By Greg Soukup
Dukes of Hazzard Night, presented by A1 Iron, Avid Realty and Speedway Motors saw a beautiful evening Saturday at Eagle Raceway. Clear blue skies and a nice breeze greeted the huge crowd that showed up. 135 teams filled the pits and were chomping at the bit to get out onto the high banks of 1 Badass Racetrack.
There were no serious incidents in the preliminary racing action.
Next was the finale for the Nebraska Septic IMCA Sprint Cars. Gene Ackland in the 14G, Cole Wayman’s 18W, the 77 of Bret Klabunde and Tyler Hendrickson’s 14T were the top 4 after 1 lap. Lap 2 saw Adam Gullion put the #91 into third with Ty Ledger’s 35L following him into fourth the next lap. Hendrickson spun in turn 4 on lap 6 and the right rear tire of Billy Alley’s 11 made contact with the front end of Hendrickson’s mount sending Alley up on 2 wheels, nearly tipping over but Alley recovered and kept going. That brought out the Eastepwheels.com Choose Cone, allowing the drivers to pick if they wanted to restart on either the inside or outside row. The restart saw Wayman grab the lead. Gullion and Ledger also got past Ackland the next time around to advance to second and third but Ackland moved back to third as Gullion slipped the next lap and Ledger took over second with Tyler Drueke’s #12 moving up to fourth. Drueke got around Ackland on lap 11 to move to third and advanced to second 3 laps later. Drueke took over the lead from Wayman with 10 to go as Gullion jumped all the way back up to third. 8 laps were left when Alley passed Ledger for fourth, then took over the third spot 2 laps later. Drueke was long gone by that time, but the battle behind him was still raging! Alley managed to get past Wayman at the line on the final lap but Drueke won by ½ lap over Alley, Wayman and Gullion.
This marked Tyler’s third consecutive win in a row at Eagle. I joked with Tyler that I had taken a poll of all the sprint car drivers in the pits and they said that he should go race elsewhere, to which he laughingly said “Well, we’re going to. We’ll go to Husets next week and after that we plan on going to Knoxville. On the fifth I may come here, or I may stay home but tentatively we plan on going to the lake. I think I may have found my sweet spot where I can race here at home but still travel and do my 410 thing because I don’t want to give up on that. My wife and kids are able to come watch me race here and that makes it a lot of fun. The main thing is that they can come to the races. The little man loves the races. Every time we pass Eagle Raceway he asks ‘Dad, are we racing tonight?’ and I have to tell him ‘Not tonight. Sorry buddy’.” I then inquired about the night’s victory and he stated “We just keep working on it, keep trying things. We had 3 different setups for 3 different races. It was okay tonight. We weren’t very good in the heat race, we were hemhawing around, trying to figure out what to do. I told Austin ‘You don’t have to drive this so I don’t know what you’re worried about. Just send it. Go for it! He got pretty aggressive and did a great job. It was enough to get the win”.
Tyler’s sponsors include Forbes Motorsports, Cherney Enterprises, LLC, American Trailer Co. , Drueke Trucking & Ranch, Zoz Farms, Jeffres Trucking LLC, Angels Energy Service, Johnson Farms, Kings Auto Supply, Jimbell, Double Z Express, Gordon Electric Inc., Midwest Racing Performance, J&J Auto Racing, Speedway Motors Racing Engines and Victory Fuel.
IMCA Sprints 27 Entries A Feature 1 25 Laps | 00:12:27.723 1. 12T-Tyler Drueke[12]; 2. 11-Bily Aley[11]; 3. 18W-Cole Wayman[3]; 4. 91-Adam Gu lion[9]; 5. 4X-Jason Danley[8]; 6. 25 Gunnar Pike[13]; 7. 14G-Gene Ackland[1]; 8. 35L-Ty Ledger[4]; 9. 1B-Brandon Horton[7]; 10. 4W-Nathan Weiler[14]; 11. 45C-Mike Boston[6]; 12. 100-Clint Benson[16]; 13. 22D-Daniel Nekolite[17]; 14. 32-Trefer Wa ler[10]; 15. 77-Bret Klabunde[2]; 16. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[19]; 17. 2A-Alex Salzman[20]; 18. 77X-John Klabunde[15]; 19. 14T-Tyler Hendrickson[5]; 20. (DNS) 3T-Dan Satriano
B Feature 1 12 Laps | 00:04:01.608 1. 100-Clint Benson[2]; 2. 22D-Daniel Nekolite[1]; 3. 3T-Dan Satriano[5]; 4. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[4]; 5. 2A-Alex Salzman[10]; 6. 11C-Cole Cloud[8]; 7. 6-Mason Day[7]; 8. 3G-Dylon Knudson[9]; 9. 12-Troy Sanford[3]; 10. (DNS) 2T Cameron Thompson; 11. (DNS) 63-Jack Thomas; 12. (DNS) 28-Madi Miler
Heat 1 10 Laps | 00:08:32.914 1. 4X-Jason Danley[7]; 2. 32-Trefer Wa ler[8]; 3. 35L-Ty Ledger[5]; 4. 11-Bily Aley[9]; 5. 25-Gunnar Pike[6]; 6. 22D-Daniel Nekolite[4]; 7. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[2]; 8. 6-Mason Day[1]; 9. 2A-Alex Salzman[3]
Heat 2 10 Laps | 00:02:14.966 1. 45C-Mike Boston[6]; 2. 77-Bret Klabunde[4]; 3. 12T-Tyler Drueke[9]; 4. 91-Adam Gu lion[7]; 5. 4W-Nathan Weiler[5]; 6. 100-Clint Benson[3]; 7. 3T-Dan Satriano[2]; 8. 11C-Cole Cloud[1]; 9. (DNS) 63-Jack Thomas
Heat 3 10 Laps | 00:02:16.241 1. 14G-Gene Ackland[3]; 2. 18W-Cole Wayman[4]; 3. 1B-Brandon Horton[6]; 4. 14T-Tyler Hendrickson[5]; 5. 77X-John Klabunde[8]; 6. 12-Troy Sanford[2]; 7. 2T-Cameron Thompson[7]; 8. 3G-Dylon Knudson[1]; 9. (DNS) 28-Madi Miler