Rain, rain. go away

Opening weekend for my 2017 season was a washout, as both nights of the Spring Extravaganza at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson,Iowa fell victim to wet conditions. So we will wait one more week and try to get things rolling at 34 Raceway in West Burlington with the lid lifter for the 3/8 mile high banked track, as well as for the IMCA Deery Brothers Summer Series and the Sprint Invaders in what should be an excellent two class program. The plan then will be to follow that up with the season opener at Quincy,Il Raceways. As mentioned in a previous column, QR will be integrating the UMP Pro late models into a rotation this year, and they will be spotlighted on April 2 along with UMP modifieds and three IMCA classes, the stock cars, sport mods, and sport compacts. The UMP super late models will debut the following Sunday before Quincy takes a night off for Easter Sunday, April 16. LaSalle,Il Speedway was able to get the first night of their two night spring event in on Friday, with Josh Richards taking home the $7,000 late model check and Mike Harrison picking up the $1700 modified prize. But rain spoiled the Saturday night portion of the show. Highland Speedway attempted to run on Saturday, but the wet weather moved in during heat races, cancelling the remainder of the action. So hopefully we will be back next weekend with better news - this Sunday afternoon television racing just doesn't quite do the trick!