With over five inches of rain falling on the Southern Iowa Speedway over the past week, drivers found themselves racing both the other competitors and the increasingly rough track on a beautiful September night in Oskaloosa. Temperatures near ninety and the fact that the 2010 racing season is nearing a close brought out a nice field of cars and a surprisingly large crowd for a Monday night of action on the big half-mile.
The United States Modified Touring Series headlined the show as they kicked off a week that will see over a quarter of a million dollars in prize money distributed as they move to Allison tonight (Tuesday) and then on to the Fall Jamboree at the Deer Creek Speedway near Racine, Minnesota, this weekend. The Modified field tonight was a little smaller than I expected with twenty-seven cars on hand as apparently drivers who are no longer in the point race decided to save their equipment for the Jamboree. Still, as always, it was a solid group of drivers who displayed the high-speed action that you can expect at a USMTS event.
Colt Mather thundered out of the gate to lead the first lap of what would be reduced to a twenty-lap Modified feature, but when the second-place car of Mike Spaulding slowed in the groove of turn four on lap two both Brad Pinkerton and Tim Donlinger piled into him. The scramble to avoid the mess continued and the final starter Ryan Schaffer ended up on his roof up near the guardrail. Everybody escaped injury, but at least four cars were quickly eliminated.
On the restart Ryan Gustin slipped past Mather to officially lead lap two only to have Colt come galloping back to regain the advantage on the following lap. The two young hot shoes then waged an interesting battle over the next several laps even swapping the lead once in corners three and four. On lap twelve Gustin made a pass that stuck and he then drove away over the final laps to have a very comfortable margin of victory at the checkers. Point leader Jason Hughes moved past Mather to take second making sure that Gustin did not make too much progress on carving into that point lead of his. Mather ran a solid third at his home track, Texan Rodney Sanders moved from thirteenth to fourth and Tommy Myer passed Mark Elliott on the final lap to finish fifth after taking the initial green flag in fifteenth.
One note of interest that did not likely play a part in the early issue for Mike Spaulding, as the field was making their traditional four-wide parade lap the steering wheel came off in the hands of Mark Elliott and his car veered left into Spaulding’s. Series officials checked both cars for damage and had to pull out some sheet metal from Spaulding’s right rear before the field could go to green.
The United States Modified Touring Series headlined the show as they kicked off a week that will see over a quarter of a million dollars in prize money distributed as they move to Allison tonight (Tuesday) and then on to the Fall Jamboree at the Deer Creek Speedway near Racine, Minnesota, this weekend. The Modified field tonight was a little smaller than I expected with twenty-seven cars on hand as apparently drivers who are no longer in the point race decided to save their equipment for the Jamboree. Still, as always, it was a solid group of drivers who displayed the high-speed action that you can expect at a USMTS event.
Colt Mather thundered out of the gate to lead the first lap of what would be reduced to a twenty-lap Modified feature, but when the second-place car of Mike Spaulding slowed in the groove of turn four on lap two both Brad Pinkerton and Tim Donlinger piled into him. The scramble to avoid the mess continued and the final starter Ryan Schaffer ended up on his roof up near the guardrail. Everybody escaped injury, but at least four cars were quickly eliminated.
On the restart Ryan Gustin slipped past Mather to officially lead lap two only to have Colt come galloping back to regain the advantage on the following lap. The two young hot shoes then waged an interesting battle over the next several laps even swapping the lead once in corners three and four. On lap twelve Gustin made a pass that stuck and he then drove away over the final laps to have a very comfortable margin of victory at the checkers. Point leader Jason Hughes moved past Mather to take second making sure that Gustin did not make too much progress on carving into that point lead of his. Mather ran a solid third at his home track, Texan Rodney Sanders moved from thirteenth to fourth and Tommy Myer passed Mark Elliott on the final lap to finish fifth after taking the initial green flag in fifteenth.
One note of interest that did not likely play a part in the early issue for Mike Spaulding, as the field was making their traditional four-wide parade lap the steering wheel came off in the hands of Mark Elliott and his car veered left into Spaulding’s. Series officials checked both cars for damage and had to pull out some sheet metal from Spaulding’s right rear before the field could go to green.
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