By Greg Soukup
Saturday at America’s Home Track, Eagle Raceway was Junior Fan Club Night, presented by Pepsi and Hotsy. A beautiful spring day saw a good crowd file through the front gates, ready to see some great racing action on the high banks and they were definitely not disappointed. A total of 148 teams showed up and provided some of the best, if not THE best racing thus far this year.
Of those 148 teams there were 38 A1 Iron IMCA Stock Cars, all vying for the top prize of $600 to win and $160 to start the A Feature.
At intermission Sam’s Club provided 300 pounds of candy for the younger fans to grab on the front stretch. At one time the line of entrants stretched from turn 4 all the way back to the Eagle’s Nest! The result was, as usual, a clean track and most likely a lot of sugar rushes for the kids.
There was only one serious incident in the preliminary racing, but it was a very scary one!! Coming out of turn 4 James Patterson’s 22TK jumped the left side tires of the 20X of Steven Muhleke. Patterson’s car then turned sideways, his left side tires dug in and sent him pirouhetting in the air and coming to a halt upside down leaned on the wall just before the flag stand. Luckily, James wasn’t badly injured.
The first A Feature was for the Nebraska Septic IMCA Racesaver Sprints. Billy Alley was first back to the flag stand on lap one in the #11 with the 4W of Nate Weiler, Alex Davenport in the 25A and the 14G of Gene Ackland rounding out the top 4. Cole Vanderheiden passed Ackland on lap 2 to put the 15V into fourth but lost the spot to Trevor Grossenbacher’s 35 on lap 5. Grossenbacher then passed Davenport the following circuit for third. 2 more laps were in the books when Grossenbacher grabbed second place from Vanderheiden and set his sights on Alley. Joey Danley cracked the top 4 on lap 10 moving up to fourth in his #14. The next time around Grossenbacher passed Alley to take over the top spot. Danley got past Vanderheiden on lap 15 to advance to third and moved up to second the next time around. This set up a battle for the top spot between Danley and Grossenbacher. Grossenbacher was battling lapped traffic, allowing Danley to move alongside of him and even move ahead in turns 3 and 4 with 4 laps to go but Tyler Hendrickson spun out at the bottom of turns 1 and 2 and the yellow lights were lit in the corners. That sent the lapped traffic to the rear of the field. With a clear track ahead of him, Grossenbacher pulled away to a 5 car length win at the checkers, followed by Danley Alley and Vanderheiden.
Win #1 on the season put a big smile on Trevor’s face. “Billy was checked out and we started to get into lapped traffic and I started to catch him. I had the same issue that he did because the cars were all bunched up. Joey got beside me that one time, but we had a really good car and I think we would have won even if it stayed green but that caution really helped me. I need to thank Tyler, Scott, Ben, my Dad, Tate and everyone else who helps out. We had a great race car”. I asked him if we’d be seeing him back at Eagle, to which he replied, “Pretty much like last year, hit and miss here and there”.
Trevor’s sponsors include Stop ‘N Shop, Team Jack, Muehling Financial, Stewart Alley Memorial, Ron Fox Motorsports, Buda Concrete, Silver Ridge Construction , Speedway Motors, Gregg Masonry, Fast Farms, Husker Diesel and Cornhusker Heating and Air.
A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 35-Trevor Grossenbacher[10]; 2. 14-Joey Danley[12]; 3. 11-Billy Alley[1]; 4. 15V-Cole Vanderheiden[7]; 5. 4X-Jason Danley[8]; 6. 25A-Alex Davenport[2]; 7. 18W-Cole Wayman[9]; 8. 25-Gunnar Pike[15]; 9. 24-Tige Jensen[11]; 10. 5-Stuart Snyder[17]; 11. 2T-Cameron Thompson[13]; 12. 03-Shayle Bade[18]; 13. 100-Clint Benson[6]; 14. 4W-Nathan Weiler[3]; 15. 14G-Gene Ackland[5]; 16. 45C-Mike Boston[19]; 17. 14T-Tyler Hendrickson[14]; 18. 2A-Alex Salzman[4]; 19. 77X-John Klabunde[20]; 20. 28-Madi Miller[16]
B Feature 1 (12 Laps): 1. 5-Stuart Snyder[1]; 2. 03-Shayle Bade[4]; 3. 45C-Mike Boston[10]; 4. 77X-John Klabunde[3]; 5. 32-Trefer Waller[6]; 6. 53L-Ty Ledger[7]; 7. 17-Justin Bolte[5]; 8. 11D-Dominic White[9]; 9. 3T-Dan Satriano[13]; 10. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[14]; 11. 77-Bret Klabunde[2]; 12. 6-Mason Day[8]; 13. (DNS) 23-Brandon Bosma; 14. (DNS) 23R-James Reed
Heat 1 (10 Laps): 1. 11-Billy Alley[1]; 2. 4X-Jason Danley[4]; 3. 14-Joey Danley[7]; 4. 2T-Cameron Thompson[3]; 5. 5-Stuart Snyder[6]; 6. 17-Justin Bolte[2]; 7. 11D-Dominic White[5]; 8. 3T-Dan Satriano[8]
Heat 2 (10 Laps): 1. 25A-Alex Davenport[1]; 2. 35-Trevor Grossenbacher[5]; 3. 18W-Cole Wayman[4]; 4. 14T-Tyler Hendrickson[2]; 5. 77-Bret Klabunde[6]; 6. 32-Trefer Waller[3]; 7. 45C-Mike Boston[8]; 8. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[7]
Heat 3 (10 Laps): 1. 14G-Gene Ackland[2]; 2. 4W-Nathan Weiler[1]; 3. 24-Tige Jensen[6]; 4. 25-Gunnar Pike[3]; 5. 77X-John Klabunde[7]; 6. 53L-Ty Ledger[5]; 7. 23-Brandon Bosma[4]
Heat 4 (10 Laps): 1. 100-Clint Benson[2]; 2. 15V-Cole Vanderheiden[3]; 3. 2A-Alex Salzman[1]; 4. 28-Madi Miller[5]; 5. 03-Shayle Bade[6]; 6. 6-Mason Day[7]; 7. (DNS) 23R-James Reed