USAC & IndyCars at Iowa Speedway

I was able to attend the Friday night portion of the Iowa Speedway events last weekend for the USAC races and IndyCar Series qualifying. IndyCar used a new qualifying format by dividing the field into three heat races based on their practice times. The finish of the heats determined the starting grid for Saturday night. This is the first time the series has experimented with this format which had mixed reviews from team owners and drivers. The first heat only saw one pass for position as Graham Rahal won with J.R. Hildebrand making the only pass for position on the track for third place. The second and third heats were more exciting as Tony Kanaan raced from the second row to win the second heat, and Dario Franchitti passed Marco Andretti on lap eight and pulled away for a convincing win. Helio Castroneves said it best after the races, “I like it, but I don’t love it. It’s like Mom making you eat your vegetables.” But Ryan Briscoe had the idea of giving the first two heat race winners a new set of tires and allowing them to tag the tail of the fast heat for a chance to advance even more in the lineup.

The heat races were a gimmick, I liked it, but I’m not sure it sold more tickets, and we will have to see how it did on TV. Dario Franchitti had a engine fail before the race started, Will Power crashed, James Hinchliffe crashed, and the Andretti team of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andrettin getting a 1-2 finish. It was worth the wait after a rain delay.

The USAC Challenge Midget and Silver Crown series’ competed after the IndyCar heat races. It was a pair of drivers familiar with victory lane at Iowa grabbing the wins. Bobby Santos III won the 30 lap midget race, he has won two Silver Crown races in the past, and Bobby East won his third career Silver Crown race at the 7/8 mile oval. They become three time winners at the track, a feat only accomplished by Ricky Steenhouse Jr. winning three NASCAR Nationwide series events.

The Midget race was full of excitement with six lead changes. Darren Hagen lead at the start and was passed by Cody Armstrong on lap three. After a caution Hagen used the restart to get back by Armstrong, but Armstrong took the lead again on lap nine and pulled away, but on lap 18 something mechanical went wrong for Armstrong and he had to pull in.

Inheriting the lead on lap 19 was Mario Clouser who had worked his way past the leaders from his fifth starting position, but in the end he couldn’t hold off Bobby Santos III as made the winning pass on lap 23 and pulled away.

The 100 lap Silver Crown race wasn’t quite as busy up front as pole sitter Kody Swanson grabbed the lead, but lurking right on his tail was Bobby East who seemed to have a strategy to save his tires a bit for the second half of the race.

East passed Swanson on lap 56 and pulled away for the win beating Swanson by eleven seconds. Working their way up through the field was former series champions Levi Jones who started seventh and found his way to third, and Jerry Coons Jr. who started ninth and clawed his way up to fourth.

USAC Midget Results: 1. Bobby Santos, 2. Mario Clouser, 3. Brad Kuhn, 4. Darren Hagen, 5. Adam Kramer, 6. Bobby East, 7. Tracy Hines, 8. Kody Swanson, 9. Bryan Clauson, 10. Tanner Swanson
USAC Silver Crown results: 1. Bobby East, 2. Kody Swanson, 3. Levi Jones, 4. Jerry Coons Jr., 5. Russ Gamester, 6. A.J. Fike, 7. Bud Kaeding, 8. Bobby Santos, 9. Brian Tyler, 10. Taylor Ferns

Rain Out Rant

Warning: Race fan going through withdrawals on a rant in this column.

Rain Outs stink. Knoxville Raceway has been rained out mid-afternoon the past two weeks. I can only imagine how hard it is for teams that travel from long distances like Mark Dobmeier. For years I’ve questioned the rain out decision makings like any other race fan. Why not make up a race on Sunday or the next Friday? Why not work through it all and start later, maybe race past midnight to get the show in if the forecast looks good in the evening hours? The biggest question is why the track crew is still watering the track when you can see rain coming from the western skies? The past two weeks I’ve driven by the track at 3:30pm and the Dunkin’s are still pouring on the water even though there is a blanket of storms an hour or two away to the west that you can clearly see on any radar or smartphone.

And in 2002 wasn’t all the cost of the concrete in the infield justified by saving rain outs?

Rain outs are frustrating, and when it rains a lot there isn’t anything we can do. It stinks for the promoter as there is money lost with promotion throughout the week in radio and newspaper ads, so they’re not happy about it either. My biggest gripe about trying to squeeze in shows with rain is with the infield and a better way to get vehicles across and out of the track. When Knoxville decided to put concrete in the infield, I was blown away when it was laid down. I figured where the concrete is now would have remained dirt, and where the dirt is would have been concrete. It didn’t make sense to me. I was expecting something similar to Eldora Speedway. Earl Baltes put in concrete push off lanes in Eldora at least 20 years ago, and he even watered it to keep the dust down. So don’t tell me you can’t push off sprint cars on wet concrete, because it’s been done for years.

A couple of years ago we had some rain before one of the Nationals qualifying nights and we started late. It took less than an hour to get the track redone, but it took over 2 hours to work the infield so we could push off cars. So why not have concrete push off lanes so that we never have to worry about the push trucks having to roll in the infield ever again. And if you want to get the concrete dry, well I’m sure it’s easier drying concrete than dirt. But at least one concrete push off lane would save a lot of time and probably some weekly shows. And maybe we could find a way to get cars pitted outside the track in the barns and push off from there.

Other than going through the expense and trouble of building a tunnel to get trucks out of the infield, surely there has to be a way to have some sort of bridge laid over the track to one of the pit gates so that trailers can get in and out easier. Not sure what that is, because no matter what you lay down it’s going to want to sink in mud, but some sort of wooden bridge or maybe some precast concrete slabs that could be put in place.

Someone smarter than me can surely figure that out. Boone Speedway has a jet dryer and they do what’s needed to get the 6 days of the Super Nationals in there, granted it’s a 1/3 mile track and they don’t need push lanes but they have a system in place to get the show back up and running quickly if needed.

There will be an official rainout policy in writing this year for the Knoxville Nationals. John McCoy is close to having that finalized, but at least now we will have a clear plan for every scenario when there is rain during that week. I really hope it doesn’t rain that week. I want to see how the new Friday format works out under normal conditions, not on a Saturday afternoon.

I am grateful for the new rain out text message feature that Knoxville and some other tracks are now using. To get a notification on my phone is very nice. You can sign up easily by texting the word “Knoxville” to 84483. But it’s also on Facebook and Twitter quickly.

I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining too much here, and I know Knoxville Raceway does try hard to get these shows in. But when the deciding factor to have a show or not is because you can’t push off cars or get trailers in and out of the track, something doesn’t seem right.

Pray for dry weather this weekend. Why can’t it just rain on Monday’s? Everyone hates Monday anyway.

Osky Mid-Season Report

It’s mid-season already and it’s time for my report card edition of Oskaloosa’s Southern Iowa Speedway. There has been some great racing this season so far. The stock car and hobby stock divisions are providing a lot of close side by side racing, rubbin’ fenders, and the Modified cars have been decent racing as well

The Modified class has seen a jump in car count for sure compared to last season. I don’t think we will ever see the days of 20 Modifieds again, but 10-12 cars weekly is an improvement than 4-6 last year. Jacob Murray has won 4 features although only running a handful of races. He has been tough to beat. Point leader Cayden Carter has won 3 features in his rookie season in this class.

SportMod class has been dominated by Jesse Sobbing as he has five wins and leads the points. He had one bad week with a DNF, but no one is even close to being as fast as this guy. Bryan Weyer has won 3 features and Jason McDaniel has 2 wins. Curtis Van Der Wal was leading the points for a while as he has consistently been in the top five every week, but is still looking for his first win of the season.

The Stock Car class is by far the most entertaining and competitive. Four different drivers have won two features, point leader Nathan Wood, Matt Greiner who is 8 points out from Wood, Damon Murty, and Zack VanderBeek. Kyle Harwood is fourth in points with one feature win, and Corey Stout is third in points and is still looking for his first win. Every week this class impresses me with close side by side racing. It’s been great to see USMTS Modified aces VanderBeek, Colt Mather, and Brad Pinkerton competing regularly as well in this class. Pinkerton picked up a win on June 13.

In Hobby Stocks it has been all Shannon Anderson. He has a 15 point lead over Kevin Fee and 6 feature wins. Donavan Nunnikhoven has two wins and is the only driver to have more than one besides Anderson. Bobby Greene, Fee, and Jamie Songer are the other feature winners this season.

The Sport Compact 4 cylinder class is a real snoozer in my opinion. Typically there are only 5 or 6 cars and Merv Chandler has won 6 times. Maybe this class will grow on me, but right now it’s not entertaining, they’re slow, it takes up precious time, and the only gain I see is a few more pit passes and handful of fans who might like them.

First year promoter Mike Van Genderen has done a good job building up the events and trying several new ideas to improve attendance and car counts. His energy is refreshing for sure. Ideas such as discount nights for certain towns in the area, free popcorn, $2 beer happy hour before the races, costume nights, candy dashes, kid rides in cars, they have all seemed to help build to the crowds up.

We have seen some King of the Hill races, which gives the fans even more racing for the same money. He has also tried several entertainment things during intermission for the fans to have some interaction with the drivers, and for the drivers to earn a free pit pass by participating. I’ve enjoyed all of the gimmicks and I give Mike VG credit for trying to add to the entertainment value for the fans. I think the crowd is split about 50/50 on some of these gimmicks. The down side to this is some fans complain about how long the intermissions are, it drags out the program, and I have even seen cars leaving the parking lot before the features started on a couple of late nights. I think on a week night race, people want to see racing and be entertained, but they also want the program to run as quickly as possible and be driving home by 9:30. Most nights are over around 10:00 but there have been a couple of nights past 10:30. There was one week where three features needed made up from the week before, so most people can understand why that would be a later night, but there still needs to be a conscious effort to get the races done as soon as possible and not have intermissions longer than five minutes if possible.

The week of June 13 was a late night as there was a costume contest and trick or treat for the kids. Great idea there… anything to add to the fun for the youngsters I’m in favor of as long as it doesn’t take up too much time. But then we had a SportMod King of the Hill that took 24 minutes and a Stock Car Australian pursuit that took only 4 minutes to run. Some nights there is just too much on the agenda, and more than one gimmick a night really frustrates some fans. I think Mike has heard that message now as he apologized for that on the Tuesday radio program this past week and this past Wednesday night’s show went more quickly it seemed. But I love Mike’s energy and enthusiasm. He certainly has a passion for racing and wants to put on the best show possible and you can’t fault him for that. Hopefully the gimmicks will continue, but be condensed to appease the time frame fans want. But the racing on the track has been great and I think Osky is on the right track in 2012. You can also see some of my video clips from the stands on my YouTube channel at the link on the right side of my blog, including some action from the Deery Brothers Late Model from this past week.

I will have my Knoxville report card next week.

WoO at Knoxville Dirtphalt & Spencer

Kerry Madsen won his first World of Outlaws race of the season this past Saturday night at the Knoxville Raceway. It was his third career series win. Madsen is a native of Australia but calls Knoxville, Iowa home here in the states as he races full time with the Outlaw series in the summer. Madsen was the 2005 Knoxville track champion and since then he has made a persistent effort to compete at the highest level of the sport and it’s beginning to pay off after a slow start this season. After a fifth place finish on Friday night at Spencer’s Clay County Fairgrounds and a win on Saturday it appears his #29 Keneric racing team is putting the pieces together to be a team to watch over the next couple of months with a lot of big money races on the line culminating in August at the Knoxville Nationals.

The track conditions were very tough at Knoxville on Saturday night with high temperatures, wind, and very low humidity that didn’t allow the 70,000 gallons of water applied to the racing surface in the 48 hours prior to racing to hold up. Sammy Swindell took off with the lead but didn’t catch the rubber groove being built on the bottom side of the track in time and Madsen took advantage by making the winning pass on lap six, and from there it was a freight train on the bottom groove like a NASCAR race at Martinsville. Good news is some of the local Knoxville Regulars had some good showings as Brian Brown, Ian Madsen, and Terry McCarl finished in the top ten with several others qualifying well and making the A-Main. Ian Madsen and Ryan Bunton won their heat races to guarantee top ten starting spots in the feature. In the 360 sprint car class Clint Garner won his third feature of the season.

I felt bad for the Dunkin's though on this night as the track didn't hold up at all and deteriorated quickly. But I have faith they will have this dry weather situation figured out this next week and for the Nationals. But what a sour note to end on with a dirtphalt race. The teams didn’t learn anything for the Nationals, the fans paid a lot of money to see a bad race.

On Friday night I made the four hour drive to Spencer for the first time to watch the Outlaws. This is my tenth dirt track in Iowa I have been to. I was treated to a very good race on the 3/8 mile clay oval. Brad Sweet won his first career Outlaws feature there as he raced hard with leader Jason Sides the first half of the race and finally made the pass and pulled away in dominating fashion. I really like the track up there. It reminds a little of Bloomington in turns 1&2 and a little of Huset’s in 3&4.
The only gripe I had was the concessions taking forever. They need to learn to have more than 2 cash registers for 8 lines of people, and to have a separate line for nachos. But a good race and experience over all. I’m still not sure why the track has brown clay dirt instead of black Iowa dirt. The old half-mile track had sand in it from what I heard so maybe that’s why. Here is a link to my YouTube channel to see video from Spencer. I have the WoO Dash and the start of the 360 Non-Wing feature. http://www.youtube.com/arniebhg But it sure makes for a dusty experience. Surely the glaciers back in the ice age didn’t miss Clay County in Iowa did they?

Month of May

We have quite a battle for the 410 track championship at Knoxville this season. As I predicted, Davey Heskin is the mix and currently has the lead with 685 points, but only one point behind amazingly is Brian Brown who missed one week at the beginning of the season. Only 23 points back in third is Mark Dobmeier. Fourth is Terry McCarl 42 points back. Fifth is Bronson Maeshcen 96 points back. The lurkers who are by no means out of the mix is Ian Madsen, Dusty Zomer, Dustin Selvage, and although Danny Lasoski has missed two races, and will miss a third one in a few weeks while racing in PA Speedweek, the Dude is eighth in points with two wins in three starts.

Looking back at my pre-season predictions, I am dumbfounded that my pick to win Dusty Zomer is seventh in points and only has one top five finish. It’s obvious the Ingalls 91 team is down on horsepower in qualifying and that has hurt them having to start in the back of the features. Zomer’s qualifying average is 13.0 in five races this year with a best of sixth, and his average feature finish is 8.8.

Danny Lasoski will likely pick up Knoxville career wins 99 and 100 this season. When I was kid I never dreamed anyone would crush Earl Wagner's record of 43 wins and now Wagner is sixth on the all-time wins list. 98 or 100 wins is mind blowing and surely a record I will never see broken, along with David Hesmer's 65 wins in the 360 class. Lasoski is 53 years old and shows no signs of slowing down. He has had horrible luck at the Nationals the past two years running 13th in the B-Main in 2010, and a humiliating fifth in the D-Main in 2011. Look for the Dude to be strong in August.

I'm really happy to see Bronson Maeschen in the top five of Knoxville points. He has one quick time and three top fives. His average feature finish is 9.6 and average qualifying position is 4.6. He had a win taken away from him a couple of weeks ago as he led the distance until a late yellow gave Lasoski the opportunity to steal it with a pass on the high side. Maeschen is still looking for his first 410 feature win at Knoxville and he is knocking on the door.

360 Class:
Clint Garner is dominating this class. two wins, five top fives in six starts, three quick times. It's not even close as he has over a 200 point lead over second. The race for second in points is a good one with Nate Van Haafton, Matt Moro, Joe Beaver, Russ Hall, Jon Agan, Casey Fredrichson and Carson McCarl all separated by roughly 100 points. But Garner is headed to win his fourth consecutive 360 championship. He is so fast he catches up to some cars and he doesn't have time to react. Just ask Jamie Ball. I seriously think Garner could run in the top ten in the 410 class looking at my stop watch during the features.

305 Class:
This has turned into a good race with Mike Van Haafton, Matthew Stelzer, Mitchell Alexander, and LarryBall Jr. I expected Ball to run away with this points battle, but I'm pleasantly surprised it's turning into a competitive field of cars, and that the flag man is throwing the black flag to some of the slower cars finally.

Kudos to the Dunkin's for great track prep this season, and the drivers for giving the safety teams and Doug Clark's red flag a rest for three consecutive weeks.

I went to the Natty Light Knoxville Shootout on Sunday... day shows stink. And there was maybe 200 fans there. Never a good sign when more people are on the inside of the fences than outside. That modified and stock car crowd just isn't going to pay $15 to see a show, not when they're accustomed to paying $10 or less.


Marshalltown Speedway:
I've had a couple of good experiences at the Marshalltown Speedway this season and this last week (June 1) was simply the best racing I have ever seen there. The track conditions were tacky and fast, but wide and great racing. The SportMod feature went non stop and Gaitlin Leytham took the win, but watching Jake Strayer and Janae Gustin work their way through traffic was a lot of fun to watch.


The Stock Car feature Trent Murphy lead early but broke and Damon Murty would hold off Brian Irvine for several laps and then Jay Schmidt was able to sneak by Irvine at the line for second. Lots of side by side and rubbin in that feature.

The Modified feature Josh Truman grabbed the early lead and held off Tim Stevens and Kyle Brown. As the race went on Luke Wanninger and Jimmy Gustin drove their way up from mid pack and Wanninger took the lead on lap 13. A caution came out late but Wanninger was able to hold off Gustin for the win with Truman third and a great race between father and son as Kyle Brown edged father David for fourth. If you haven't been to Marshalltown this year, plan a trip.

Bloomfield Speedway:

I found my way to Bloomfield on Memorial Day for a day show of Modifieds and Stock Cars. It was a decent show as far as day racing. Better than sitting at home on the couch for sure as it was a nice day. But the racing wasn't anything spectacular except for Carter Vandenberg passing several cars on high side to win a makeup feature from a few weeks before that was rained out. Nathan wood nearly had a car destroyed as he tried to cross the track to the pit area and was waived by the official to go that he was clear but he was tagged by a Modified as he went across the track. Bad deal.

Des Moines-Iowa State Fairgrounds:
I've also made it to the State Fairgrounds two Friday nights this season. The racing there hasn't been the best either as that hairpin track is fast and hard on equipment. Although Shannon Anderson put on a clinic in the Hobby Stock feature on May 18 when I was there. The dirt trucks tore up so many cars that night they weren't able to field enough cars the next night at Knoxville when they were scheduled and again on Tuesday at the Marshalltown Deery Bros special.

I'm headed to Osky, Spencer WoO, and Knoxville WoO this weekend. Even missing my 20 year class reunion on Saturday. Priorities.... See you in the stands!