Well my day started by doing somethings around the house after that i made the trip to the Central Iowa Fairgrounds for the Thunder Dome Indoor Dirt Racing Go-Kart Series races. The first green flag was set to take place at 10:30a with hot laps but the track crew had their scheduled modified a bit because of some of the other stuff they had to get set up the night before because of the wind storm damage from last week. It was between 10:45a and 11a hot laps began with racing starting at about 12p after everybody was giving 2 hot lap sessions so this meant for a lot of time for me to walk around and have fun meeting up with people and watching drivers and crews working on their karts.
Around 70 entries were there to compete and based on the numbers the order of events were modified as well.
In the 1st Session the order of events would be Jr 1 Flathead Heavy, Animal Heavy, Jr 2 Flathead Heavy, Stock Heavy, Putt Putt, Iowa Outlaws, Clone Heavy and Mad Dog Bikes.
First set of heats in the first session were raced then a little track maintenance then the 2nd set of heats were run then an intermission was taken for a kids candy dash on the frontstretch for halloween then after that it was time for the first session features.
Heat winners in the first set of heat races were: Ryan Maitland in Jr 1 Flathead Heavy, Kevin Hurst in Animal Heavy, Austin Schrage in Jr 2 Flathead Heavy, Thor Anderson in Stock Heavy, Landon Murray in Putt Putts, Merlin Schnur in Iowa Outlaws, Austin Beck in Clone Heavy and Ben Van Wyk in Mad Dog Bikes
2nd set of heat race would go to Brandon Maitland in Jr 1 Flathead Heavy, Kevin Hurst in Animal Heavy, Austin Schrage in Jr 2 Flathead Heavy, Thor Anderson in Stock Heavy, Jordan Parcel in Putt Putts, Merlin Schnur in Iowa Outlaws, Ryan Nelson in Clone Heavy and Ben Van Wyk in Mad Dog Bikes.
Well after the kids candy dash the features came out and first up was the Jr 1 Flathead Heavy which it was Ryan Maitland from Waterloo beating his brother Brandon Maitland, Colton Fisher from Sperry and Brody Willett of Alburnett.
In the Animal Heavy class it was the female racer Ashlee Becker from Cresco beating the boys. Finishing behind Becker was Kevin Hurst from Janesville, Jason Gingerich of Keota, Aaron Burkey of Vinton and Nathanael Hilldebrand of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
Jr 2 Heavy feature would go to Austin Schrage of Cresco as he would be out Kade Higday of Des Moines.
Stock Heavy feature would go to Thor Anderson from Bondurant, Jake Steenhoek from Pleasant Hill was 2nd and Justin Meinders was 3rd.
Putt Putts would see Jordan Parcel from Des Moines in First but no winner is actually crowned as all drivers are winners in this class so other winners were Walker Ashton from Beamon, Landon Murray of Hartford, Logan Schmidt of Tama and Lucas Gunderson of Liscomb.
In the Iowa Outlaws class it would be Merlin Schnur of Cresco beating "The Reaper" Ryan Gustin to the line, behind Schnur and Gustin was Shannon Stravers of Cresco and Don Baker of Marshalltown.
Clone Heavy Class would go to Ryan Nelson of Carroll, Austin Beck of Evansdale was 2nd, Brian Eppertt of Boone was 3rd, Jake Steenhoek from Pleasant Hill was 4th, Jason Murray was 5th, Jake Veenstra was 6th.
The last class in the first session to run a feature was the Mad Dog Bikes, Ben Van Wyk from Pella would make it a clean sweep on the day as he would take the feature win as well. Tim Bontrager of Oxford, Noah Hovell of Pella, Ethan Roth of Ames, Adam Dowdell of Marshalltown, Leon Borgomainerio of Des Moines.
Well after this session was complete it was break time and time for some more track maintenance to get it ready for the 2nd session of the day. The 2nd session would start pretty much on time and was in a timely manner.
In the 2nd Session the order of events would be Jr 1 Animal Heavy, Open 4 Cycle/Jr 2 Medium, KT100/Clone Medium, Jr 1 Medium, Amateur Quad, Pit Bike, Pro Quad and Pro Singles. Pro Singles would only run a feature.
1st Set of Heat Race Winners were Morgan Schrage in Jr 1 Animal Heavy, Merlin Schur in Open 4 Cycle, Ryan Gustin in KT100/Clone Medium, Ryan Maitland in Jr 1 Medium, DJ Robinson in Amateur Quad, Justin Lichty in Pit Bike and Travis Brandt in Pro Quads.
Pro Singles feature was up next then and it was Aaron King of Waterloo taking the win with Chaz Parker of Muscatine in 2nd and Levi Layman of Muscatine in 3rd.
2nd Set of Heat Race Winners were Morgan Schrage in Jr 1 Animal Heavy, Austin Schrage in Open 4 Cycle/Jr 2 Medium, Ryan Gustin in KT100/Clone Medium, Ryan Maitland in Jr 1 Medium, Jeff Robinson in Amateur Quad, Lowell Potter in Pit Bikes and Travis Brandt in Pro Quads.
In the Jr 1 Animal Heavy feature it was Logan Gunderson from Liscomb beating Morgan Schrage from Cresco.
Austin Schrage from Cresco would win the Jr 2 Medium which was run during the Open 4 Cycle feature. In the Open 4 Cycle feature it would go to Ashlee Becker, making her 2 for 2 on the day in features. Finishing behind Becker was Merlin Schnur, Cale Hurst of Cedar Falls, Nathanael Hilldebrand, Thor Anderson and Shannon Stravers.
Ryan Gustin would clean sweep the KT100 Class with Scotty Holkan from Newton finishing 2nd. Carter Vandenberg would win the Clone Medium Class which ran during the KT100 feature.
In Jr 1 Medium it was Brody Willett of Alburnett taking the win, Brandon Maitland was 2nd, Ryan Maitland was 3rd, Jordan Parcel was 4th and Skyler Harroun of West Liberty was 5th but he experienced problems in the heats.
In the Amateur Quad class it was father Jeff Robinson from Des Moines beating his son DJ Robinson to the line, behind the robinson's was Zach Hovell from Pella and Bryan Miller from Marshalltown.
Despite their only being 2 Pit Bike racers this was one great race as it would be a photo finish at the line and the win would go to Justin Lichty from Waterloo with Lowell Potter from Waterloo in 2nd.
The final feature of the night was the Pro Quad feature, Travis Brandt of Des Moines took the win with Tyler Hammons from Fremont, Nebraska in 2nd and Billy Petithory of Des Moines.
The racing came to and end and i can say i was impressed and thought that it was a fun deal. I had people that knew me coming up and asking if i had fun and if i got my racing fix and the answer is yes i did and i am looking forward to going back.
You can check out photos from the Thunderdome races that i took by going to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=297656&id=333727462194&ref=mf or you can check out the photos from the official photographer Motorsports Photography and Bruce Badgley by going to http://www.moto.photoreflect.com/
Special Thanks goes out to Brian Kauffman, Randy Nielsen, Kristy Palmer Schweer and the entire crew for putting on an awesome show. Also a Big Thanks the Central Iowa Fairboard for making this happen too.
There is 7 more Thunder Dome Races left and they are November 20th, December 11th, January 8th, January 29th, February 12th, February 26th and March 5th. So get out and see the fastest 5 seconds of racing inside the Thunder Dome!
