By Greg Soukup
Ask me my favorite spring and summer day and I’ll tell you that it’s race day at my favorite dirt track. Then, ask me what my most special of those race days was and I’ll say that it was this past Saturday when Avid Realty, A1 Iron and Pepsi Cola of Lincoln presented Freedom Fest at Eagle Raceway!!!
139 teams in the pits, a big crowd in the stands and a beautiful day made the festivities even greater.
There were no serious incidents in the heats or preliminary features.
The Nebraska Septic IMCA Racesaver Sprint Cars then rolled out onto the track for their A Feature. Troy Sanford’s #12 was first back to the flag stand to grab the lead over the 25A of Alex Davenport, Cameron Thompson’s 2T and the 2A of Alex Salzman. Salzman passed Thompson on lap 2 for third place and advanced to second the following circuit. Thompson spun out in turns 1 and 2 on lap 11, bringing out the Eastepwheels.com Choose Cone. The restart order was Sanford, Salzman, Bret Klabunde in the #77 and Davenport. Davenport passed Klabunde a lap after the restart to grab third. Brandon Horton put his 1B into fourth place on lap 15. Shayle Bade did a 360-degree spin in turn 4 with 8 to go but managed to keep going. Unfortunately, the yellow flag was thrown, slowing the action and bringing out the Choose Cone again. The restart order was Sanford, Salzman, Davenport and Horton. The restart saw Klabunde spin out on the backstretch and the Choose Cone reappeared with Horton and Davenport swapping restart positions. Adam Gullion used the subsequent restart to put the #91 into fourth place. Salzman got a big run down the back stretch and took the lead away from Sanford with just 5 circuits left, lost the spot back to him the next time around and regained it after 1 more lap. Horton also passed Sanford on the next lap to move up to second. Gullion jumped up to second place when he passed both Sanford and Horton on the last lap. Your top 4 were Salzman, Gullion, Horton and Sanford. As Salzman made his way to the infield out of turn 4 to do his best to win the Gatsby Glass Party On Award he made slight contact with Horton and proceeded to spin several cookies; no small feat in a sprint car.
The only thing I enjoy more than interviewing first time winners is when they are a low budget family team in just their fourth year of racing. He stated “First EVER sprint car win for me. We’ve had a few heat race wins but this is our first A Feature. Troy and I always have a really good battle. I enjoy racing with him all the time. He’s always clean and we both know that we don’t have to worry about taking each other out. This is just our fourth year in a sprint car. We’re still pretty new and it’s a big feat for us to come out here and compete with these local guys and the veteran drivers who have been out here quite a few years.” I mentioned to him the lack of sponsors on his car, to which he replied “Yeah! That’s one thing that we’re working on. We’ve been seeking help from some people on how to get sponsors because the extra support would really help us.” If you would like to help out this low budget team with a contribution or get your business name in front of thousands of people weekly, get ahold of Alex during or after the races. His team pits on the west side of the far north pit area.
Next Saturday, July 5th is Junior Fan Club Night, presented by Empire Fence and Mammoth Station.
All 5 IMCA Classes will be competing including the A1 Iron IMCA Stock Cars Avid Realty Sportmods, Nebraska’s Best Lawn and Landscape Modifieds, Valentino’s Hobby Stocks and Nebraska Septic Sprint Cars.
Grandstands open at 5:15, hot laps kick off at 5:45 with racing at 6:30. Adult front gate admission is $15, youths 6-12 just $5 and children 5 and under free.
NOTE: All times are subject to change due to weather conditions.
Pit gates open at 3:30 with pit passes costing $30.
RESULTS:
IMCA Sprints 26 Entries A Feature 1 25 Laps | 00:12:09.578 1. 2A-Alex Salzman[4]; 2. 91-Adam Gulion[15]; 3. 1B-Brandon Horton[7]; 4. 12-Troy Sanford[1]; 5. 15V-Cole Vanderheiden[16]; 6. 11-Bi ly Aley[13]; 7. 25A-Alex Davenport[2]; 8. 25-Gunnar Pike[17]; 9. 18W-Cole Wayman[11]; 10. 35 Trevor Grossenbacher[19]; 11. 2T-Cameron Thompson[3]; 12. 63-Jack Thomas[12]; 13. 22D-Daniel Nekolite[8]; 14. 4X Jason Danley[14]; 15. 14T-Tyler Hendrickson[9]; 16. 5-Stuart Snyder[18]; 17. 77-Bret Klabunde[6]; 18. 3T-Dan Satriano[5]; 19. 03-Shayle Bade[10]; 20. 4W-Nathan Weiler[20]
B Feature 1 12 Laps | 00:02:39.777 1. 15V-Cole Vanderheiden[1]; 2. 25-Gunnar Pike[2]; 3. 5-Stuart Snyder[6]; 4. 35-Trevor Grossenbacher[3]; 5. 4W-Nathan Weiler[4]; 6. 32-Trefer Wa ler[7]; 7. 14G-Gene Ackland[8]; 8. 23R-James Reed[5]; 9. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[9]; 10. 6-Mason Day[10]; 11. (DNS) 24-Tige Jensen
Heat 1 10 Laps | 00:03:28.300 1. 2T-Cameron Thompson[2]; 2. 22D-Daniel Nekolite[4]; 3. 3T-Dan Satriano[3]; 4. 03-Shayle Bade[5]; 5. 11-Bily Aley[9]; 6. 15V-Cole Vanderheiden[8]; 7. 4W-Nathan Weiler[6]; 8. 32-Trefer Wa ler[7]; 9. 6-Mason Day[1]
Heat 2 10 Laps | 00:07:11.555 1. 2A-Alex Salzman[2]; 2. 18W-Cole Wayman[6]; 3. 12-Troy Sanford[1]; 4. 77-Bret Klabunde[3]; 5. 4X-Jason Danley[7]; 6. 25-Gunnar Pike[8]; 7. 23R-James Reed[9]; 8. 14G-Gene Ackland[4]; 9. 24-Tige Jensen[5]
Heat 3 10 Laps | 00:02:18.931 1. 25A-Alex Davenport[1]; 2. 63-Jack Thomas[6]; 3. 1B-Brandon Horton[3]; 4. 14T-Tyler Hendrickson[4]; 5. 91-Adam Gulion[7]; 6. 35-Trevor Grossenbacher[5]; 7. 5-Stuart Snyder[8]; 8. 8B-Kaedon Thurman[2