanGenderen in third and wanting more. A yellow flew at lap twenty-two that involved VanGenderen in an unavoidable situation. This put him to tag the field, and basically, out of the running. When things picked back up after the caution, Gustin and Thornton went to battle. Thornton finally gained the advantage and the lead at lap twenty seven, and after that he stayed out in front and took the checkers for the win. Chris Abelson slipped by Gustin in the final laps, as they finished second and third in that order. Fourth place finisher was Jordan Grabouski from Beatrice, Nebraska and former Super Nationals and IMCA National Champion, Dylan Smith, also from Beatrice, Nebraska, was fifth.
Racing concluded at 12:29 a.m. on what turned out to be a beautiful day and night for racing. It would have all gone a lot more smoothly had not Mother Nature threw a fit, but with the dedicated track workers, the three great announcers, Ryan Clark, Jerry Vansickel and Chad Meyer who had to be dragging, and all the staff, it all got completed.....somehow! Super Nationals 2016 is in the books with more than just a couple of firsts.
I always like to stick around for the motor auctions done immediately after the races are done. The Hobby Stock motor of Andrew Burg went for $1,600, Doug Smith's Northern SportMod went for $4,100, Elijah Zevenbergen's Stock Car motor went for $6,000 and Ricky Thornton, Jr.'s Modified motor went for $6,500.
So ends another Super Nationals. It was a marathon, but we made it through. I can say I saw ever race...though I may have nodded off during some of them. It was still a fun time despite the rain, as we once again connected with racing friends we see but once a year, to say nothing of seeing some fantastic racing with a record 906 race cars.
Still some end of season racing to be found in our area. Check the race calendar at Positively Racing and find a race to support the sport we all love.
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