Knoxville:
Mother Nature is cruel. Knoxville Raceway was all set to go to kick off their 2012 season opener, the track was packed, cars were in the push off lanes, my son and I were in our seats with food and drinks, and then we felt sprinkles…. which was followed by more sprinkles. After an hour it let loose with heavy rain and thunder and it was washed out. What really punches you in the gut is waiting all winter to see racing and then to have Ma Nature give us an unseasonably warm March and early April where several Saturday’s came and went with beautiful weather for racing. Then we finally get to racing season and the weather turns cold and wet. “Thumbs down to Mother Nature,” said my six year old son. That sums it up. I will give Knoxville Raceway a thumb’s up for putting on a nice prerace event with a car show, inflatable bounce house and slide, heck we even caught part of a sheep sale earlier in the day and my kid loved all of it. Toby Kruse and John McCoy were easily accessible outside the ticket office meeting and greeting race fans like politicians. That was very cool for them to spread some good will. It genuinely seemed like a new attitude or aura about the place. At least we saw some cars on practice night which was exciting with a stop watch. The Dunkin’s had that track bad fast as Lynton Jeffrey was clocked at 14.5, just a tenth off the record. The new mufflers are a little quieter, and they have a different tone or ring to them as well. We’ll see how they sound in race conditions but casual fans won’t notice a difference.
Osky:
I have made it to all three Wednesday night shows at Oskaloosa’s Southern Iowa Speedway so far. Weather has been dry but cool on those nights luckily. Car counts have been decent for the first two weekly shows at 67 and 72. A-Mod car count has been 11 and 8 so hopefully that number goes up a little more, but it’s still improvement from last year. Richie Gustin has been the class of the Modified field so far but he sits second in points behind Cayden Carter. I would look for Richie to pull away at some point in this class, he had mechanical issues in the week one feature and pulled in, but won handily in week two.
In SportMod Jesse Sobbing is the clear favorite right now after winning week one and a second behind Jason McDaniel in week two. If Sobbing continues to make the 3 hour drive each Wednesday night from Glenwood he will be tough to beat. Carter Vandenberg and Bill Gibson are strong contenders and Curtis Van Der Wal has won his heat race each of the past two weeks. Good field of SportMods.
The stock car and hobby features have been unbelievable racing so far with some serious rubbin, three and four wide at times. Shannon Anderson is the class of the Hobby Stock field so far. Starting 12th last week was a tall order to catch Donavon Nunnikhoven who set sail from the front row, but one or two more laps and I think Anderson had him. Very impressive drive for them and as long as Anderson is starting 5 or 6 rows deep every week this is going to be exciting racing.
In Stock Car Matt Greiner is leading points with a pair of top five finishes and the two feature winners being Kyle Harwood and Damon Murty. Looking like a tough class to predict anything here but look for Greiner and Nathan Wood to emerge at the top come July. Zack VanderBeek has competed in stock car the last two weeks and been strong but I’m sure he will miss some races with USMTS Modifieds having a handful of Wednesday night races this summer.
The new 4 cylinder Sport Compact class (look like Rally Cars) has seen small car counts and it’s a growing class it sounds like. Not a big fan of these cars yet, but when only 6 of them are out there for a feature and they’re slow it’s not engaging to me. We’ll see how this class develops.
I am very impressed with the new management at Osky under Mike Van Genderen. Crowd support has been solid despite cool temperatures so I would say his promotion to get butts in the stands is working. There is also some new sponsor signage on the front stretch as well and it looks nice. Last week was free popcorn, and he is trying out some new things like $5 admission for certain local towns. He says he has more things to come yet so I’m anxious to see what he has in the works. I’m glad to see my @OskySIS twitter account is up to 115 followers already in three weeks. Hope you followers have enjoyed the updates.
I was also able to make it to Marshalltown Speedway for the Frostbuster but it was a very cold and late night with so many cars and I wasn’t able to stay for the whole show. My son had enough at 11pm but he was a trooper! Good showing there and glad to see Motown continue their success. I can’t wait to get up there for a weekly show in the coming weeks.
Let’s hope the weather forecast is wrong for this week as there is rain in there for Wednesday in Osky and Saturday when the World of Outlaws come to Knoxville.
