Feature Archives

Second round of voting adds three more first-time All-Stars

BOONE, Iowa – Cayden Carter, Joel Rust and Kody Scholpp will make career-first Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational starts on Sept. 7 during the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s at Boone Speedway. All three advanced from the second round of IMCA Modified All-Star voting, which concluded Thursday afternoon. Thirteen drivers in all were elected, in polling conducted through the IMCA Facebook page. Jay Noteboom will take the green for a record-extending 11th time while Tim Ward and Chris Abelson each make their eighth starts. Kyle Strickler is in for the sixth time. Four-time All-Stars are Kelly Shryock and Jason Wolla. Ethan Dotson and Kyle Brown both make their third All-Star starts while Clint Luellen and Cody Laney are both in for the second time in their respective careers. Noteboom was the All-Star Invitational winner in 2005 and 2008 and was the runner-up last year. Abelson won in 2011 while Strickler topped the 2014 event. Strickler got the call to notify him he’d been elected to start the 2018 race on his birthday. Scholpp became [Read More]

Arnold Motor Supply Dirt Knights Tour finale Aug. 6 at Clay County Fair Speedway

SPENCER, Iowa – The finale for the 2018 Arnold Motor Supply Dirt Knights Tour is Monday, Aug. 6, when IMCA Modifieds headline the Clay County Fair Speedway show. A top check of $2,000, along with a berth on the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational ballot are at stake as the series travels to Spencer, hometown of tour title sponsor Arnold Motor Supply. Arnold Motor Supply provides a portion of the $10,000 point fund and also awards a Traeger Lil’ Tex Elite Pellet Grill to the champion of the ninth annual tour. Hunter Marriott has the current point lead and two previous Clay County tour victories to his credit. The Brookfield, Mo., driver won at Spencer in 2016 and again last year. Drivers’ six best finishes over the course of the seven-date series will be used to determine point standings because of events held out of state and drivers in contention for the tour championship are aware of that scoring. One hundred and seventy drivers from 14 states have competed in one or more of the first [Read More]

Two $2,000 feature wins are result of McDaniel’s Frontier Days sweep

LOVELOCK, Nev. (July 27-28) – Ryan McDaniel’s first visit to Lovelock Speedway has him looking forward to a return trip to the Nevada speedplant. McDaniel swept Frontier Days IMCA Modified features picking up $2,000 wins Friday and Saturday night. “I had never been to Lovelock before Friday and this was the first time I’d swept weekend shows with big payouts,” the new Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational ballot qualifier said. “It’s been a long time coming, that’s for sure.” McDaniel won from eighth starting, ahead of James Thibodeaux and Cory Sample, on opening night and from seventh starting, in front of Sample and Joel Myers, on Saturday. A good run on the outside line took him to the front following a restart with seven laps left on Friday. McDaniel then went to the lower groove and used lapped traffic to his advantage in leading to the finish. Rounding out the top five were Robert Miller and Myers. Traffic didn’t do McDaniel any favors while he ran second on Saturday, however, as Sample found the way through [Read More]

First LaSalle Speedway date is Aug. 4 for Deery Brothers Summer Series

LASALLE, Ill. – The Deery Brothers Summer Series makes its first-ever visit Saturday to LaSalle Speedway, where a $2,000 check awaits the winner of the Aug. 4 Illinois Valley IMCA Showdown main event. The 10th of a dozen races on the 2018 IMCA Late Model tour schedule pays a minimum of $300 to start. “IMCA Late Models have previously raced at LaSalle One Night Stand events and I know our drivers are looking forward to being part of the first Deery event there,” said Tour Director Kevin Yoder. “There are no weekly sanctioned events that night so Late Model drivers looking to run for national points can do so at LaSalle.” Pit gates open at 2 p.m. and the grandstand opens at 4 p.m. with the drivers’ meeting at 6:30 p.m., hot laps at 7 p.m. and racing at 7:30 p.m. General admission is $30 and free for kids ages 11 and under. Pit passes are $40 or $20 for kids. When purchased online, skybox seats and VIP stadium seating are both $35. Advance tickets [Read More]

Nearly perfect, Peeler paces Crist Memorial

OSBORN, Mo. (July 27) – Twenty-two near-perfect laps after taking the initial green flag, Blake Peeler was celebrating a $1,262 payday and the highlight of his IMCA Sunoco Stock Car career. Peeler led every circuit of US 36 Raceway’s Joe Crist Memorial Friday night, taking the big win in front of a packed grandstand at Osborn. Peeler took command from the start of the second annual event after wife Nellie drew the two pill for him. A couple cautions kept him out of lapped traffic and Peeler put some distance on the rest of the field following the final restart with four laps left. “I’ve won championship night and mid-season championship night features before but this is the absolute highlight of my career,” he said. “I’m good friends with the (Crist) family so winning this race means a lot to me.” Brad Whitney was second, a couple car lengths back, and hard charger Mich Ross was third. Billie Hoover and Brian LaBonte completed the top five. “I knew Brad would race me clean,” said Peeler. [Read More]

Nine states, Canada represented in round 2 of All-Star voting

BOONE, Iowa – Voters will have a geographically diverse group of IMCA Modified candidates to choose from when balloting begins at noon today (Monday) to elect the next group of starters in the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational. Fifteen starters advanced in the first round of voting last week. Facebook voting runs through 4 p.m. CST Thursday, Aug. 2 to elect another 13 All-Stars from the at-large pool of the next top 25 vote recipients. Those candidates represent nine states (Arkansas, California, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon and Wisconsin) and Canada. Completing the starting grid for the 30-lapper will be All-Star candidates with the top national point total and the most 40-point feature wins as of Aug. 31 competing at the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s. The 15th annual Invitational is Friday, Sept. 7 at Boone Speedway. The race pays $1,000 to win and $200 to start.

Ruter, Zevenbergen race to 2K wins on Kossuth County’s Veterans’ Night

ALGONA, Iowa (July 26) – The crowd at Kossuth County Speedway thanked the men and women who have served in our military, then applauded $2,000 feature winners Ryan Ruter and Elijah Zevenbergen during the Thursday Veterans’ Night event. Ruter was running third and in the right place to capitalize when Kyle Strickler and Jeremy Mills tangled up front in the IMCA Modified main. He led to the finish, running the top line and taking the checkers ahead of Wehrs Dash at the Clash winner Kelly Shryock, Ethan Dotson, Rob Hughes and Nick Meyer. Ruter had taken the initial green flag from the fifth spot, Shryock from ninth. “There were a lot of good cars there. It was a fun race, for sure,” Ruter said following the 2019 Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational ballot qualifying win. “The track was really good and we got to take home the big payday.” Forty-nine IMCA Sunoco Stock Cars in all vied at Algona and Zevenbergen led that main event most of the way despite the best efforts of Derek Green [Read More]

First round of voting yields seven first-time All-Star candidates

BOONE, Iowa – Seven of the first 15 drivers elected to the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational will make career-first starts when the event hits the track Friday, Sept. 7 at Boone Speedway. First-time All-Stars are Troy Foulger, Chaz Baca, Zachary Madrid, Shane Hiatt, Tyler Frye, Chris Elliott and Austin Wonch. Steven Bowers Jr. was elected to his second All-Star race, Will Ward to his third and Hunter Marriott and Kevin Sustaire both to their fourth. Richie Gustin and A.J. Ward are both in for the fifth time, Ricky Thornton Jr. and William Gould both for the sixth. Thornton, who became a new father earlier this week, had the top vote total among the 139 drivers on the first-round ballot. Three drivers were elected from each region, with candidacy based on where drivers were racing most. Ten states are represented by the first group of All-Stars. Baca, Foulger and Madrid advance from the Western region, Bowers, Frye and Hiatt from the Central, Gustin, Marriott and Thornton from the North Central, Elliott, Gould and Sustaire from the [Read More]

Marriott makes it two wins in three nights with BVR Arnold Motor Supply Dirt Knights checkers

ALTA, Iowa (July 25) – Wednesday’s night’s Arnold Motor Supply Dirt Knights Tour rubber match went to Hunter Marriott. Marriott led every lap from the pole in winning the IMCA Modified main event at Buena Vista Raceway. The $2,000 tour victory was his second in three days, the first coming Monday at Park Jefferson Speedway. Kyle Strickler, winner of the Tuesday tour event at Hancock County Speedway, was a distant second. “It seems like we had gone on a dry streak there for a while, then we got a couple wins on the Dakota Tour so we knew we could still do it,” said Marriott, who’d put his name on the Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational ballot Monday. “We’ve won three of five career starts at Alta and a couple Dirt Knights features now, and that always feels good.” Strickler fell back as far as fifth before working his way back to the runner-up spot. Joel Rust, defending BVR race winner Chris Abelson and Kyle Brown finished third through fifth, respectively, in the 25-lapper. Marriott may [Read More]

Rain delays but can’t stop Cooney in Fayette County Deery Series quest

WEST UNION, Iowa (July 25) – Todd Cooney had his car loaded up and ready to go home, thinking the rain that delayed Wednesday’s Deery Brothers Summer Series program at Fayette County Speedway would ultimately lead to its cancellation. But the rain went away, the speedway crew got the oval back in prime shape and Cooney ultimately ended up going home with the IMCA Late Model tour victory and $2,000. After running everywhere from third to seventh, Cooney passed Justin Kay and leader Chad Holladay on the 31st of 40 circuits. He beat Kay to the checkers by about a car length for his career eighth Deery win. “We’d kind of been all over the place but I was able to get up to third before that last restart, get a run on the back stretch and get the lead,” said Cooney, who used the higher line to do so. “Any time you can beat Justin it’s a big thing and Chad has been running well, too. To pass both of them is pretty awesome.” [Read More]