This past weekend

Memorial Day weekend has become THE weekend for auto racing around the world. From the Grandaddy of them all, the Indy 500, NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, the Grand Prix of Monaco…all the way to the local dirt tracks.

This weekend I visited three venues. I traveled to I-80 and Junction on behalf of the ASCS and took to Eagle on Saturday. As much as I wanted to attend the Alphabet Soup race at I-80 and the Bootlegger’s Run at Eagle the following two days, plans for the holiday and being gone three nights in a row sets my priorities…if you get my drift.

But I'll talk about what I did attend. First up the ASCS at I-80. On the card were Pro-Ams and NASCAR Late Models. Despite their best efforts, the big tires sealed up the track and it went dry and dusty. Makes for impossible picture-taking conditions, but what it did allow was me to watch some fantastic A features. Matt Boucher fought with Rick Negrete for what appeared to be second place as Jeff Joldersman cruised to the checkers. Joldersma’s DQ for weight gave the win to an ecstatic Boucher. Billy Koons swiped the Late Model lead late in the race to take his first Late Model win.

The sprint feature was the topper though as Chad Humston sliced and diced his way from the sixth row to take the lead and eventually the win, with Brian Brown and Don Droud Jr. putting on a “slide” show of their own. Racing throughout was furious – but then I’d be driving like mad if I were racing toward I-80’s victory lane reception too.

One thing I’ve noticed watching sprints at I-80, if the track goes to the top, the racing usually ends up fantastic. I’ll take a dry track there over a lock-down to the bottom tacky one any day. Hey, if there isn’t dust in the beer it ain’t racin’, right?

If you haven’t been to the recent sprint races at I-80, you’re really missing out.

Next day: JMS. Like Thursday it was above average temps with a breeze and a nice crowd visiting for what came to be a lovely late spring evening. Delmar Friesen has a knack of producing surprising tracks in the midst of the unfavorable conditions. The initial dust kicked up by the GOTRA hot laps scared me a bit, but they managed pretty well, with the occasional spritzing in between classes.

The respectable field of GOTRA vintage racers were a fitting backdrop to pre-race chats with historian Bob Mays, Wayne Dake, Joe Orth and others reminiscing about the past and discussing Bob’s new book, Big Car Thunder, Vol. II – which I’m reviewing for this site. I’ve really developed a soft spot for the GOTRA cars, I just wished they could really race ‘em.

Some tracks would tell a field of three cars, “sorry boys, load ‘em” but Delmar ran the show and I have to remember the fact that the poor compact count wasn’t the fault of the people who showed up, including winner Troy Hoffman. But the Vintage Lites (‘dwarf’ cars) brought a thick field with David Rafurty taking the feature going away – with visor up throughout most of the race!

A strong field of 26 sprints made up the field. Brian Brown’s turn four wheelie kicked off the 20-car Sprint A, Shane Stewart made his way up front quickly to  take the lead from Ryan Roberts, while Brown, Don Droud Jr and Gregg Bakker tried to out-muscle each other around the big 3/8 mile. Brown popped a right rear late in the contest, as did April I-80 winner Jonathan Cornell. Stewart cruised to the win, with Roberts rolling four bald tires across the line in second. Despite the abrasive A feature surface, it was a decent feature and once again, JMS kept the show rolling, (the stoppages were nothing worse than normal) and the facility continues to be one of the best around.

Eagle’s first fan appreciation night brought in a strong crowd at $5/head. The Beatrice move to Fridays has really raised the competition bar in the hobbies and modifieds with the southern drivers giving the Eagle boys more than a run. But with parity we often get a little too much pushin’ and shovin’ resulting in spun cars and banged up metal between talented, competitive and determined drivers. The hobbies had the threat of the clock calling an early end to their race, but fortunately they straightened out long enough for Rob Brown to take his first win since ‘06.

Chris Abelson raced down from Sioux City after a Park Jefferson rainout with no concern about the Beatrice / Eagle rivalry as he snatched the win in the Modifieds. Dave Tadlock became the fourth winner in four races in the compacts.

On the other hand, the sprints had their major incident occur when rookie Ian Eastman spun at the front of the pack, Eastman’s mishap resulted in four other cars coming to a stop in various states of disarray. Veteran Tadd Holliman consoled Eastman in the infield; it was obvious that the young rookie really wished he could have that one back. After a lengthy red-flag stop Mike Boston checked out from the field on the dry, fast-lane-up-top track with Jeff Griffis scrambling from the back of the field to run second.

My legs hurt, and I was glad to take it easy for the next two days. A great weekend.