The “Fastest Day Of Fall Classic” was exactly that. With 173 cars in 7 classes, I expected more. Some drivers that I thought would be there were not, with a couple drivers I didn’t expect there jumping into cars for the day. The street stocks took the field first on a late start. Scheduled start time was 2:00, we started about 15 minutes late. With the late start, one would expect a good track to race on. While the track was smooth, it was not good. From the first drop of the green flag, the track was dry. Black on the bottom, and as the races progressed, it just went higher. All day, and into the evening, the only line worth racing came witha risk of hitting the track tires.
First off, thought and prayers to Frank Groeschel and family. He took a nasty roll down the back stretch, and was carried off on a stretcher. I haven’t heard how he’s doing after that.
Former street stock track champion Todd Everard made his first appearance of the year in his old car. A little skiddish at first, but he got the hang of it again, taking 2nd in the heat, and 4th in the feature. Jarod Anvelink made an appearance tonight. Not in Nick’s late model this time, but in the 99x modified for Floors By Design! Little on the rusty side, but he won his heat, and finished 9th in the feature. Both Jarod and Todd can bee seen racing again next weekend at 141 Speedway’s Creek Classic.
Street stock feature only had one caution, otherwise a steady race. Throughout the features, the only line-up changes came with cautions. And the changes were the drivers who got stuck on the outside on the restarts, because there was nothing on the outside. Again, if you didn’t hug the tires on the bottom, you went backward.
An amusing caution during the grand nationals when the 1 hooks the 55k. The 55k thought he had a flat, tried to pull off while the 1 was standing on the brake pedal. Eventually, they made it to the track exit, where the 1 put tried reverse, and a quick tug-o-war came about. After a wrecker came along and separated them, we found the the 1 would be the cause of a couple cautions, helping this race along to an early finish. Six cautions came out before the flagman called for green-white-checker.
Sport mods provided for a good race. The #32 of Guyette would lead wire-to-wire, but not without working for it. Brad Theys and Travis VanStraten would work at him and eventually fall back some. Then a caution comes out, and with the field bunched up again, they would battle it out again. Good race, certainly not a given win for Guyette, he ran hard to hold the lead.
In the stocks, Ambrosius led the whole race, with a good lead to boot. Only a couple cautions, the most notable was when Stankoswski helped Rod Snellenberger drive sideways down the front stretch, resulting in the 10s car spinning out going into turn one. Stankowski received the black flag for it, and was obviously unhappy about it.
In the mods, Danny Deau checked out early with a solid lead, though after a single caution, Dan Ratajcak nibbles away at him, lap by lap. Couple interesting points, Scooter Boyea took his sport mod to the mod show, won his heat and finished 12th in the feature. See what you can do on a dry slick track? Also, Art Siefert raced again, looked pretty good. Started 18th, made his way up to 6th. Again, the secret was to stay on the bottom.
Father and son racers Pete and Paul Parker started in front of the pack of late models. They ran a great side by side race for a couple laps, but Paul would eventually take the lead. With a couple wrecks to spoil the race, the order changed a couple times, though Paul still held the lead. After the 3rd caution, the raced went on, everybody slipped into their spots, and the only changes where when somebody came up from the bottom or broke.
The Camaro won the Spectator Eliminators.
As a whole, the track was no good. It was dry, black, and if there was any berm, it was too small to find. There were a few races where the cars could race side by side, but even those went single file to hug the tires after a while. The calls made weren’t too bad, with the exception of the one late model that cause two cautions, and was never sent to the back for them. I guess karma got him back though, since about halfway through the race, he started going steadily backwards.
Seymour Speedway is done for the year. Here’s to looking forward to a better program for 2012!
Thanks to RSR Shock Service
and Cornerstone Pizza for your support.
Stay dirty, we’ll see you all next weekend at 141 Speedway’s Creek Classic!
