Weekly racing began in 1964 at the current location of the Marshalltown Speedway, and after 45-years of continues racing, history was again made this past Friday evening. It was a week that Central Iowan’s would receive a wintry mix of rain, snow and high winds a challenge that promoter Toby Kruse has seen before. “It’s that time of year when you get what you get. We knew we had to keep the race track in good condition, we was able to accomplish that and with our new west side grandstands, we had an obligation to our race fans and visitors to our community to put on the best racing program that we could, and by golly I think we did just that.”
What he didn’t expect was the turnout that would await him. A standing room grandstand of race enthusiasts wanting to be present on this opening night event, and a pit area which held 205-race teams that made their way to compete, a new record of entries and a figure not even Kruse could of imagined. “Sure when you set out to take a business like this or any business you always have a goal. This was in the back of my mind but I never would of imagined that we could do this in our forth season.” And not only was the car count something that will be remembered for a long time, but a driver from Canada also was on hand to compete. “I met Davin Emmel a few weeks back and just asked him if he was interested in coming, he said sure, and here he showed up.” Also on hand were drivers from six different states, which included one driver from California. “This again is the reason everyone likes to race under the I.M.C.A. banner. You can race in any part of the country and when you come to a race like this you can be competitive, because everyone is racing the same type of rules. What a turn out and what a show we had tonight.”
It was a busy night of racing as 34-races were run though out the night with close side by side racing in almost every lap. Two drivers found their world turned upside down as Eric Vanlaten and Don Vis would go for wild rides but both drivers would walk away.
Through out all of the feature events yellow flags and lap traffic would make for very interesting racing conditions. The race track would stay near perfect the entire evening with three and four wide racing in every division. As the rubber was laid onto the track, it would become evident that the high line and the low line would play a part in the out come of the feature winners.
In the Meskwaki I.M.C.A. Modified feature luck would run out for one driver and another luck would play right into his hands. The twenty-five-lap feature started out with Chris Abelson taking the lead from his outside starting position. Abelson drove the first six laps with out missing a beat holding of two and three different drivers through out the early going. On lap seven his luck would run out when he slid high in turn two giving the lead to Nebraska’s Jordon Grabouski a lead that he would hold uncontested until the closing laps. With five laps to go Iowan Troy Cordes, who was running the low side of the track would close to the back bumper of Grabouski. The two would run into lap traffic and at one point Cordes was able to take the lead but Grabouski would charge back on the high side to regain the top spot. With two laps to go, the pair was side-by-side working there way in and out of the lap traffic. On the final lap Cordes would make one final low side attempt. The two would touch but Grabouski was not to be denied of the win. “I really don’t believe it, it could of gone either way. I just stayed in the gas, the car stuck and here I am in victory lane just shaking that was fun. When you come and race for Toby you know that track is going to be good, and he really did it tonight this is great”, concluded Grabouski in victory lane. Cordes would finish a close second followed by Jay Noteboom and Jimmy Gustin.
Sean Johnson would take the lead from the drop of the green flag in the Aarons I.M.C.A. Stock Car feature event. A quick yellow on lap three would bunch the field behind Johnson with Wisconsin’s John Heinz dropping low and taking the lead but Johnson stayed in hot pursuit and regained the top spot, the next lap. By lap five, last year’s track champion and the defending Frostbuster Champion would slip past Johnson and take the lead. Smith would hold off challenges by Marshalltown’s Ryan Gustin and Damon Murty until the checkered flag flew. Smith would pick up his second Frostbuster victory and was followed across the line by Murty, Gustin and Dusty Vis. Johnson would finish eighth.
New class sponsor Big 8 Tyre in the I.M.C.A. Sport Mod division would find one of the biggest car counts of the night. Six heat races and two B-mains would be needed to qualify the twenty-four-car field. Kevin Sather would start of front and lead the entire eighteen-lap event. Many yellow flags would slow the event but Sather would continue to find victory lane in posting this Frostbuster win. Defending track champion and Nation Champion Luke Wanninger would finish second followed by Nate Chodur Kyle Brown.
Devin Smith would follow his brother Dustin as a repeat winner in the Junction Sports Bar & Grill I.M.C.A. Hobby Stock Class. Smith would take the lead from pole sitter Terry Shaffar on lap three then cruise to victory in the fifteen-lap event. Following Smith across the finish line was Shaffar, Todd Reitzer and Brandon Pruitt.
Co-track Champions Andy Hennigar and Mike Morrill would start out just like they ended the 2008 season racing each other to the very end. Tim Hennigar would lead the first lap before Andy Hennigar would take the lead. Andy would then lead until lap twelve when Morrill would take the top spot. The pair would pull away from the rest of the field, racing each other to the very end. Morrill would pick up the victory followed by Andy and Tim with Ed Zehm finishing forth.
Notes Racing started at 7 and ended just after midnight with the pit area full of cars. 6 heats, 3 b-features for the modifieds, 6 heats and 2 b-features for the sport mods, 4 heats and a b-feature for both the stock cars and hobby stocks and 2 heats for the dwarfs set the a-feature fields!
Cautions in the features: 2 in the dwarf cars, 1 in the hobbys, 3 in the sport mods, 3 in the stock cars and 3 in the modifieds. Dwarf Car feature had 3 different leaders: Tim Hennigar, Andy Hennigar and Mike Morrill, Hobby Stocks was led from start to finish in the 15 lap feature by Devin Smith, Kevin Sather lead the entire 18 Sport Mod Feature, the Stock Cars had 3 feature leaders: Sean Johnson, Dustin Smith and Dusty Vis and the Modified Feature had 2 leaders Chris Abelson and Jordan Grabouski!
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Mean while the Iowa State Fairgrounds Speedway started its 2009 season on friday night as well with their track point opener. In the IMCA Modifieds its was Todd Shute taking the feature over co-worker Pat Graham and Greg Cox would finish 3rd in his new razor chassis! The IMCA Sport Mods were one by Kevin Fee and Austin Kaplan would finish in 2nd. Steve Jackson would take the IMCA Stock Car Feature with Tim Bengard and Todd Inman. In the IMCA Hobby Stocks, Feature #1 went to Kenny Hansen with Ray Stock Jr and Greg Hower and in Feature #2 it went to Shannon Anderson and he was followed by Alan Van Gorp and John Watson. The Karl Chevrolet was won by Mr. Karl Chevrolet himself Carl Moyer. The Sport Compacts also raced and was won by Dustin Poldberg.
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Logue becomes 30th driver to notch 100 career IMCA Modified wins
John Logue stole the show on a chilly, windy Saturday night at Boone Speedway, becoming the 30th driver in history to amass 100 career feature wins in the IMCA Modified division. While Adam Larson and Benji LaCrosse battled it out at the front of the Super Nationals Shakedown main event, Logue steadily worked his way into contention from several rows back in the starting grid. The front pair was often side-by-side in the 20-lap main event while Logue settled into third in the race’s late stages. Logue, like the others, preferred the low line through the turns, but Larson and LaCrosse were there. With just three laps to go, Logue drove to the high side, found a bite, and finally took the lead as the trio of cars came to the white flag. “Sure, I wanted the bottom,” Logue said afterward. “But it wasn’t there. I didn’t have any choice but to go up top.” It worked, and Logue joined an impressive list of drivers who have accomplished the milestone 100-win mark. The victory paid $1,000 and landed Logue on the ballot for the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational. He finished ahead of LaCrosse, a late-charging Nate Caruth, Larson and Steve Glenn. Other winners at the inaugural special included Jeremy Embrey in the Karl Chevrolet Northern SportMods, Trent Murphy in the IMCA Sunoco Stock Car feature and Michael Leffler in the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stock main event. Embrey had a relative easy time of it in posting the SportMod 18-lap victory as he was comfortably out front of Kevin Sather, Brett Moffitt, defending national champion Luke Wanninger and Brad Lautenbach at the finish. Murphy took the Stock Car feature ahead of Wayne Gifford, John Heinz, Michael Jeannette and Mike VanGenderen. Leffler won the Hobby Stock feature with another last-lap pass.
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34 Raceway kicked their 2009 Racing Season off with the 1st Annual Frostbuster. The Sebastian Sanblasting 305 Sprints were won by Bobby Mincer, Josh Foster took the IMCA Modified Feature, Jason Cook in the IMCA Stock Cars, Mean Dean Kratzer took the Hobby Stock and Travis Yakle took the 4-cylinders.
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The WDRL late Models started their 2009 racing season at the davenport speedway and Chad Simpson took the feature event and Ray Guss Jr won the Pro Modified feature event
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The United States Modified Touring Series headed south for the weekend. Thursday Nights show at LA Raceway in La Monte, MO was rained out. Then they headed off to West Siloam Speedway in West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma for 2 shows where Jason Hughes would take both features, Kelly Shyrock finished 2nd on Friday while Terry Phillips finished 2nd on Saturday. then Mother Nature won the sunday night show at the Thunderhill Speedway in Mayetta, KS!
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Events getting taking by mother nature:
Algona Raceway Season Opener/Frostbuster, I-35 Speedway Season Opener, Tripleheader Frostbuster Weekend shows at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City and Benton County Speedway in Vinton and Spring Thaw/Razor Rumble at the Park at the Park Jefferson Speedway in Jefferson, SD (the spring thaw has been rescheduled for April 17 & 18)!
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Now on my view of my racing action i caught this weekend. The only night i caught racing action was friday night at the marshalltown speedway because I let Mother Nature convince me to not go to racing action on saturday night.
On Friday, I arrived at the track at 5 and walked around the pits and the pits were already full at that time and cars were still coming in. Hot laps started at 6, 15 minutes earlier than what was scheduled because of the car count, drivers meeting at 6:40 or so and racing started at 7. 205 cars filled the pit area a Marshalltown Speedway record, the racing action was awesome the track was wide and brought the fans on their seats for a great night of racing that wrapped up just after midnight!
Next week I will promise you more because my weekend will take me to Marshalltown on Friday, Webster City, Boone or Algona on Saturday and maybe Vinton on Sunday!
Hope to See you at the Races, don't forget to check out the trackside report podcast!
