Justin Zoch's Upper Midwest Ramblings, Part One
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Eagle Raceway had to deem its first Back Row Challenge for 360s a success as a large crowd watched over 40 Sprints on a Thursday night. Billy Alley and Dusty Zomer ran 1-2 in the first feature and had the chance to grab an additional $1,000 if they won the second feature from the tail. Neither got close. Brooke Tatnell, who added his named to Gary Swenson’s illustrious history, gave the best charge with an 18th to fourth charge in the second feature. Swenson will join fellow open wheelers Lonnie Jensen, Roger Rager, Wayne House and Terry Klatt in the Nebraska Auto Racing Hall of Fame. The ceremony is October 14 and information is available at nebautohof@aol.com...Chris Roseland defended home turf in the second feature over a rim-riding Eric Schrock, one of the few to leave the gutter on the bottom. Schrock passed on that his father Howard’s Lake Ozark Speedway is doing very well this season and Sprint Car racing seems to be thriving in Missouri with enough new teams to grant full fields to Ozark’s weekly shows and WOW traveling shows when the dates conflict. He has one win with his injected Sprint at Double X this season…Scott Robertson, who now lives in Arkansas, returned to Eagle and had his brothers TJ and Bill wrenching on his racer…Had to laugh at the billboard for the College World Series in Omaha promoting that event as the “Greatest Show on Dirt.” Strange to see that on the way to a World of Outlaws event. Methinks the old regime, i.e. Ted Johnson, would have papers filed already…Dirk Mitchell made the four hour tow from Atkinson, Nebraska but missed the A-main. This is Mitchell’s first full season in 360s and he’ll make sporadic starts at Eagle.
Larry Pinegar’s string of good luck ran out on Thursday as he went pitside with engine woes. Pinegar shut it down just before the engine grenaded and they missed the second featch. For Saturday, the Bogue team borrowed an engine from Preston March and won the feature, his third of the year at Eagle…Jeff Lowery isn’t enjoying his season and he’s on his third car already. He’s looking forward to making non-wing starts later this year as the Sprint Bandits head to Oskaloosa for the Ultimate Challenge in August and the plains following the Nationals…As for non-wing Sprints in Iowa, the 305s are now an open division. More information is available at www.305nonwingsprints.com and their next race is July 3 at Stuart…At Bloomfield on Friday, they had 18 winged 305s and Matt Stephenson scored his first win. They will join the Sprint Invaders for double headers at Lee County and Bloomfield in the coming weeks. Good to see the series growing after finding a home track…Kerry Madsen was asked to leave the track in the second feature after an argument with officials about a decision that sent Madsen from third to the tail for rough driving. The accident in question sent Doug Lovegrove flipping into Terry McCarl. It didn’t appear to fit the bill of ‘rough driving’ to these eyes, overaggressive perhaps, but rough driving seems to carry a hint of intentionally. That didn’t seem to be the case.
It only took 18 years. The Rookie of the Year in the limited division at Knoxville in 1989, Tom Lenz finally parked his 8L in victory lane. Lenz waited for race long leader Joey Beaver to make a mistake, which happened on lap 15 in turn three, and held of defending track champ Jake Peters for the win. As it was Justice Brothers Midseason Championships, there was an additional five laps on the feature. Without that, Beaver would have crashed on the final lap. Or would he?...Lenz’s drought dwarfs it but it had been nine years since the Vanderecken 10 car had been to victory lane. Ricky Logan evened up his totals in the 360s and 410s with three each as he drove by Justin Henderson late in the race. Dubiously dubbed ‘Rubber Down Ricky’, Logan found the black groove first and the win pairs with Logan’s third place finishes on Wednesday at Pevely and Friday at Cedar Lake to make for a profitable weekend.
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