Justin Zoch's Upper Midwest Ramblings
Friday, July 22, 2005
Normally, the first three laps of any feature aren’t the best of the event but no one told Matt Rogerson, Jerrod Hull and Jesse Giannetto that on Tuesday night at Scotland County. Front row starters Rogerson and Gianetto maintained their spots on the bottom and top, respectively, while Hull nosed Rich Dereu’s 50 between the pair in the turns and was forced out of the mix on the straights. Eventually, Giannetto took the top spot but eventually Hull streaked past following a red for a slow rolling Jimmie Davies. The win made an even dozen for Hull in 2005 and he has a chance to bat .500 with the Sprint Invaders when they visit 34 Raceway next Wednesday. Hull will compete in the 360 Nationals and the Brodix Tournament of Champions, where he won the opening night feature in 2003. Hull also hopes to compete in the Knoxville Nationals with his own 12 car. It seems the longer his hair gets, the faster Bubba goes.
Jesse Giannetto continues to lead the Sprint Invader point standings and continues his top-six string finish streak for 2005. The team will miss a Saturday show on the final night of the year as it conflicts with Knoxville but their closest competitor in SIA action, John Schulz, will also likely miss the show. Schulz moved up to fifth in points at Knoxville on Saturday night…Korey Weyant struggled with engine problems all night on Tuesday but looked for redemption on Wednesday with his Midget at Farmer City. He finished fourth after running as high as second in the event. Weyant continues to run a little of everything in 2005, including Midgets, non-wing Sprints and winged 360s…Todd Staley runs the weekly shows at Scotland County in 2005 and he’s a busy guy as he continues to run the USMTS series and three other weekly tracks. Aside from his duties in Memphis on Saturdays, he tends to Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa on Wednesdays, Hancock County in Britt on Fridays and Cresco Speedway in Cresco on Sunday nights.
Lucas Glasgow continued his rookie season with the Sprint Invaders at Memphis. The Burlington native just recently graduated from the University of Iowa with a business degree and is free to go racing with his family team after spending several years helping Randy Plath and his cousin Nick Eastin in the pit area. Glasgow and Eastin are just some of the many youngsters that have been brought in since the Sprint Invaders debuted four years ago…Bart Schneiderman has resigned from presidential duties effective at the end of the year and hopefully the Invaders can find a replacement with Schneiderman’s enthusiasm to replace him. The organization has unquestioningly revived open wheel racing in the region…Hall of Fame director Tom Schmeh was on hand securing Invader cars for the upcoming Tournament of Champions. Two years ago, the series won the overall title as Jerrod Hull and Terry McCarl swept the weekend’s events.
Bobby Mincer was conspicuously absent from Scotland County, as well as Knoxville last Saturday, and has removed his name from the Tournament of Champions roster. The team has taken a few weeks off to regroup and are primarily concentrating on 2006. He’ll finish out the season with the Sprint Invaders and perhaps mix in a 410 show…Matt Sutton has been making the nearly four hour tow every Saturday night to Lake Ozark Speedway this season and he’s currently running second in points behind Bryan Grimes. Sutton has sold his 410 powerplants and has two solid 360s for 2005…Brian Ridge drove his own 83 in the heat race before loading it up for the feature. It was his first career start in a 360 Sprint and he drew the pole position for the heat race. Ridge was testing an engine to rent to Kasey Kahne for a special event coming up at Eldora…John VanDenBerg is off the road with the Moyer late model team and he’s been running some Sprint shows. Last Wednesday, he ran top-five with a 305 at Bloomfield and this week he drove the Bruce Williams 7W at Memphis. VanDenBerg is hoping to get a deal put together for the Knoxville Nationals, where he made the A-main in 2005. His good friend, and engine supplier for 2004, Clyde Nagel was helping in the pits on Tuesday. Nagel has made sporadic 305 starts in 2005. VanDenBerg plans to race the car on Saturday at Knoxville in the 360 division.
News and Notes from MARA at Farmer City
All three Camfields piled into the second heat race and Rich Camfield won bragging rights over Davey Camfield and Dave Camfield Sr. It was a good night for the Clan de Camfield as Rich picked up the win over a hard charging Donnie Lehman while Davey filled out the podium…Steve Stroud has been making pavement starts with the UMARA Midgets on Saturday nights at the Grundy County Speedway in Morris, Illinois. That is about a 250 mile tow from his St. Louis, Missouri, home but Stroud is enjoying having a regular place to run on Saturdays. Stroud has had his pavement chassis for several seasons but has only run three shows this season. Stroud struggled with his dirt car at Farmer City…Matt Sandy was the only Indiana driver in attendance on Wednesday as most hotshoes either raced the Gas City Sprintweek show or were there watching. Sandy bested MARA at Farmer City on May 27 and led early before contact with Camfield sent him to the tail...For the first time in my life as a race chaser, I confused a tow rig with a race car. A badly abused mid-80s Chevy Celebrity was sitting in the hornet pits and it wasn’t until I got to the rear of the piece and saw the two-wheel dolly that I realized this was this unfortunate soul’s tow rig…Kyle Wissmiller, who has a non-wing Sprint win at Lincoln, Illinois, in 2005, flipped his Midget off the backstretch in the second heat but was uninjured…Derek Rossio, micro graduate, was driving the 39 car that Tim McCreadie drove so successfully at the 2005 Chili Bowl…Donnie Hammer, who is the new promoter at Farmer City, raced his Midget against MARA on Wednesday. Farmer City is everything a racetrack should be in a small town in central Illinois: clean, polite and racy…Jimi Quin from New Zealand was sent to the tail when the contact between he and Rich Camfield, while battling for the lead, was deemed to be his fault. Camfield actually stalled on the raceway while Quin kept going. Officials then sent him to the rear…As a final reminder, never, NEVER, think that just because things are running smoothly that you’re be out of the raceway early. With six laps in the books of the Midget feature, it was five before nine. I’d actually typed this line in my head, “Any track that gets you out before 10 o’clock deserves some sort of promotional award but before NINE, well, that should go into the Hall of Fame of promotion.” Just then, the ambulance lights clicked on and it headed out of the fairgrounds on an emergency. An hour or so later, it returned and the race was completed, just before 10:30. Never, ever, make plans until the last checkered waves.
That’ll do for a special midweek edition of Upper Midwest Ramblings. A full report from the Summer Classic at Knoxville will be on tap for the next edition. In the meantime, keep me informed, entertained and corrected at Justin@mompub.com.
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