Mike McDonald has been close, oh, so close, many times in his career. In fact, this season alone, McDonald had led 24 laps in four separate IMCA Northern SportMod feature events at Benton County Speedway. Sunday night, he got the job done by picking up his first career win in the division. (complete results follow)
Ryan King took the early lead in the 15-lapper while McDonald raced into contention from a third row starting spot. McDonald settled into second on the second lap, then reeled in King a short time later.
Running the low groove, McDonald pulled beneath King to take the lead as the leaders exited turns one and two on lap four. He maintained the point until caution slowed action with 10 laps complete.
Following another stoppage on lap 10, McDonald worked the middle groove with Shane Ebaugh challenging to his inside and points leader Joel Rust charging the top side. Rust worked around Ebaugh as the white flag waved, but McDonald raced his way to the checkers to earn the milestone win. He became the sixth different SportMod winner in 14 weekly points events this season.
With the win, McDonald became the first first-time winner in the division in 2013 in Vinton and the 43rd SportMod winner all-time at the speedway. He is one of 19 drivers with a single SportMod win at the speedway, essentially tying him for 25th on the track's all-time list.
For points leader Rust, the second place run was his track-leading seventh runner-up finish this season and his fifth in the last six weeks. His incredible streak of great finishes continued Sunday night as Rust has not finished outside the top six all 14 nights this season. If you haven't seen this guy race, make the time to attend a track where Rust competes. If you have seen him race before, appreciate it. You're going to be reading about him for many years to come.
Jacob Keiser earned his first win of the season in the IMCA Hobby Stock division. Keiser chased pole-sitter Brad Forbes for one lap before making the pass for the lead on the low side of Forbes in turn four on lap two.
Keiser quickly pulled away from traffic while Chris Luloff pursued. Luloff kept pace with Keiser as the lead pair broke away from the field. They entered lapped traffic at the midway point of the event, however Keiser led the rest of the way to score the win in the caution-free 15-lapper.
Keiser became the fifth straight different winner in the division and the eighth different Hobby Stock winner through 14 nights of weekly points racing this season. He now owns six Hobby Stock wins in weekly racing history in Vinton. That ties him for 19th on the all-time list with Bill Bonnett, Brian Happel, Curt Hilmer, Curtis Roster and Rick Johnson.
Keiser has now won at least one feature in each of the last five seasons on the Vinton quarter-mile. That is the longest currently active streak for Hobby Stocks. All-time, that five-year streak is tied for fifth longest in division history.
John Emerson picked up his fourth win in Vinton this season in the 15-lap IMCA Stock Car feature. From a third row starting spot, Emerson raced the low side past Scott Pippert on the second lap to secure the lead.
Emerson built a comfortable lead to drive to victory in front of an entertaining battle between Justin Temeyer and Damon Murty for the runner-up spot. Murty won that battle to come home second. Emerson is the division's fourth different winner in as many weeks.
With the win, Emerson now has five career Stock car wins in Vinton, placing him in sole possession of ninth on the track's all-time list. It was the fourth time this season Emerson swept weekend features at Independence Motor Speedway and Benton County Speedway. He is the only Stock Car driver in history to sweep the weekend four times in a single season. That four-sweep mark ties the all-time record, which was set by then-Hobby Stock driver Jerry Luloff, who swept the weekend at both tracks four times in 1991.
Adding one weekend sweep from last season, Emerson's five perfect weekends are second all-time to Justin Temeyer in the Stock Car ranks. In fact, Temeyer's six Stock Car sweeps matches Chris Luloff's six Hobby Stock sweeps as the most all-time between the two tracks.
Emerson became the third different Stock Car driver with four wins this season at Vinton. Emerson, Damon Murty and Norman Chesmore have each won four times on the quarter-mile this year. That mark is one shy of the division record of four four-time winners, which was set in 2007. That year, Damon Murty, Justin Temeyer, Curtis Roster and Brian Irvine won exactly four times each in that 20-event season. Scott Pippert, the only other Stock Car winner this year, has won twice. Will he join the others to tie the 2007 mark?
Mike Burbridge took charge on the first lap, then protected the bottom groove to drive to his second IMCA Modified win of the season - the fourth straight different winner in the division. Burbridge held off pressure from Patrick Flannagan and Troy Cordes to score his 10th career Modified win in Vinton. Burbridge's 10 wins tie him with Darin Duffy, Don Erger and Jeff Barkdoll for 14th on the speedway's all-time list for Modifieds.
Burbridge has now won multiple features in each of the last three years in Vinton. The only other Modified drivers in track history to win multiple features over a minimum of three consecutive years are Jack Mitchell (1981-1983), Arlo Becker (1991-1995), Corey Dripps (1996-1998), Troy Cordes (2002-2009), Scott Hogan (2004-2006, 2008-2011) and Ronn Lauritzen (2011-2013).
After a spectacular fire on his #22 at the end of his heat race, Nathan Chandler went to work on repairing his IMCA Sport Compact for the 12-lap feature. All was well for Chandler, who made his way around A.J. Witten on lap five to drive to his sixth win of the season.
Chandler, who leads the all-time Sport Compact wins list at the speedway with 41 trips to the winner's circle, guaranteed a seventh straight season of at least one six-time winner in the division. Chandler has now won 17 of the last 33 Sport Compact features at the speedway and 24 of the last 49. Dude has been, wait for it... on fire.
A fine field of 71 drivers signed in to compete Sunday night. Don Burkey once again had the track in excellent shape and the program was run as efficiently as one would like for a Sunday evening. The races began right at 6 p.m. and the final checkered flag waved at 8:02.
The caution flag waved a total of nine times Sunday night over the course of the 15 events. In fact, not only did the Stock Car, Hobby Stock and Sport Compact features run caution-free, the Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts didn't see a single caution all night.
The nine cautions included a lengthy delay for a red flag incident when Josh Burrell got upside down off the back stretch in the first SportMod qualifier. While
Burrell walked away uninjured and his car didn't receive as much damage
as one might have expected, he indicated on his facebook page that his
season is over.
The 2013 Benton County Fair kicks off this week in Vinton. As has been the tradition for a number of years, track points races will be held in the SportMod, Hobby Stock and Sport Compact divisions this Thursday night. Also running will be the Nostalgia cars. I will be there to announce and/or score part of the show, however flagman John Huff competes in the Nostalgia division so I will be filling in for him in the flag stand during those events. If I don't get booed out of the stand, maybe John will let me flag another division Thursday night. It should make for an interesting night at the fair! Enjoy an extra night of racing in Vinton this week (but leave the rotten tomatoes home Thursday night, please)!
I may take in another race or two elsewhere in the region this week, however my notebook won't be going with me if I make any other travel plans. Regardless where you live, the busy season is in full swing. Take the time to support your local track!
Have a great week!
RESULTS
IMCA MODIFIED
Feature: 1. 11B Mike Burbridge (Delhi); 2. F7 Patrick Flannagan (Cedar Rapids); 3. 71 Troy Cordes (Dunkerton); 4. 18 Jerry Luloff (Independence); 5. 00 J.D. Auringer (Waterloo); 6. 10K Ronn Lauritzen (Jesup); 7. 12D Joe Docekal (Dysart); 8. 80 Jerry Dedrick (Vinton); 9. 14B Shane Burbridge (Manchester); 10. 81 Jesse Belez (Marengo); 11. 78S Steve Stultz (Peoria, Ariz.); 12. 77 Tim McBride (Denver); 13. T23 Tony Olson (Cedar Rapids); DNS 21K Kyle Brown (Kellogg).
Heat one: 1. Dedrick; 2. Flannagan; 3. Cordes; 4. Luloff; 5. Auringer; 6. McBride; 7. Stultz.
Heat two: 1. M. Burbridge; 2. Lauritzen; 3. Docekal; 4. Belez; 5. Olson; 6. S. Burbridge; DNS Brown.
IMCA STOCK CAR
Feature: 1. 87 John Emerson (Waterloo); 2. 99D Damon Murty (Chelsea); 3. 15 Norman Chesmore (Rowley); 4. 56T Justin Temeyer (Independence); 5. 76 Mike Galli (Urbana); 6. 47 Scott Pippert (Elberon); 7. 8 Curtis Roster (Vinton); 8. 4JR Russell Damme Jr. (Waterloo); 9. 8B Scott Beauregard (Center Point); 10. 22 Kevin Rose (Waterloo); 11. 4C Cory Tharp (Waterloo).
Heat one: 1. Murty; 2. Emerson; 3. Galli; 4. Damme; 5. Roster; DNS Tharp.
Heat two: 1. Pippert; 2. Temeyer; 3. Chesmore; 4. Rose; 5. Beauregard.
IMCA NORTHERN SPORTMOD
Feature: 1. 95 Mike McDonald (Cedar Rapids); 2. 26J Joel Rust (Grundy Center); 3. 14 Shane Ebaugh (Evansdale); 4. 22H Curt Hilmer (Dysart); 5. 4 Ryan Maitland (Waterloo); 6. J2 Dave Schulze (Keystone); 7. 00 Jim Buhlman (Cedar Falls); 8. 2AC Dustin Crear (Mediapolis); 9. 3 Dave McCalla (Cedar Rapids); 10. T17 Tom Rawlins (Kellogg); 11. 3R Danny Dvorak (Vinton); 12. 10S John Schaefer (La Porte City); 13. 57K Ross Kitner (Dysart); 14. 35C Casey Heil (Cedar Rapids); 15. 11M Mike Mitchell (Cedar Rapids); 16. 16K Brandon Morris (Ely); 17. 57R Ryan King (Montour); 18. 35 Josh Miller (Lisbon); 19. 72 Mike Hogencamp (Waterloo); 20/DNS. 115 Bob Ebaugh (Raymond); 21/DNS. 7D Dakoda Sellers (Vinton); 22/DNS. 3B Brian Anderson (Garrison); 23/DNS. 93 Josh Burrell (Dysart).
Heat one: 1. King; 2. Crear; 3. McDonald; 4. Hilmer; 5. Ebaugh; 6. Anderson; 7. Schaefer; 8. Burrell.
Heat two: 1. Morris; 2. McCalla; 3. Dvorak; 4. Schulze; 5. Mitchell; 6. Hogencamp; 7. Rawlins; 8. Heil.
Heat three: 1. Sellers; 2. Rust; 3. Ebaugh; 4. Maitland; 5. Buhlman; 6. Kitner; 7. Miller.
IMCA HOBBY STOCK
Feature: 1. 07 Jacob Keiser (Marengo); 2. 18 Chris Luloff (Independence); 3. 17K Kyle Parizek (Belle Plaine); 4. 78 Matt Brown (Dysart); 5. 46 Brian Happel (Vinton); 6. 67 Justin Stander (Vinton); 7. 09X Brad Forbes (Waterloo); 8. 12J Jeremy Floyd (Cedar Rapids); 9. 21J Jason Williams (Belle Plaine); 10. 14C Leah Wroten (Independence); 11. 14J Jacob Floyd (Cedar Rapids); 12. 19B Jim Sheldon (Marion); 13. 45 Justin Wacha (Vinton).
Heat one: 1. Parizek; 2. Keiser; 3. Luloff; 4. Stander; 5. Jeremy Floyd; 6. Jacob Floyd; DNS Sheldon.
Heat two: 1. Brown; 2. Wroten; 3. Happel; 4. Forbes; 5. Wacha; 6. Williams.
IMCA SPORT COMPACT
Feature: 1. 22 Nathan Chandler (Norway); 2. 22T Travis Losenicky (Garrison); 3. 00W Bill Whalen Jr. (Riverside); 4. 11 Steve Miedke (Shellsburg); 5. 4 Mike Tedesco (Jesup); 6. 99J Jeremy Lerch (Vinton); 7. 3S Craig Streeter (Vinton); 8. 9 Toby Denning (Mt. Auburn); 9. 2 Merv Chandler (Urbana); 10. 111 A.J. Witten (Cedar Rapids).
Heat: 1. M. Chandler; 2. Losenicky; 3. Witten; 4. Miedke; 5. N. Chandler; 6. Streeter; 7. Whalen; 8. Lerch; 9. Dennicg; DNS Tedesco.
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