Pierce and Kinder Top Spoon River

 With the Monday holiday from Work, Darryl and I headed out Sunday night for the UMP Fall Nationals at Spoon River Speedway in Fulton,County,Illinois. The race, headlined by the American Modified Series was supposed to be the third night of the Illinois swing, following shows at Farmer City on Friday, which was rained out, and Saturday night at Fairbury.
 At Spoon, 59 modifieds signed in to vie for the $5,000 top prize, with UMP super late models, 26 strong, competing for a $2,000 winners check. 22 UMP Pro late models and 19 UMP Pro modifieds contributed to a jammed pit area.
 Chad Kinder topped modified qualifying, while three late model drivers broke the non Summernationals track record, with Donny Walden the fastest at 13.68 seconds. 16 heat races and three last chance races set the feature fields at 20 cars for each of the headline classes, with six provisionals added to the modified field.
 Kinder sat on the outside pole for the 50 lap feature, and although he jumped to the early lead, a lap one caution reset the pack for a complete restart. Amazingly, the 50 laps then clicked off caution free, with Kinder leading each circuit around the oval, which had been reworked during the intermission. Ray Bollinger came from row two to challenge Kinder early, and the leaders encountered slower traffic by lap 21. As the front runners worked through lapped cars, Kinder began to stretch his advantage. Matt Kooper powered to the third position, chasing the leaders, but about lap 35, it was hard charging Tait Davenport moving to third. He quickly ran down Bollinger and tried different lines to grab the second spot. Bollinger was up to the challenge, hanging on for the runner up finish behind Kinder. Lucas Lee trailed Davenport in fourth, while Kopper held off pole sitter Donovan Lodge for fifth.
 The super late models ran next, with 25 laps on tap. The four heat race winners had redrawn for the first two row starting spots, with Walden and Bob Gardner drawing row one, and national UMP point contenders Michael Kloos and Bobby Pierce in row two. Walden took the lead at the green, with Pierce powering to second. The caution came out on lap four, as Jeff Herzog and Steve Lance Jr got together. On the restart, Pierce used the very bottom line of the track to ease ahead of Walden, as seventh starting Billy Drake advanced to fourth. Despite the reworking of the super high banked oval during intermission, the surface was now super slick, and the leaders all hugged the low groove, looking for an opening. Only sixth starting Kolby Vandenbergh and row seven starter Mike " Opie " Spatola searched for an advantage in the high groove without much success. The front two distanced themselves from the pack, while Gardner and Drake had their own duel for third.. Again, lap 21 was when traffic came into play, and while Pierce had some issues, he was able to maintain his momentum, holding off Walden to the checkers. Gardner scored a third place finish over Drake, while Tim Lance brought out a plain black #48, starting and finishing fifth. Lance and Russ Adams did double duty in both late models classes, while veteran Kevin Weaver did the same in the open mods and super lates. The " Flatland Flash " ran 13th in one of the Allen Racing mods, but came home sixth in the late models in his own # B12. Peoria standout Todd Bennett was in one of the Bob Gardner # 4 cars and ran seventh, besting Kloos, Charley Hess, and Mike Mullvain to round out the top ten.
 With the time on the wrong side of 11:30, we headed to the car with the final two features in staging.
This was the first trip to " the Spoon " for either of us in many years, and it was fun to meet some new friends and connect with old friend Kevin Paul, a former Quincy Raceways racer who now wheels one of the # 93 late models for Crazy Ray Racing. Thanks to the Spoon River staff for their help and hospitality.
 The holiday weekend is nearly over, now back to work...