By Joyce Eisele
BOONE, Iowa (July 16, 2022) – Boone Speedway held its Hawkeye Challenge race on Saturday night, an added attraction to the regular weekly series racing. Devin Smith in the IMCA Sunoco Stock Car class captured that special win while Tony Cox won the main event for The Class Too Tough To Tame.
A race unique to Boone Speedway that pits different divisions of cars all racing at the same time against each other, the Hawkeye Challenge was $1,000 to win the overall exhibition race with five classes of cars…the Modifieds, Stock Cars, Northern SportMods, Hobby Stocks and Mod Lites. The classes were staggered by lap count. Each class winner was also awarded $500.
When the frenzied race was completed the final results showed that the Stock Car of Smith was the allover winner. The other class winners were Paul Nagle in the Modifieds, Jake Sachau in the Northern SportMods, John Watson in the Hobby Stocks and Randy Bryan in the Mod Lites.
Cox hopped into a Stock Car Saturday night, making his first appearance of the year, and came away a winner. He led all but the first two laps on his run to the checkers, fended off some fierce competitors behind him and pulled away in the closing moments to easily take the win.
David Smith finished as the runner-up after battling his way through some stiff competition and Michael Jaennette nosed past Andrew Burg at the finish line as they went third and fourth, respectively. Jay Schmidt had to qualify through a “B” main, started 21st and finished fifth in an impressive run.
Cox, who last raced in the Modified division a season or two back, was no doubt delighted to return to victory lane at Boone Speedway.
It took just two laps before sixth place starter Josh May had grabbed the lead in the IMCA STARS Mod Lite feature. From there on out, it was all May as he pulled away from the rest of the field and took the dominant win. Charlie Brown came from ninth to finish as the runner up. Last week’s winner Jason Toppenberg was third, Bryan Zehm took fourth and Randy Bryan was fifth.
The Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMods ran an 18-lap main event. Jason York, who looked strong in winning his heat race, looked strong from the get-go in the feature as well. York started on the outside of the front row, immediately took the lead and pulled away to a nice lead. His momentum was broken when a caution flew at lap 12, something he did not want to see.
On the restart, third running Sachau saw his chance, slid around leader York in corner two and took the lead. Sachau pulled away but once again a yellow flew and this time it would set up a green, white, checkered finish.
It was no hindrance to Sachau however, and he went home to the flying checkers and the win. Braden Richards had a good run, coming from 13th to finish third. Early leader York held the third spot, fourth went to Taylor Kuehl and Ryan Leeman rounded out the top five. This was Sachau’s second win at the track this season.
There was a bit of a twist in the final outcome of the Friesen Performance IMCA Modified feature.
Most of the race was between Matthew Meinecke and Paul Nagle. Meinecke held the top spot and then Nagle came from starting eighth to run him down. The two pulled away from the pack and Nagle began his quest for a way around. He ran low, where no one else was in turns one and two, searching for that line.
Those peeks never quite worked, however, and it was Meinecke flashing across the line to take the checkers, Nagle chasing him across. A distance behind in third place was 11th place starter Jake McBirnie, as he won the battle over Cory Sauerman in fourth and Randy Havlik was a close fifth.
However, the win went to Paul Nagle, who although crossing in second was declared the winner after Meinecke was found to have an infraction of deck height and was docked two positions, putting him third. Nagle was then awarded the win and McBirnie was second. This was Nagle’s first win at the speedway.
The IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stocks saw Michael Smith returning to a familiar winner’s circle after the division’s 15-lap “A” main. Smith came from starting 12th, ran down leader Aron Fye on lap 10 and went home to the win.
Eric Stanton gave it his all to try and catch Smith but had to settle for second place. Fye held third, John Watson came from 11th to finish fourth and Eric Knutson completed the top five. Smith repeated his win from last week, made this his sixth win of the regular season, and also won the Frostbuster special.
This Saturday, July 23 is a special night at the Boone Speedway. It is Salute to Veterans Night. There will be race cars on display with special wraps honoring veterans, and all veterans and widows of veterans will be admitted free. They will also receive a free meal and drink and many gifts and prizes will be awarded. For this night only, the gates will open at 4 p.m., hot laps are 5:30 p.m. and racing is at 7 p.m. Modifieds will be racing for $5,000 to win, the Stock Cars $2,000, SportMods $1,000 and the Hobby Stocks $600.
