Thursday night I hitched a ride to the opening night of Mod Mania at Tammy and Kevin Gundakers' Tri City Speedway in Pontoon Beach (Granite City), Il. This would be the 16th annual edition of the event which features UMP modifieds along with UMP late models as a companion class. There is an escalating purse each night, and on Thursday the mods would be battling for a $3,000 top prize, while the late models competed for $2,000 to win. Forty eight modifieds and twenty three late models, a bit lighter than normal, field of cars checked in.
Time trial qualifying started things off, with two or three cars at a time running two laps. Josh Harris paced the mods with a lap of 15.942 seconds while Daryn Klein topped the late models at 14.341. Six modified heats and a pair of B mains for the mods and three heats for the late models set the feature fields. Before the B mains, the six modified heat winners were brought to the front stretch for a redraw. Adding a twist to this format was that the drivers could not keep the number they drew, but had to hand it off to another of the six. This made for both an interesting and entertaining aspect to the procedure.
The thirty lap main for the mods was up first following the thirty minute intermission, with Jeff Leka in an A One Towing #3L and Rick Stevenson in his #77 lining up in row one. Stevenson paced the early laps with Leka and fifth starting Will Krup in tow in what became a three car battle. Leka was out front as lap ten was scored, but Stevenson jumped back out front on the next go around. On the same lap, Krup charged to second, then to the lead. As the race stayed green, heavy traffic came into play. Both the announcer and the other heat winners had made mention of the dominance of Nick Hoffman in the class, and he was handed the number six starting spot, but with a dozen laps remaining still with slower traffic in play, the North Carolina driver jumped to second. One lap later, Leka clipped a tire barrier, spinning in turn two to bring out the first caution. By this point, B main one winner Mike Harrison had moved from a row seven start to sixth for the Delaware restart. Two more laps and the caution flag waved again for debris. One more lap was scored ahead of a final caution as Timmy Hill stopped in turn four. Again the green flag waved, as Hoffman alternated between the high and low restart position behind the leader. With a clear track in front, Krup opened a sizable lead as he kept his #19 glued to the inside line. At the checkers it was Krup with the win, followed by Hoffman, Harris, and Stevenson. Harrison slipped around Mike McKinney on the final circuit to complete the top five. Zach Schantz ran seventh ahead of Pennsylvania driver Michael Altobelli. Jacob Rexing and Rick Conoyer completed the top ten.
Kaeden Cornell had crossed the line third in the first late model heat and was scheduled to line up inside row four for the thirty lap finale. However a trail of oil from his #50 at the checkered flag ended his night, leaving us with twenty two starters for thirty laps. Heat winners Klein, Jason Feger, and Chris Simpson held the top three starting spots, but it was Michael Kloos in third behind Feger and Klein as lap one was scored. With nine laps in the books, Jeremy Conaway went for a spin in turn two causing Feger to check up as he was working lapped traffic. Until now Simpson had been treading water in fourth, but on the restart he found traction in the low groove, jumped to third at the green, then cleared Klein for second two laps later. At the same time, eighth starting Gordy Gundaker powered to third. Feger had committed to the top groove around the 3/8 mile, living up to his " Highside Hustler " nickname, but Simpson was cutting into his lead each lap until he took over the top spot on lap nineteen. Working his way through slower traffic, Simpson was maintaining a lead that varied from comfortable to three car lengths. With three laps left, Klein had moved back to third, but clipped the turn four wall turning his car sideways into the front stretch concrete with his #10 taking a hard tumble. He climbed from the badly damaged car thankfully uninjured. The final restart was only a slight delay for Simpson on his trip to victory lane. Feger held second, besting Gordy Gundaker, Kloos, and Rusty Schlenk. Track regular Billy Laycock topped the second five in front of Rickey Frankel and Trevor Gundaker. Tim Manville had smacked the turn one wall in time trials, missed his heat and lined up last on the feature grid, but climbed to ninth at the checkers. Michigan racer Cody Bauer rounded out the top ten, with the final checkers waving just before 11:00.
Next up, a final 2020 visit to Davenport Speedway on Saturday as the Hoker Trucking SLMR late models come to call headlined by a $5,000 to win event on the 1/4 mile. The weather is fantastic, for racing this weekend, so pick one out and head to the track!
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