Drake repeats in Sunday show at Springfield

By Ronnie Williams  SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Hometown driver Ryan Gillmore charged early from his sixth starting spot and drove with ease to his first-ever Bad Boys Mowers IMCA Modified win Saturday before the capacity crowd at The Quick Quarter Springfield Raceway. Gillmore, driving the Andrew Smith car that won on opening night, had made several changes to the car during the week after a seventh place finish last week.  The youngster wasted no time in working through traffic early in the 20-lap feature and then kicked it in gear to capture the win in a strong run. “Last week was the first time since early in the season that we ran the car and we finished se­cond that night. I knew the car was capable of getting into the winner’s circle and we found a few things and made several changes,” he said. “The car was on a rail. Jerry had the track in great shape and two-three wide racing all night in all classes.” Gillmore was happy the race went almost caution-free as friend and hard [Read More]

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The “something different” Springfield Raceway owner and promoter Jerry Hoffman was looking for is the IMCA Modified division. The sanctioned class will be new to Saturday programs at the quarter-mile, high-banked clay oval in southwest Missouri in 2019. Opening night will be in March with first point races in April. “It was time for a change. Sometimes you have to wait ‘til the time is right to do something differ­ent,” Hoffman said. “Tracks in the area are down to single digit car counts and even the nights big money was added car count did not grow like you thought it would.” Hoffman and Doug Bland had purchased the track 12 years ago. “We had been the first track in the area to sanction both USRA Modifieds and ‘B’ mods,” said Hoffman, now the sole owner. “You can really run an IMCA Modified cheaper than you can a USRA ‘B’ mod.” Springfield Raceway will be part of IMCA’s Jet Racing Central Region. After the season-opening March Madness special, the IMCA Speedway Motors Weekly [Read More]

By Ronnie Williams   SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (Aug. 10) – Veteran Chris Tonoli took advantage of track position and left the filed behind Saturday in The Bad Boy Mower IMCA Modified feature At The Quick-Quarter of Spring­field Raceway in collecting his IMCA win in the Show-Me State. The California transplant, always a frontrunner in Modified and Street Stock racing in the area, converted his number 71 to the IMCA division as Springfield announced in the off season the move to the sanction. “We just felt for our program, this made sense with the cost and changes. It has put the fun back into local racing for us,” he said. Tonoli has had some strong runs this season and had a late charge to third the previous Satur­day. He took off like a rocket ship on the green and led all 20 laps of the Aug. 10 feature with ease. The real battle was for the runner-up spot between last week’s winner Bobby Pearish and Trevor Drake, as Drake ran Pearish down late to secure second.  Pearish, James Thompson [Read More]