Fan Notes from Mansfield FAST $20K to Win

Tyler Gunn (Tom Myers) 8/11/18 – My heart was in Knoxville, Iowa Saturday evening August 11th…..but my person was sitting in the stands in Mansfield, Ohio. Thankfully, Mansfield Motor Speedway, continuing with their #Back To Dirt theme, put on a nice $20,000 to win race with the FAST series. This turned out to be a great evening and a nice consolation for the fans and drivers who don’t get to the Nationals very often.

It seems like a long time since I have been able to go to a big race. I took in three of the All Star Sprint Speed week races back in June and after that, there have been rainouts and lots of races on weekends where I couldn’t make the trip. After Speed week, the All Stars went to Indiana and Illinois, and then a race at Ohio’s Sharon Speedway that I couldn’t make. After Sharon, the All Stars raced with the Outlaws at the Kings Royal. I couldn’t make that either. Then the schedule moved to Western Pennsylvania and two races I could not work into my schedule. After Pennsylvania, the racers traveled west to Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. I am not complaining about the schedule, no way! Just explaining how it all converged together with my circumstances….to keep me away from a good race for a long stretch. But now I am back! Woo hoo! I will say I did take in a few local shows at Wayne County and saw a really good sprint feature a few weeks ago. There were 27 sprint cars in the pits for this one and after many lead changes, some drama, and a three laps to the end battle with Andrew Paulker, Jordan Ryan prevailed and got the win.

Ok, back to the Mansfield race. While driving to the track Saturday, I was thinking there might be a few Knoxville non-qualifiers who would head back east from Knoxville and stop in at Mansfield. Double D Danny Dietrich and Cole Duncan were on hand. Cool. I was putting my money on one of them to win this race. I also saw Bonzai in the pits, working on Danny Mumaw’s car….but no Jac. I thought I would see a few more Pennsylvania guys like Lance Dewease, Ryan Smith, Gerard McIntyre and Tyler Esh….but they didn’t choose to come. There was also a race at Sharon that kept some guys from coming. Nonetheless, 30 good cars were on hand to do battle. All the FAST guys were here of course. In addition to those racers, Wayne County regulars Jordan Ryan, Danny Mumaw, Andrew Paulker, Trevor Baker and Chase Baker showed up along with All Star Cale Conley and former All Star Caleb Helms. Just recently, Helms has dropped off the tour because of work obligations. Travis Philo, Rob Chaney, Brandon Wimmer, Ryan Broughton and D.J. Netto also joined in on the action. In addition to the 410 sprints, the BOSS non-wingers and the winged 305 cars were also on the schedule.

I heard somewhere that Speed Shift would televise this race. I thought that was pretty cool since I really enjoy watching some of their video clips on Youtube. It wasn’t until hot laps that I realized one of my favorite announcers was on hand and announcing this race with Brian Liskai. I believe his name is Chet Christner…and is he funny and entertaining to listen to! I remember watching a video of a non-wing race at Kokomo and Chet was announcing and one of the drivers threw a slide job and was too aggressive with it and ended up banging the wall pretty hard….and then Chet said something like, “That slide job worked about as well as lips on a chicken”…...Ha Ha.

Cole Duncan Chet drew everyone’s attention to Mansfield’s grass covered hill around turns 3 and 4 where people sit with their camping chairs and watch the racing. The track is going to replicate this in turn 1 and 2 and construction on that new feature continues. Chet was commenting on this and called the hill around turn 3 and 4 “the grassy knoll,” while he asked all of those sitting there, who didn’t have their shoes on, to raise their hands. I had to laugh at that and immediately I started to think about Kennedy conspiracies and stuff like that. And of course, on the front row of the 410 feature later on, Byron Reed got to “Roll from the Poll.” Thank you Chet! Keep Droppin’ the Hamma!

In hot laps, Helms sounded like he had a sour motor. He got it running better later on but I don’t think it ever got to running real strong. Paulker looked like he had an oil line come loose, with clouds of smoke everywhere. He later came out for time trials, got one lap in and then blew his motor. When I went back to the pits, Andrew’s dad showed me the 2” diameter hole in the side of the oil pan.

Cole Duncan grabbed the quick time. Travis Philo, Chris Andrews and Double D were the next 3 fastest. Ok, well I am looking good so far with Duncan and Dietrich timing at the top of field. The track was smooth…..but it needed more water on it. When the other cars started timing, the dust was really flying!

After time trials was the opening ceremony, consisting of a prayer and the National Anthem. Half way through the anthem, they fired off some fireworks. Well, they were loud and unexpected and I think everyone in the place was caught off-guard! I know I jumped a bit! They do have nice fireworks at Mansfield. I would venture to say they are at least as good as Eldora’s….if not better.

Danny Dietrich Then the heats for the 410s started. There would be 4 heats with the top 4 transferring to the A. Each heat winner would then draw for starting position 1 thru 4 in the feature. The 2nd place finisher in each heat would draw for starting position 5 thru 8 in the feature. The top 5 in the B main would make it to the tail of the feature. In the first heat, Trevor Baker runs away for the win. Chaney and Mintz battle with Chaney keeping the 2nd spot at the checkers. Mintz was third followed by Cole Duncan. In heat 2, the finish was Byron Reed, Broc Martin, Ryan Broughton and Travis Philo. It was really dusty now. In heat 3 the finish was Cap Henry, Cale Conley, Caleb Helms and Chris Andrews. In the 4th heat, the front row couldn’t get a clean start. The first start was waived off after some bumping and the pole car jumping out of line. During the second restart, the front two bumped and jostled again, killing their momentum as Double D went around the top to take the lead even before they got to the flagstand. The finish was Dietrich, Corey Crabtree, Brandon Wimmer and Tyler Gunn. In the B main, the finish was D.J. Netto in first, followed by Stuart Brubaker, Jordan Ryan, D.J. Foos and Mitch Harble.

One of the pleasant developments of the evening was the track moving the show along efficiently and quickly. For time trials, cars were rolled onto the track at the turn 4 entrance….instead of putting all the cars in the infield to start with. After each car was done timing, they went to the infield and all the cars were then pushed off the track at the conclusion of timing. This seemed to me to work much better.

We did have a long delay for an accident during one of the 305 heats. Two cars actually got stuck together and they had to carry the cars off the track on the hook…while they were still hooked together……because they couldn’t get them apart! In spite of that, we were still making good time on the evening as the program was rolling along pretty good. During the pause, Chet and Brian Liskai were talking about the things you see at a dirt track. One of them mentioned that they remembered the time a water truck driver was bitten by a raccoon…while watering the track. The truth in all of this was if something hasn’t happened at a dirt track yet…eventually it will.

Cap Henry They ran the 410 feature first and that was awesome. Byron Reed would “roll from the poll” as Chet called it, with Trevor Baker starting alongside. In row two was Double D and Cap Henry. Duncan was stuck way back in the 7th row, but I expected him to come forward fast. The feature would be 40 laps so I assumed there would have to be a fuel stop at some point. Mansfield is a big track and 40 laps is a long race. On the 4 abreast parade lap, those fireworks were going off again and they were impressive. They shot off fantails of silver sparkling cracklers and then these big balls of fire that looked like mushroom clouds. You felt the blast in your chest and felt the heat on your face as these things went off. Ha Ha, nice job Mansfield. That was neat…..even for an older guy like me.

At the start, Reed grabs the lead with Baker following. Dietrich was following hard with Henry right there. There was a yellow on lap 7, bunching them up again. At the restart, we had a “tempest in a teapot” as Chet would say. Baker worked by Reed for the lead right before the yellow flew again on lap 10 for Rob Chaney. Henry was now in 3rd with Conley in 4th and Dietrich back to 5th. Duncan was now up to 8th with D.J Netto up to 10th from the back. At the restart, Henry works on Baker and then grabs the lead and pulls away as Conley comes up to pass Baker and sets sail after Henry. Henry opens up a good lead over the field with Conley chasing but not getting any closer. No one was paying attention to Tyler Gunn, at least not me. Out of nowhere and up from 16th, Gunn comes sweeping around the outside of Baker in turn 2 to take third and man is he flying. Not long after, on lap 30, Gunn brushes the wall and his RR goes flat, bringing out the yellow and then a red for refueling. Your running order is Henry, Conley, Dietrich, Duncan and Netto. On the restart with 10 to go and no traffic in the way, Henry cruises to the victory with Conley, Dietrich, Duncan and Netto following.

Henry has now won 3 races in a row and has it rolling pretty good. In victory lane Henry said “I like Knoxville but I also likes $20,000.” That was a fun race and we are heading to the gates right before 11 pm. A hearty thank you goes out to the FAST series along with Mansfield Motor Speedway, for putting on a great show for the fans and drivers!