By Joyce Eisele
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (June 24, 2022) – It was Drury Automotive and Truck Repair Night at the Marshalltown Speedway on Friday evening with extra money on the line for the IMCA Stock Cars and the IMCA STARS Mod Lites.
While Joel Rust took a dominant win in the Friesen Performance IMCA Modifieds, Damon Murty went home $1,000 richer with his IMCA Sunoco Stock Car win and Randy Bryan took the $350 IMCA STARS Mod Lite checkers.
Sam Wieben captured his first win of the season in the Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMods and Bradly Graham took his first trip to victory lane at Marshalltown in the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stock division.
The Modifieds went 20 laps for their feature and Scott Simatovich led the first three circuits. Then Rust came flying on the top shelf of the track and snatched the lead away.
From there on out it was all Rust’s race as he pulled away to take a convincing victory. Jimmy Gustin had a good run to finish as the runner-up. Tim Ward advanced seven spots to finish third. Hebron, Ill., racer, Dustin Kroening finished fourth and Ethan Braaksma was fifth. The only caution of the race flew at lap one, and then the race was all green flag racing. Rust won for the third time this season.
With the Stock Cars running for $1,000 you knew it was going to be a good one as The Class Too Tough To Tame always puts on a good show, and with the extra money on the line, it would bring the cream to the top.
Austin Kaplan has been a strong runner in the Stock Car class all year long at Marshalltown and he took advantage of his outside front row starting spot and grabbed the lead immediately.
Kaplan quickly had Dallon Murty and Michael Jaennette to contend with. Then suddenly Damon Murty was in the picture. By lap five, he was running in third place after starting 12th. Kaplan continued to hold off the two Murty’s until lap 12 when Damon pulled off a perfectly executed slide job to take over the number one spot.
A caution flew at lap 17 and on the restart, Dallon Murty got the upper hand on Kaplan to take over second place.
The father/son duo then held those spots to the finish line, dad Damon taking the checkers and his Game Changer son having to be content with second on this night. Kaplan held onto third place, Kaden Reynolds took fourth and Jaennette was fifth.
This was Damon Murty’s fourth win of the season and career 290th in the division.
Bryan led all 15 laps of the STARS Mod Lite main event, pulling away to take the easy win. Second place went to 10th place starter Jon Padilla from Silvis, Ill. Joel Huggins trailed a distant third and Joe Glick and Ben George completed the top five. The race went caution free.
The Northern SportMods went 20 laps for their feature. Braden Richards held down the lead through the first seven laps. That’s when a caution flew. Then when the racing action picked back up, Wieben wasted no time in making his move to the lead after restarting in third position.
Wieben kept command of the race and held it to capture his first win of the year at the track. Kaylin Lopez trailed a distance behind to take second place. The Olson cousins battled it out for third and fourth, with Tony Olson taking third, and Kyle Olson coming home in fourth place. Travis Peterson rounded out the top five.
The Hobby Stocks were running a caution-free race in their 20-lap main until the first caution flew at lap 17. At that time, Graham was leading after getting by Sam West a few laps earlier. He had stretched out his lead and was no doubt counting down those final three laps, anxious to see the checkers.
That’s when the yellow rag just kept flying. There was another yellow before lap 18 was in the books, then two more yellows flew on lap 18. This set up a green, white, checkered dash to finish line with Graham still holding the upper hand.
Graham kept his composure and kept that top spot to the waving checkers and the win, his first-ever at Marshalltown. Seth Butler came from ninth to finish second, and William Klosterman from eighth to finish third. Jeremiah Andrews was fourth and Scott Ellis started 13th and was fifth.
Graham had started 10th on his drive to the checkers. He’d won his career-first feature in the division earlier this season at Benton County Speedway.
