At the on-set of the 15-lap event, Rick Quail took the lead, but was quickly under pressure from Holtz and Norman Chesmore. Holtz worked beneath the race leader on the following circuit as Quail, who stuck with the high side, slid back in the pack.
Murty, working from a fourth row start, ran on the tractor tires on the low side and into the top three after passing Scooter Dulin on lap five. Dulin later retired to the pits. Holtz, Chesmore and Murty ran 1-2-3 until the caution flag waved on lap nine.
When racing resumed, Murty shot beneath Chesmore and the two battled wheel-to-wheel before Murty was able to break free on lap 11. Just one lap later, Murty worked beneath Holtz and into the lead en route to the victory. Although he crossed the line in second, Holtz was disqualified for failing to report directly to the claiming area following the event. That bumped Chesmore into the second finishing spot ahead of Nathan Wood, who made a nice run through the field after starting 12th. Points leader Justin Temeyer came home fourth and Lynn Panos, making his first appearance at the track this season, ran fifth.
IMCA Stock Car
1. 99D Damon Murty
2. 15 Norman Chesmore
3. 52 Nathan Wood
4. 56T Justin Temeyer
5. 97 Lynn Panos
6. 4Q Rick Quail
7. 6X Bob Ahrendsen
8. 8 Curtis Roster
9. 10 John Schaefer
10. 9E Austin Evens
Damon Murty (99D) battles Phil Holtz for the lead in the IMCA Stock Car feature. Murty went on to score his 99th career Stock Car win. (photos courtesy of Scott Tjabring/ Action Track Photography / http://www.actiontrackphotos.com/)
It was a wild night in the IMCA Modified division as two separate incidents resulted in rollovers for a pair of drivers. Just following the initial green flag, Eric Tuttle got upside down on the back stretch bringing the event to an early halt.
When the race resumed, Patrick Flannagan shot into the lead from his outside front row start. Shawn Fisher quickly worked beneath him and made the pass for the lead one lap later. As Fisher led, Flannagan and Jerry Dedrick battled for position while Jerry Luloff and Tony Olson raced for fourth. Fisher pulled to half of a straightaway lead while the rest of the pack battled behind him.
Luloff, running the high side, made his way around Olson eight laps into the event, then chased down Flannagan and passed him for third with just five laps to go. Luloff quickly reeled in Dedrick and edged him at the line just prior to another rollover on lap 15. Exiting turn four, Landon Cassill got upside down in his #7L. While Cassill walked away from the incident, his car suffered heavy damage.
On the restart, Luloff, running second, went back to work up top and pulled even on the outside of Fisher. As the white flag waved, Luloff cleared Fisher's #25 to drive to the win.
IMCA Modified
1. 18 Jerry Luloff
2. 25 Shawn Fisher
3. F7 Patrick Flannagan
4. 5 Jerry Dedrick
5. 27M Mark Schulte
6. 33D Scott Hogan
7. T23 Tony Olson
8. 7 Todd Jensen
9. 7L Landon Cassill
10. 171 Buck Swanson
Jerry Luloff earned top honors in the IMCA Modified feature. According to his brother, Glenn's, facebook page, it was Luloff's fifth overall win of 2010. Thank you for the info, Glenn, and thank you modern technology for making this easier to report.
IMCA SportMod
1. 1 Austin Kaplan
2. 00 Jim Buhlman
3. 7 Tim Swope
4. 26J Joel Rust
5. 16X Mike Mitchell
6. 3D Drew Fish
7. 95 Mike McDonald
8. MR09 Kurt Hogan
9. 28P Rick Paulson
10. 3R Danny Dvorak
Austin Kaplan (the guy with the trophy) was joined by a host of fans after he scored the IMCA SportMod win. The victory kept him close in the hunt for a national title.
Brett Vanous held the early lead in the 12-lap IMCA Sport Compact feature. A trio of cautions slowed the first few laps which allowed Nathan Chandler to stay within striking distance of the leader. Following a lap four yellow, Chandler worked the low side of Vanous and escaped with the lead one lap later. He proceeded to pull away from the field to take the win.
IMCA Sport Compact
1. 3 Nathan Chandler
2. 35 Brett Vanous
3. 02 Merv Chandler
4. 45 Justin Wacha
5. 36DD Gary Peiffer
6. 8 Dallas Chandler
7. 8M Jacob McVay
8. 22T Travis Losenicky
9. 2P Cale Peterson
10. 02R Travis Ross
Nathan Chandler (3) took advantage of the offer to drive his brother's car Sunday night in the IMCA Sport Compact division. He piloted the loaner to victory lane.
Al Sweerin made it look like a Sunday drive down I-380 as he led the 15-lap IMCA Hobby Stock feature in its entirety. Sweerin maintained a lead of a few car-lengths throughout the caution-free event to take the win ahead of Doug Laughridge.
IMCA Hobby Stock
1. 11 Al Sweerin
2. 25 Doug Laughridge
3. 16 Wes Stanek Jr.
4. 19 August Bach
5. 77 Rod Grother
6. 67 Justin Stander
7. 47 Scott Pippert
8. 55 Vince Buchholz
9. 4JR Russel Damme Jr.
10. 07 Jacob Keiser
Al Sweerin went green for 15 in the IMCA Hobby Stocks as he dominated that feature to score the win.
As usual, it was an entertaining night at Vinton. Although the Modified car count was down (13 signed in), the cars on-hand provided some great racing. It was an obviously long night for both Tuttle and Cassill. Oddly enough, it was just the second night out for those cars. Both hit the track for the first time the previous night at Independence. For Cassill, it was a brand new car, although it was far from showroom quality at the end of the night. Tuttle didn't appear to have as much damage, although it was evident there was quite a bit of work to do on his #26. Fortunately, both drivers were able to walk away from their respective incidents.
Mark Schulte suffered mechanical problems in his Modified which forced him to an early exit from his heat. He accepted the offer to take a ride on the carousel, otherwise known as the car owned by Jeff Hundley of Aurora. Hundley's machine, originally driven this year by Clint Wendel of Mason City, has most recently had Marion's Max Corporon behind the wheel. In fact, Corporon was in Vinton tonight and competed in his heat, but forfeited his points and prize money to allow Schulte to drive it in the feature. Schulte proved to be a good call as he ran to a fifth place finish.
It was good to see Stock Car numbers up as 17 signed in to compete tonight. That's one division that always seems to suffer at many tracks in the eastern part of the state this time of the year. As is generally the case, the Stock Cars provided some of the best racing of the night.
A number of the divisions tonight appeared to recycle their lineups from start to finish. Many drivers who were involved in early incidents that either forced them to restart from the tail or sent them to the pits for repairs, made good strong finishes. Among those was SportMod driver Joel Rust, who was involved in a lap two yellow that sent him to a brief pit stop. He came back to finish fourth in that event. Likewise, Drew Fish had problems early on, but was able to salvage a sixth place run in the same event. In the Sport Compacts, Justin Wacha nearly got upside down off the back straightaway as his #45 was on its side before coming to a rest on all fours. He rebounded with a fourth place run. Gary Peiffer (more on him later) spun early and was sent to the tail on a lap two restart of the Sport Compact feature, but came back with a top-five finish.
Nathan Chandler's win was from behind the wheel of a borrowed car. After totaling his car earlier this weekend, Chandler's brother Dallas gave up his ride to allow Nathan to remain in the points chase. Dallas pulled another car out of the Chandler stables to drive to his sixth place finish.
Speaking of the Sport Compacts, while the class is entertaining, I often feel like I'm watching an episode of the Sopranos when they take the track. I've heard of drivers holding grudges against one another, but they may as well paint targets on the sides of some of the 4-cylinders that compete in the division. Case in point, Gary Peiffer was a little out of shape exiting turn two tonight and, while one would assume the driver behind him would slow down or swerve to avoid contact, the exact opposite happened. Not only did the driver behind him fail to turn the wheel, he accelerated to make sure he finished him off. Far from the sportsmanlike conduct you'd expect to see in that type of situation. It wasn't an isolated incident, either, as that type of careless driving seems to occur more often than not. Call me old-school (God, when did I grow up), but that's juvenile and should be left for the playground. Those drivers should just take it outside the pit gate, play best 3-of-5 in a good old fashioned game of rock/paper/scissors and stop peeing in each other's Cheerios.
It was an extremely hot and humid afternoon that didn't let up into the evening hours as the heat index had to be near "sidewalk egg boiling" temperatures. If you're a reader of Kyle Ealy's blog on www.speedblitz.net, you've been led to believe that I don't sweat - ever. I'll be happy to let you know, Kyle, that not only was I sweating tonight, but my sweat was sweating! In fact, I think I could have served as a human rice field by night's end. Oh yeah, and I forgot the bug spray, so I think the playing field is now level, pal!
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