Sunday, May 14, 2017

Munson wins first SportMod feature at Boone

We were back at our Saturday night home at the Boone Speedway last night. Beautiful weather and some good racing!  There were 110 cars checked in in the six classes that competed.  

Charlie Brown won his first Mod Lite feature of the season.  Brown led the caution-free race from start to finish to earn his victory.  Bryan Zehm started tenth, and finished as the runner up.  Joe Glick came from eighth starting position to take third place, fourth went to Josh May who started tenth, and Randy Bryan rounded out the top five.  

The IMCA Northern SportMods followed up with another flag-to-flag race.  Their 18-lap main event was won by an elated Mike Munson.  Munson held off second place finisher Chad Ryerson to take the checkers.  Randy Roberts finished third after starting tenth, fourth went to early leader Robert Moore and Adam Shelman was fifth.  This was Munson's first SportMod win at the track. Munson started racing the SportMod after moving from the Stock Car class a number of years ago.  

The 11-car field of the IMCA RaceSaver Sprints were scheduled to run a 20-lap feature, but this one had it's problems.  A sixth caution at only lap nine...this one a red flag when Colin Smith rolled in corner four, and already fifteen minutes into the main event, the time limit of a lap a minute was fast approaching.  They were then told they would race to the next yellow or the checkers, whichever came first.  They did manage their longest non-stop run of the evening, but the race still ended at lap fifteen and was called complete.  

Michael Houseman, from Des Moines was declared the winner of the RaceSaver Sprint feature.  Moore started ninth and stamped his name into the books as a first time winner at Boone.  Michael Moore, week number one winner, was second.  Third went to CJ Houseman, Nathan Mills was fourth, and Bob Hildreth was fifth.

Eric Elliott returned to Victory Lane after a couple of year's absence at the track in the IMCA Modified 20-lap event.  Elliott, who  had to restart at the tail, due an early caution, fought his way back through pack.  He got the lead with just a couple of laps remaining, and took the checkers by a comfortable margin.  Josh Truman started twelfth and had a great run to finish as the runner up.  Third went to Josh Gilman, who came from sixteenth starting spot, fourth was eleventh place starter and defending track champion, Mike VanGenderen, and Al Wolfgram completed the top five.  Elliott went back-to-back for his weekend, as he had also won the feature at the Marshalltown Speedway the previous night.  He appears to have his spiffy looking new ride figured out!

The IMCA Stock Car winner was Trent Murphy.  Murphy battled his way through traffic from his sixth row starting spot, to take the checkers.  Donavon Smith made a late race charge to take second after starting fifteenth.  Third was early leader Brandon Pruitt, Jay Schmidt started twelfth and finished fourth and pole starter Cody Gustoff was fifth.

The 2016 track champion, Eric Stanton won the 12-lap Hobby Stock feature, closing out the night's racing.  Stanton finished comfortably ahead of second place Ryan Wells.  Early leader, Jack Phillips was third, followed by Solomon Bennett in fourth and Dean Hartwig in fifth. There was a red flag situation in this feature too.  Lap one found Aaron Rudolph rolling just before turn three, at one point on top of Ross Marshall's ride.  Rudolph was okay but his chance at three-peating was not to be.  

There were twenty-one IMCA Modifieds in the house last night, not a bad count considering the big show over at the Farley Speedway that lured many local drivers to try for the unheard of $50,000 to win.  The SportMods were running for $20,000 to win.  A check around social media shows that it was North Carolina racer Kyle Strickler taking the money in the Modified feature and Waseca, Minnesota's Jared Boumeester just beat out Boone's Jake McBirnie in a photo-finish in the SportMods.

We were glad to get back to seeing racing this weekend, plus we also managed a Preschool graduation for our granddaughter, a soccer game for her, and two baseball games for our grandson.  We had a full weekend for sure!  On this Mother's Day weekend, as my mother always, said, "Go and do while you can!" Happy Mother's Day!

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