Seeing Double

With the sun shining brightly, Darryl and Fred picked me up Saturday afternoon, and after a mid afternoon meal at the new Dennys at the Fly'n J in Wayland, Mo., we headed north to the West Liberty Raceway for the rescheduled night two of the Liberty 100. This race always gets penciled in as soon as the schedules come out, but the anticipation level was even higher this season with the show split into two late model divisions. Thanks to a detailed internet posting by Kevin Feller - thanks, Kevin, I had the lineups for the evening in hand even though we had not attended night one. On the way north we met the # 44L of Aaron Luke headed towards the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Mo., but we were hoping that there would be a few " buy ins " to make up for the " no shows. " As it turned out, there were two new cars in the open late model class, with Dave Eckrich, who missed night one while chasing MLRA points, and Paul Parker, from Wisconsin taking a shot from the back of the last chance race. Dave made the show on a track he has raced many times, while Parker failed to transfer to the 50 lap finale. The first night show had 29 entries in each late model class, and on Saturday, there were 27 open cars and 26 IMCA competitors. With one qualified car missing in each class, Chad Simpson in the opens and Ron Brokus in the IMCAs, seven cars were promoted to the feature from each last chance 10 lap event. Jason Utter outdueled Jay Johnson in the opens, while Jay Chenoweth took the IMCA race ahead of Jon Merfeld. Joel Callahan was forced to start both races, and managed to qualify in both, surviving a flat tire in the IMCA version to come all the way back to third. The top six in passing points from night one ran a six lap dash for starting positions, with Darren Miller holding off Brian Birkhofer in the opens, and Ray Guss Jr. besting Miller in IMCA. With the show moving along quickly, Tyler Kelly captured the Flyer feature, while Zach Less topped the B-mods. Scott Walker piloted Matt Greiners # 29 to the stock car win, even as Greiner wheeled his IMCA car to the stock car win in Memphis! The A-mod feature turned in to a runaway win for Ryan Dolan, who had struggled in the dash earlier. Noah Coppess picked his way through the pack for an impressive runner up finish ahead of Jason Schueller. The open lates then took to the track for their 50 lap $3500 to win finale, with national stars Miller - who came out of " retirement " only weeks earlier - and Birkhofer setting on the front row. Brian took the lead at the green, but Darren pulled ahead in his Diercks # 32D out of turn two, and was never headed. A major crash in turn one on lap three took out five cars near the back of the starting order, with Jay Johnson perhaps getting the worst of it. From that point on, the race went green all the way, and Miller lapped all the way up to the sixth place car. Birky held on for second, while Utter made an unbelievable charge from 18th to finish third. Nick Marolf and Chris Simpson completed the top five. Brian Harris, Eckrich brothers Andy and Denny, and Kile brothers Kurt and Kevin rounded out the top ten. The final race of the night was the 50 lap, $3500 to win IMCA main event. The pole position went to three track, Summer Series, and national IMCA champion Guss, with Miller to his right. Although it was a different car on different tires, Miller picked up where he left off. After a scary crash on the front stretch as the filed tried to complete lap one, in which Nate Beuseling landed atop the # 84 of Sam Halstead, this race also went green all the way. If Darren Miller was impressive in the first feature, he was awesome in the finale. Dicing his way through traffic, Miller lapped all but second place Andy Eckrich, and put everyone from seventh on back two laps down! Guss finished third, with Jeff Aikey fourth. Tommy Elston made a second half charge to run fifth, while Mike Garland slipped past Boone Mclaughlin at the end for sixth. Colby Springsteen, Jeremiah Hurst, and Darrell Defrance finished out the first ten.
Several drivers competed in both late model classes. In addition to Miller , Andy Eckrich, and Callahan, Hurst, Mclaughlin, Johnson, and Jonathon Brauns did double duty, although Brauns in his # 22B was turning practice laps only with the IMCA cars. Rob Toland ran the IMCA portion in a backup car borrowed from open driver Rich Bell. A couple of night one cars had substitute drivers, with Andy Nezworski filling in for Matt Ryan in # 07, while Gary Webb took a turn in Rick Dralles'# 4D. Both made the big show.
Miller collected a $1,000 bonus for winning both main events. With an equal turnout of cars in both classes, it will be interesting to see what Simmons Promotions has in store for West Liberty in 2011. With over 140 cars on hand, we were pleasantly surprised to be leaving the grounds by 10:45, although the good feeling was tempered by the notion that we may have seen our last race of 2010. We had already made plans to attend Shiverfest this coming Saturday at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, but we also knew that the likelihood of yet another dry weekend was a long shot, and as I write this, the forecast does not look too favorable. Hopefully, the rain will hold off, and there will be one more night of racin' down the road in 2011. Hope to see you there!