Ryan storms to Maquoketa win

By Rob Hinckley

MAQUOKETA, Iowa (June 23) – There was a lot of dodging raindrops Saturday evening at Maquo­keta Speedway.

Matt Ryan just wiped his visor and barely had to dodge any traffic.

Ryan stormed by Kelly Pestka on lap three and cruised to the Andover Meat IMCA Late Model feature win on QCJeeps.com Night. The winner did not hit lapped traffic until past the halfway point of the 25-lapper.

“I was searching around looking to maybe find another way around and thought, man, maybe I better get back down where I was at. I figured the 7 (Andy Nezworski) and 58 (Jeremiah Hurst) were right on me.”

The 2017 track champion was exactly right. Nezworski and Hurst were next in line. Pestka and Don Pataska rounded out the top five. It was Ryan’s second straight win at the track and fifth in less than a month overall.

Jeff Larson and Bryce Garnhart had combined for all six QCJeeps.com IMCA Modified wins – until this night. Justin Kay broke that streak with an impressive 20-lap win, leading just the final circuit thanks to a slide job on race-long leader Timmy Current.

A total of 21 B&D Pit Stop IMCA Northern SportMods took the green flag for the 15-lap fi­nale. Seventeen different drivers ran in the top 10 during the event. Tyler Soppe had the upper hand and won again.

Donnie Louck beat an impressive field of Ueland Auto IMCA Stock cars and topped the 15-lap feature.

IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stocks kept up the ultra competitiveness with several cars within range of the win. But Daniel Wauters took it first to the checkers again for his fifth straight 12-lap victory.

Dakota Simonsen led most of the way. Wauters was sent to the tail after an early race incident,

A total of 111 race teams jammed the pits. A rain shower delayed the start of hot laps, but racing was still completed around 10:30 p.m.