Returning home from the Belleville High Banks, I jumped in with Fred and Darryl on Thursday and we headed to the Davenport Speedway to catch up with the UMP Summernationals. With IMCA modifieds and IMCA late models filling out the card, this was set up to be a perfect week night event.
It was another scorcher under sunny skies when we arrived, and the pits were already well stocked with haulers. The final count was thirty nine super late models, nineteen mods and eighteen of the weekly late models.
After hot laps the Summernational cars did two lap qualifying, two cars at a time. Bobby Pierce turned the quickest lap on the quarter mile at 13.801 seconds, earning him the pole position in heat one, as the series starts their qualifiers straight up by time. So it was no surprise that all four heat winners came from the front row, with Pierce, Dennis Erb,Jr., Chad and Chris Simpson taking the checkers first.
Of course, the other classes drew for starting positions, and Andy Nezworski, Michael Goben and Chuck Hanna grabbed late model wins also from the front row, and Chris Zogg did the same in the mods. Teenager Charlie Mohr defied the odds with a modified victory from the second row.
The top four from each UMP heat transferred on, with a C Main sending four cars on to the B Main. Justin Kay was disqualified from his third place heat finish and was forced to run the C Main, which he won from the back. I was not able to hear what his heat race DQ was related to. Only the top two from the B Main would move on, and Justin Duty was the winner from row one. Iowa City veteran Matt Furman was rolling around in fifth when on the final lap three cars battling for the final spot got together, and Matt was able to sneak through to finish second!
I must say that I am not a fan of only eighteen cars earning their way into the feature with four provisional starters added. On this night, a fifth spot was also added, giving us twenty three starters for forty laps.
Before that, the IMCA late models came to the track for twenty five laps and a $700 payoff. Matt Ryan and Kelly Pestka redrew the front row, and Matt charged ahead at the waving of the green, pulling along Dustin Schram from row two. Ryan was quickly pulling away from the pack when the caution flag flew on lap three for Hanna, who was done for the night. By now Justin Kay had worked into the runner up spot for the restart, electing the outside on the Delaware restart. Ryan was using the high line around the track, while Kay worked down low, and lap six saw Kay move to the front. He was slowly widening his lead and catching slower traffic when the yellow came again for debris just after the halfway mark. On the restart, both Schram and Nezworski were able to work around Ryan, but Kay quickly pulled away. A final caution came for a Joe Beal spin with seven circuits remaining, and Nezworski now won the battle for second. But it was Kay cruising to the win. Following Nezworski, Fred Remley made a late charge to third ahead of Schram and Ryan. Joe Beal recovered to run sixth, trailed by Jacob Waterman, Chris Lawrence, Ryan Claeys, and Jacob Beal.
Forty laps of Summernational action came next, with a $5,000 check awaiting the winner. Chad Simpson and Erb Jr. sat on row one, with a pair of #32s in row two. Joe Godsey stopped on the first attempted green, and on the second try, Chad slipped over the nearly non existent cushion between turns three and four. Although he did not appear to stop, the yellow flag was displayed and he was sent to the tail of the field. With brother Chris leading, Chad began to move quickly through the pack, although his drive eventually stalled just outside the top ten. Running a rather treacherous high line, the leaders caught the tail of the field about lap nine, with Brian Shirley clearing Erb for second. One lap later, Pierce powered to third, and Simpson changed to the inside line in turns three and four. Daryn Klein brought out the caution on lap thirteen, and back to racing it took three circuits for Pierce to fly around Simpson on the top side of the oval. Following a caution for Justin Kay on lap seventeen, Pierce used the clear track to check out on the other front runners. By lap twenty five he led by nearly a straightaway. Five more laps and slower traffic again came into play, with Simpson cutting into his lead by just a bit. But on lap thirty four, disaster struck for Pierce, as he pulled to the infield with a broken drive shaft. Simpson was now in command, and he cruised home to victory! Jason Feger came on strong late for his second runner up finish in the last two nights on the tour. Ryan Unzicker started in row eight and completed the podium finish, while Trevor Gundaker and Logan Martin turned in strong top five runs. Bob Gardner was the twenty third starter, and was the hard charger in sixth, topping a fading Shirley, Erb Jr., Tommy Sheppard Jr., and Gordy Gundaker.
With a couple of track prep sessions during the night to keep the track racy, it was now nearly 10:30 as the mods prepared to take the green. With a forecast of storms on the drive home, we elected to hit the road. Reports show it Was Chris Zogg grabbing the $1,000 win from row two, ahead of Matt Werner, Brunson Behning, Travis Denning, and Mitch Morris.
Thanks as always to the Kay family for their hospitality, and especially to Brenda for her help at the pit shack!
Tonight we will make our first visit of the season at the CJ Speedway, as the five regular classes are joined by the SLMR late models.
Thanks for reading!
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