Their first season as promoters at CJ Speedway hasn't quite been what Don and Sharon Wood and Brian and Amanda Tipps expected. Following a week-to-week bout with Mother Nature throughout the first half of the season, a late June monsoon left the 4/10-mile oval in an all too familiar condition just prior to the scheduled mid-season championships a week ago.
Following a five inch deluge a couple weeks ago, the track was left under water as it had been during last spring's floods. "It was a mess," Sharon said as she showed me where two feet of water in the concession stands alone forced her and her staff to throw away a large amount of concessions and forced dusk-'til-dawn clean-up efforts. In fact, it took the four of them over three hours just to clean the grandstand area.
Nonetheless, the new promoters, dedicated and determined to provide the community with racing again this season, worked endless days to get the facility back into shape in time for the July 3 special.
According to Amanda, it wasn't even the surging river that flooded the track this time around. "It was the run off of the heavy rains from town that collected here," she explained.
Despite Mother Nature's mid-summer wrath the crew worked to get the place back into shape, missing only one night of racing in the process. Unfortunately for the July 3 special, another battle with the weather would unfold.
The July 3 race, which was highlighted by a 25-lap Firecracker special for the I.M.C.A. Stock Cars, started right on time. While it was known that rainy weather was in the area, the first handful of heats were completed with no problems. Then, the sprinkles got heavier and the show was halted at 8:10 as the rain passed through.
A number of track workers jumped in their pickups to save the track and I joined Jason Goble of 34 Raceway in his track's pace truck to make a tour around the track. Although it had been under water for days on end, it was in surprisingly good shape. We packed the track for an hour, along with around a dozen others, eventually joined by some 4-Cylinders, Mod Lites and some other competitors.
At 9:10, the packers cleared the track to make way for the pair of Modified heats who then finished the packing and tested the track with hot laps. Racing would resume on the night as the green flag waved again at 9:25.
Just prior to 10 p.m., the first feature made its way to the track as the Mod Lites took the green in their 10-lap event. A nice field of 18 cars were on-hand and it was Troy Philpot who jumped into the early lead. Philpot built up a straightaway advantage on the field with just four laps to go as hotshoe Justin Buchholz worked his way past Dan Keltner for second.
Running the high groove, Buchholz worked through traffic and attempted to chase down the leader, however Philpot's advantage was just too large as he took the win by just under half of a straightaway at the line. Buchholz, Keltner, Todd Hansen and Jeff Miller completed the top five.
Since the weather was still an uncertainty, the 23-car Stock Car field, originally slated to be the evening's finale, was moved up to second in the order of events. Brett Timmerman took the early lead in the 25-lap special while the field battled side-by-side behind him.
A pair of cautions on the fourth lap bunched the field and allowed Jim Redmann, who started mid-pack, a chance to close early. Running fifth when the caution flag flew, Redmann went to work on the high side of the speedway when racing resumed and found himself in second place just one lap later. He worked the low side of Timmerman to snag the lead away on lap six.
Redmann remained out front and held off the late challenges of David Hemsted and Trent Vrchoticky to score the exciting win. Rod Staats and Brian Holmes rounded out the top five and Timmerman crossed the line in sixth.
One caution flag slowed the 16-car 4-Cylinder feature and it was Tyler Whalen taking advantage of that yellow flag to drive to the win. Running second during the lap two yellow, Whalen got the jump on pace setter Travis Yakle to lead the field into the first set of turns when racing resumed. Whalen quickly extended his margin while T.J. Garrison and Geoff Theobald worked through the field.
Garrison and Theobald closed late, but could not reel in Whalen as he drove to the win in the 10-lapper. Garrison and Theobald ran second and third, respectively, while John Whalen and Darrin Smith completed the top five.
Just as the Modifieds made their way to the speedway to close the evening, the rains came once more. This time, it was too much as officials were forced to call the show early. While the Mods didn't get to run on this night, double features in that division are scheduled for next Friday's show. Fireworks did go on as scheduled to the delight of the fans.
Once again, the crew at CJ did a phenomenal job to get as much of tonight's show in as possible. Combined with their tireless efforts over the past couple of weeks, the hard work that went into getting tonight's show in proves once again how dedicated the staff at CJ Speedway is to provide racing in the area. My hat's off to the entire crew for a great night of racing!
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