Burbridge best in IMCA Modifieds at Benton County Speedway

Close battles at the front of three separate features made for another great night of racing at Benton County Speedway. To change things up, I updated all of my statistical data and crunched some numbers immediately following Sunday night's show (which also explains why the story is being posted a little later than normal). While the race recap is below, the statistical angle on this week's event is listed below the results at the bottom of the blog.

Front row starter Jerry Dedrick held the early lead in the 20-lap IMCA Modified feature. Dedrick, who was closely pursued by Mike Burbridge, ran the top groove while Burbridge ran down low. Burbridge pulled even with the leader as the front-runners encountered slower traffic on the back stretch on lap six. Dedrick held the point until the caution flag waved with seven laps complete.

On the restart, Burbridge shot to the inside of Dedrick and took command before the yellow flag waved again one lap later. Burbridge maintained the lead when racing resumed as Patrick Flannagan and Troy Cordes were racing through the field from respective fourth and sixth row starts.

Flannagan raced the high side past Dedrick for second while Jeff Streeter and Cordes shuffled Dedrick back to fifth just prior to another stoppage on lap 11. Cordes made his way into the top three and was challenging Flannagan for second when Cordes spun in turn four on lap 16.

When racing resumed, Burbridge moved to the high side to race to victory ahead of Flannagan and Kevin Pittman, who started in the sixth row in what was his first appearance since opening night.

Kevin Rose held the early lead in the 15-lap IMCA Stock Car feature. Running the high side, Rose paced the field while Norman Chesmore and Curtis Roster battled for position. Contact between those two drivers brought out the race's only caution on lap four, leaving Phil Holtz on Rose's rear bumper for the restart.

Holtz, who started in the fifth row, joined Rose in the top groove before making a bid for the lead on lap eight. Exiting turn four, Holtz dropped to the low side of Rose and took command at the start/finish line. He held off Dave Stricker over the final half of the event to score the win. Rose finished third.

Matt Brown took the lead from Justin Wacha on the third lap of the IMCA Hobby Stock 15-lapper. Brown held the point while Scott Pippert was marching through the field from a fifth row starting spot. Just a lap after Brown took the lead, Pippert followed him into second.

Pippert reeled in Brown at the seven lap mark then shot to the inside of the leader as the two battled for the top spot. With Pippert down low and Brown up top, the leaders ran door-to-door for four circuits before Pippert broke free just as the caution flag waved on lap 12. On the restart, Pippert pulled away to score the win ahead of Brown, who held off Chris Luloff for second.

In just his second appearance this season, Jake Strayer held the early lead in the IMCA SportMod main. Strayer paced the field until the caution flag waved on lap three for an incident that knocked out three of the top five drivers. That placed points leader Danny Dvorak on Strayer's rear bumper for the ensuing restart.

Dvorak remained close to Strayer when racing resumed and pulled to the outside of the leader at the midway point. Dvorak then shot to the inside of Strayer one lap later to take command as the leaders encountered lapped traffic. Dvorak led the remainder of the event to score the victory ahead of Sam Wieben, who made his way into second as the white flag waved. Strayer ran third ahead of Dave Schulze.

Steve Miedke dominated the 12-lap IMCA Sport Compact feature. After Travis Ross and Brett Vanous shared time at the front of the pack, Miedke came from a fourth row starting spot to seize the lead on lap four. He pulled away from the field to take the win by half a track in the caution-free event. Vanous ran second ahead of Merv Chandler.

RESULTS
IMCA MODIFIED
Feature - 1. 11B Mike Burbridge; 2. F7 Patrick Flannagan; 3. 26P Kevin Pittman; 4. 1J Jeff Streeter; 5. 21K Kyle Brown; 6. 12D Joe Docekal; 7. 10K Ronn Lauritzen; 8. 33D Scott Hogan; 9. 8 Tony Snyder; 10. 98 Jason Snyder; 11. 57B Dennis Betzer; 12. 1XX Tom Hanson; 13. 17 Dawn Krall; 14. 14B Shane Burbridge; 15. 18 Jerry Luloff; 16. 7T Tim McBride; 17. 71 Troy Cordes; 18. 80 Jerry Dedrick; 19. 15D Dustin Johnson; 20. T23 Tony Olson; 21. 49T Tim Stevens; 22. 01 Ed Thomas; 23. 96 Eric Tuttle; 24. 91 Shawn Ryan.
First heat - 1. Streeter; 2. Olson; 3. Brown; 4. Flannagan; 5. McBride; 6. Tuttle; 7. Hanson; 8. Johnson.
Second heat - 1. Hogan; 2. Cordes; 3. Thomas; 4. S. Burbridge; 5. Luloff; 6. Stevens; 7. Betzer; 8. Ryan.
Third heat - 1. Dedrick; 2. M. Burbridge; 3. Lauritzen; 4. Pittman; 5. T. Snyder; 6. Docekal; 7. Krall; 8. J. Snyder.

IMCA STOCK CAR
Feature - 1. 7H Phil Holtz; 2. 89B Dave Stricker; 3. 22K Kevin Rose; 4. 87 John Emerson; 5. 19J Jay Schmidt; 6. 21DE Jason Deshaw; 7. 76 Mike Galli; 8. 99D Damon Murty; 9. 15 Norman Chesmore; 10. 4JR Russell Damme Jr.; 11. 8 Curtis Roster.
First heat - 1. Murty; 2. Stricker; 3. Chesmore; 4. Holtz; 5. Damme; 6. Galli.
Second heat - 1. Schmidt; 2. Deshaw; 3. Emerson; 4. Rose; 5. Roster.

IMCA SPORTMOD
Feature - 1. 3R Danny Dvorak; 2. 198 Sam Wieben; 3. 18J Jake Strayer; 4. J2 Dave Schulze; 5. 10S John Schaefer; 6. 72 Mike Hogencamp; 7. 00 Jim Buhlman; 8. K3 Kyle Olson; 9. B3 Russ Olson; 10. 3B Brian Anderson; 11. 28P Rick Paulson; 12. 7D Dakoda Sellers; 13. 93 Josh Burrell; 14. 81 Jesse Belez; 15. 11S Bob Ebaugh; 16. 22H Curt Hilmer; 17. 95 Mike McDonald.
First heat - 1. Strayer; 2. Anderson; 3. Hilmer; 4. McDonald; 5. Wieben; 6. K. Olson; 7. R. Olson; 8. Sellers; 9. Ebaugh.
Second heat - 1. Hogencamp; 2. Schulze; 3. Dvorak; 4. Belez; 5. Paulson; 6. Burrell; 7. Schaefer; DNS Buhlman.

IMCA HOBBY STOCK
Feature - 1. 47 Scott Pippert; 2. 78 Matt Brown; 3. 18 Chris Luloff; 4. 46 Brian Happel; 5. 25 Doug Laughridge; 6. 55 Vince Buchholz; 7. 12J Jeremy Floyd; 8. 07 Jacob Keiser; 9. 77 Rod Grother; 10. 45 Justin Wacha; 11. 20W Bruce Fraser; 12. 14J Jacob Floyd; 13. 75D Dale Kite; 14. 2P Cale Petersen.
First heat - 1. Brown; 2. Pippert; 3. Luloff; 4. Buchholz; 5. Jacob Floyd; 6. Petersen; 7. Kite.
Second heat - 1. Happel; 2. Wacha; 3. Laughridge; 4. Keiser; 5. Grother; 6. Jeremy Floyd; 7. Fraser.

IMCA SPORT COMPACT
Feature - 1. 11 Steve Miedke; 2. 35 Brett Vanous; 3. 2 Merv Chandler; 4. 36DD Gary Peiffer; 5. 83 Travis Ross; 6. 57 Duayne Herb; 7. 00W Bill Whalen Jr.; 8. 07 Joe Goodenbour; 9. 111 A.J. Witten; 10. 3S Craig Streeter; 11. 22 Nathan Chandler; 12. 23 Corbin McCombs.
First heat - 1. Miedke; 2. Vanous; 3. Peiffer; 4. Whalen; 5. Streeter; 6. Goodenbour.
Second heat - 1. N. Chandler; 2. Ross; 3. M. Chandler; 4. Herb; 5. Witten; 6. McCombs.

A number of things stood out to me statistically following Sunday's program so I decided to provide a mini Stats Blitz through the first 12 nights of weekly racing (11 nights for the Modifieds since the Hogan Memorial did not count toward points racing). Below are a few of those numbers, broken down by division:

IMCA MODIFIED
Mike Burbridge: The second win of the season for Burbridge, it was his sixth career win in weekly racing history in Vinton. He now sits tied for 23rd on the all-time list with Dave Venenga, Garry Stuber, Jim Schmuecker and Mike Krall. All six of Burbridge's wins have come since June 6 of last year. By virtue of his 13 laps led during Sunday's feature, Burbridge has now led more Modified laps (43) of feature racing this season than any other driver in the division.
Modified Parity: With his win, Burbridge joined Richie Gustin and Ronn Lauritzen as the only Modified drivers to own two victories in weekly racing this season in Vinton. Only twice in track history has a season gone 11 weeks without a driver earning three wins in the division. The only other times that happened was in 1980 and 1991. Coincidentally, the track has never gone 12 weeks in a single season without a three-time Modified winner. Burbridge, Gustin and Lauritzen are the only drivers who can ensure that streak continues next week.
Joe Docekal: For the 10th consecutive week, Joe Docekal sits atop the division's point standings. While he is the only Modified driver to earn top-10 finishes every night this season, he is also the only driver at the track (in any division) to finish in every top-7 feature position at least once... except for first place. (Don't worry, Joe. Your time is probably coming. Afterall, of the 11 Mod winners so far, 10 of them have contained a "1" in their car numbers.)

IMCA STOCK CAR
Phil Holtz: His third win of the season, Holtz is now tied with Damon Murty for most in the division at the speedway this season. It also guarantees Holtz of his third consecutive season with at least three wins in Vinton. For his career, he now has 11 career Stock Car wins in Vinton, seventh on the all-time list. He is now within a single win of tying Scooter Dulin for sixth. By the way, Holtz came from the 10th starting spot to win Sunday. No other Stock Car winner has started that deep in the field this season.
Jay Schmidt: Schmidt is the only Stock Car driver with top-10 finishes all 12 nights of the season. In fact, he has finished now worse than eighth this year and is within eight points of Holtz for the division lead.

IMCA SPORTMOD
Danny Dvorak: Dvorak earned his sixth win in weekly racing this season in Vinton and the 44th of his career in points racing at the speedway.  The all-time leader, he now sits a full 20 wins ahead of Austin Kaplan, who ranks second on the all-time list. The six wins in Vinton this season are the most for Dvorak since 2006 when he earned seven trips to victory lane. Overall in Vinton, Dvorak has seven wins this year when including the season-opening Frostbuster event. Dvorak is the only SportMod driver with top-10 finishes all 12 nights this season. In fact, he's the only one with more than 10. Of his 12 top-10s, 11 have been in the top five.

IMCA HOBBY STOCK
Scott Pippert: Pippert earned his third straight win on Sunday, his seventh of the points season in Vinton and the ninth overall at the track this year. It is the second time this year he has strung together three straight victories, joining Chris Luloff (2008) as the only Hobby Stock drivers to accomplish that feat. It is the fourth time in his career in Vinton that Pippert has put together a minimum of three straight wins (the most all-time). He now has 42 career weekly wins to his credit, just six shy of Vince Buchholz atop the all-time list. Pippert is also the only Hobby Stock driver with top-10 finishes all 12 nights this season, with 10 of those being top-threes. Speaking of top-threes, Pippert has finished no worse than third place since a seventh place showing on June 10; that's five straight nights. With his six feature laps led tonight, Pippert has now led 50 laps during weekly feature racing this season, which is twice as many as the second place driver in that category (Joe Keiser, 25). Coincidentally, after Pippert took the lead on lap nine Sunday, he gave up the lead to Matt Brown on lap 10 before taking over a final time on lap 11. That is the only time Pippert has relinquished a lead this season in Vinton.

IMCA SPORT COMPACT
Steve Miedke: Steve Miedke earned his second straight win on Sunday, the first driver to string together Sport Compact wins other than Nathan Chandler since Gary Peiffer did so at the end of the 2010 season. It is the first time in his career that Miedke has won on consecutive weeks in Vinton. His fourth win of the season, Miedke has now earned four wins in consecutive seasons, bringing his all-time wins total to nine in Vinton. Miedke now sits fourth all-time in Sport Compact wins on the Vinton oval.

Next weekend, I won't be at Benton County Speedway as I'll be calling the races and demolition derby next Sunday at the Great Jones County Fair in Monticello.

While I won't be in Vinton next Sunday, I will receive the scoring sheets from the speedway upon my return home that night. I'll enter the results and numbers from that event to continue compiling season-long stats for the track. I also plan to write a race recap for next week's races based on those sheets (along with complete results) to keep regular Benton County Speedway readers up to date on all the action.

After a couple days away from the track early this week, I'll be in Independence on Wednesday for the trailer races, which kicks off the 2012 Buchanan County Fair. Log on to www.buchanancountyfair.org for more information and a complete fair schedule.

Have a great week!