By Jerry Mackey
MAQUOKETA, Iowa (May 20, 2023) – Saturday produced perfect weather for racing at the quarter-mile Maquoketa Speedway. The racers responded with 108 teams taking part in the action and fans responded by coming out in large numbers to enjoy the racing.
The IMCA Sunoco Late Models saw a nice field of 16 drivers take the green for their feature event. Andy Nezworski extended his Maquoketa Speedway winning streak to four dating back to last year’s Jackson County fair race.
Nezworski led the feature flag to flag but had he made one minor mistake, Steve Johnson would have been the man to beat. Johnson started back in the 10th position and rode the extreme top side to the front and finished the race less than a car length behind Nezworski.
Gary Webb, in his 52nd year of racing, finished a very strong third on Saturday night.
Jeff “Bone” Larson, racing one of the TCE cars, scored back-to-back feature wins in the Friesen Performance IMCA Modified division. Larson advanced from the fifth row and led the last half of the main event, taking the win over a fast closing Travis Denning, who also came from the fifth row.
Matt Werner crossed the finish line in third after advancing from the eighth starting spot.
The Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMods saw a great field of 22 drivers take the initial green flag for their main event and the race produced plenty of wheel-to-wheel racing with a battle for the lead waged between Jarrett Franzen and Ben Chapman.
The two talented drivers threw sliders and crossover moves for several laps before Chapman was able to get out to a slim lead. Chapman continued his outstanding season with another with his fourth win of the young season, Franzen took second ahead of the previous weeks winner Bob Silaggi.
Jacob Ellithorpe continued his perfect season at his hometown track with feature win number three in the IMCA Sunoco Stock Car class. Ellithorpe shot to the front quickly from his third row start and went on to record the win ahead of Jerry Mile and Gage Neal.
Jimmy Doescher topped a strong field of IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stocks on Saturday night. Doescher worked to the front from a third row start and scored the win ahead of the Buffalo Bandit Randy LaMar.
And the Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compacts main event saw another big field of drivers take the green for their main event. Dustin Forbes drove to an impressive feature win, racing to the checkers ahead of Jacob Welter and Andy Wagener.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.