Streaks and Stuff at Quincy Raceways

It was a night of numbers at Quincy Raceways. Streaks started, extended, and ended. And along the way, a pair of brothers took turns in victory lane with last lap passes. Tony Dunker, with eight wins already in the IMCA sport mod class looked like his streak would end, as Brad Holtmeyer led lap one, only to give up the top spot to Joe Bliven on lap two. On lap four, Bobby Anders took the point. the first caution on lap eight saw Bliven retake the lead, with Dunker moving up to third. On lap twelve, Dunker grabbed the second spot, just ahead of a lap14 yellow. At that point, Anders went pitside, but Bliven remained in control for the next five laps. But coming to the checkers out of turn four, Joe slowed just a bit, and Dunker charged by on the inside for win number nine of the season. Track officials performed a pump and whistle on the # 3 in post race tech, and everything proved legal. Rick Barlow Jr. grabbed third in his first visit to the track in a couple months.
  After cheering on his brother for the first half of 2012, Pat Dunker came out of "retirement," building a sharp looking IMCA sport compact. And on Sunday, Pat broke the four race win streak of Austen Becerra, picking up his first checkers of the year. Dunker took the top spot on lap three, but gave it up to Robert Thompson on lap nine of the twelve lap finale. But much like the sport mod ending, Thompson lost power on the final lap, with Dunker there to take advantage. Becerra settled for second at the checkers ahead of Kimberly Abbott.
  Abe Huls extended his winning streak to two after missing a week for vacation in the IMCA stock car class. Abe also tied the feature win record in the class, tying Jeff Mueller with his ninth checkers of the season. Heat winner Michael Larsen led early and held on to the runnerup spot ahead of point leader Terry Houston.
  A couple of feature races could only be described as just plain ugly. Twelve hobby stocks took the green flag for 20 laps, with Jeff Delonjay grabbing the early lead, and swapping the top spot with Jake Powers. After retaking the point, Delonjay broke, handing the lead back to Jake. With attrition already taking a toll, a four car pileup on lap ten eliminated each of them, and during the caution, Brandon Symmonds headed to the trailer and Jim Brown limped to the infield, leaving only three cars for the restart. At that point, it was decided to cut the race to 15 laps, and the top three ran the final five circuits caution free. Point leader Powers took the win over Jaime  Bevill and Justin Bartz.
  All but two of the 18 entrants took the green in the UMP modified feature, and to be honest, I quit counting after eight caution periods. Mercifully, the time limit was eventually invoked, and actually drew applause from the nice sized fan appreciation night crowd. Sixth starting Michael Long moved to second on lap three, and took the lead for good on lap six.. Early leader Jared Schlipman spun while running second, but was able to work his way back to third with the help of the numerous yellows. Steven Delonjay extended his points lead with a runnerup finish. Long scored a very impressive streak of his own, taking feature wins Friday at Tri City Speedway, Saturday at Montgomery County Motorsports Park ,and Sunday night at Quincy Raceways.
  Perhaps the most interesting streak is that of late model driver Mark Burgtorf. After two nights chasing the Corn Belt series in the Richard Realty # 15R, Mark brought his # 7B machine to QR and bested the 15 car field. The win was Marks second in a row, but his prior victory was in the # 15R. The veteran missed a sweep of the nights events, running second to Dustin Griffin in the first heat before capturing the dash and the 30 lap  finale after dueling early with Griffin. Back from the UMP Summernationals and the Corn Belt tour, Jerry Lierly started seventh on the grid and charged to the runnerup spot. Lierly looked like he might have something for Burgtorf after moving to second, but could take his Bloomquist chassis no further. Bill Genenbacher came back from a hard crash the night before at Montgomery to record a season best third, while Justin Reed took over the points lead by recording a fourth, while top contenders Griffin and Jason Perry watched from the trailer. after checking out early. Robbie Warner came home fifth, while Ron Elbe and crew worked hard all night on their new Rocket car , recording a sixth place run. Ron said they really should have waited one more week, but the racing bug won out. For the second straight night, Michael Long took a big hit in the points race, this time pulling out after a mixup on the initial start.
All the news is not bad for the # 56J team, however. Former driver Justin Jennings, who just a few weeks back landed a ride in the Camping World truck series race at Iowa Speedway, will be back in action this Saturday in the NASCAR Nationwide race at the Newton track. The teenager will be behind the wheel of Jimmy Means # 52 machine. Good luck, JJ!
  There are lots of events going on this time of year competing for attention, but  there is plenty of good racing opportunites as well. so maybe I will see you at a track this weekend!