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ANOTHER ‘HELL TOUR’ UNDER HIS BELT: UMP DIRTcar Racing Summernationals organizer Sam Driggers, who has been following the series as a UMP employee for more than a decade, rated this year’s version as one of the most competitive in recent memory.
With a points battle that was close from start-to-finish and a group of eight hearty teams that entered all 25 points events, Driggers, 49, couldn’t have been more pleased with the ’07 Summernationals.
“I think it was a great month,” said Driggers, who drove his UMP DIRTcar Racing-emblazoned Chevy Tahoe to every event. “We had four rainouts this year after having only one last year, but we had really strong fields (the series high: 60 cars on July 11 at Spoon River Speedway in Canton , Ill. ) and some great races.”
The series raced in seven states, including Illinois (14 events), Indiana (three), Missouri (three), Ohio (two) and single shows in Iowa , Kentucky and Tennessee . With all those trips jammed into a 30-day span, the tour becomes something of a blur to Driggers by its end, but he did mention some especially memorable moments.
“There were the two last-lap passes (for wins) in a row,” said Driggers, recalling the June 23 event at I-55 Raceway in Pevely , Mo. (Mike Marler over Billy Moyer) and the June 24 show at Lincoln ( Ill. ) Speedway (Don O’Neal over Terry Casey).
And off the track, Driggers won’t soon forget the hair-raising drive from Poplar Bluff , Mo. , to Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon , Mo. , on June 27. Not only was the haul long (roughly 240 miles), but it cut through some hilly terrain and was plagued by the rain that ultimately washed out the Lake Ozark show.
“When it started to rain the roads got oily, so everybody started sliding around on those hills,” said Driggers. “After that trip, I told all the teams that they could kick me.”
NEAR DISASTER: The biggest scare Dennis Erb Jr. experienced en route to his first career UMP DIRTcar Racing Summernationals championship came not on the racetrack, but in the pit area.
As teams unloaded for the June 30 event at Clarksville ( Tenn. ) Speedway, bystanders looked on in astonishment when one of Erb’s cars rolled off the back of his trailer’s lift gate and landed atop his other Rayburn machine that was already sitting on the ground below.
“We unstrapped both cars like always,” said Erb. “Somehow the car on the lift slid down on top of my other car. It was just kinda hanging there off the lift with its rearend on top of my other car.”
Fortunately for Erb, the unusual incident left both of his cars none the worse for wear.
“There wasn’t much damage to either car,” he said. “I raced the car that came out of the trailer that night (finishing fifth).”
HAPPY TRAVELER: Don O’Neal was thrilled to be back as a Summernationals regular for the first time since he won the series title in 2004.
“I enjoyed the hell out of the Summernationals,” gushed O’Neal as the tour wound down. “This is what racing is all about. I’ve had more fun racing in the past month than I’ve had in a while.
“I just love this – I mean, this is racing. I only won three races, so we didn’t dominate like the last year I ran the series, but I had fun.”
Of course, O’Neal did have to readjust himself to the grind of the Summernationals after a couple years away.
“I told Sam (Driggers) I’d come back next year to redeem myself,” said O’Neal, who finished second in the points standings. “I’ve gotten soft in the last couple years. I’m telling you, I forgot what it was like to do this. You race hard every lap, every single night.
“It’s tough, but I love it.”
O’Neal hopes for a second Summernationals crown probably evaporated on July 10 at Quincy ( Ill. ) Raceway. He entered the event trailing Erb by only two points, but a 17th-place finish as Erb finished second left him with a 36-point deficit he couldn’t recover from over the final four shows.
“I broke an air cleaner stud and the air cleaner fell off not quite halfway through the race,” said O’Neal, who opted to pull out early. “I could’ve taken a chance and stayed out there, but I might’ve killed the motor and still not won the points.”
EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS: A third-place finish in the Summernationals points standings? Wes Steidinger surprised himself with such a lofty performance in his first year as a tour fulltimer.
“I never would have thought I’d be third place in the Summernationals,” said Steidinger, a rising 24-year-old from Fairbury , Ill. “That’s pretty cool for our first year doing the whole series. I didn’t think we’d have enough consistency going to so many new places.”
Steidinger came oh-so-close to steering his family-owned No. J1 to his first career Summernationals A-Main win, finishing second at Peoria ( Ill. ) Speedway , Clarksville Speedway and the points finale at Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon , Ohio . He lost the lead to Jeep VanWormer in the Oakshade event coming down to the white flag when a victory would have tied him with O’Neal for second in the final standings.
The non-stop month of racing was a great learning experience for Steidinger. But he noted, “I’m ready to get back to real life – race on weekends and work (as a trim carpenter at his father’s Steidinger Construction) during the week.”
Steidinger will spend the remainder of the season focused on winning his first-ever UMP DIRTcar Racing Late Model national points title. He led the standings entering the Summernationals and increased his odds of staying there by running the tour.
“To win the national title, you gotta go to as many races as possible and go where the cars are so you get the maximum points as much as you can,” said Steidinger, who has 10 UMP-sanctioned feature wins this season. “That’s the big picture for us, and hopefully we can pull it out.”
NOT WHAT HE WANTED: Finishing fourth in the Summernationals standings didn’t satisfy Pinconning , Mich. ’s Jeep VanWormer, who was a favorite to win the 2007 title after placing second in last year’s tour.
“We had some bad luck early in the series,” said VanWormer, who recorded just two top-10 finishes in the first 10 events. “It seemed like we were always in the middle of something and getting spun around.”
But VanWormer closed strong, winning three times (June 30 at Clarksville , Tenn. ; July 3 at Lawrenceburg , Ind. ; July 14 at Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon, Ohio) to establish a personal single-season victory high on the Summernationals trail. He also vaulted from sixth to fourth in the points standings with his triumph in the finale.
VanWormer, 32, was concerned after falling to sixth in the standings thanks to a frustrating night at Farmer City ( Ill. ) Raceway on July 13. He was credited with last-place in the A-Main because he was still in the pits changing a broken shock when the green flag flew, but he made a timely recovery at Oakshade to advance two positions in the final rankings – a jump worth an extra $2,000 in points-fund cash.
CATCHING ON: Steve Sheppard Jr. proved that being successful on the Summernationals takes plenty of resilience.
After running every Summernationals show in 2004 and all but the finale in 2006, Sheppard finally got his first career tour win in the 23rd event of this year’s series, on July 12 at La Salle ( Ill. ) Speedway . He let out a big sigh of relief after reaching Victory Lane .
“I’ve been real frustrated about three or four times on this deal, almost to the point where I was just ready to say, ‘The heck with it,’” said Sheppard. “But everybody always tells me, ‘Just hang in there,’ and I have.
“That’s the only way you get through it – you know your time’s gotta come someday.
“I’m kinda a slow learner,” he added with a laugh after his milestone triumph. “It’s taken me the whole tour to get caught up with everybody. I kinda know what will make the car faster, but sometimes what will give it more traction and hook up harder isn’t the right thing.”
Sheppard, 32, of New Berlin , Ill. , has become a Summernationals stalwart thanks to the backing of his team owner/father, who allows his son to leave the family business, Sheppard Car Crushing, to go racing for a month.
“My dad owns our business, so he takes over for a month while I’m gone,” said Sheppard. “I know that when I get done here, he’s gonna take a vacation. I’ll give him some time off.”
There might be another Sheppard on the Summernationals tour in the not-to-distant future. Sheppard’s 14-year-old son, Brandon, has begun driving a family dirt Late Model this season and entered a handful of Summernationals shows, qualifying at Quincy and Vermilion County Speedway in Danville , Ill.
IMPRESSIVE FIRST-TIMER: Winfield , Tenn. ’s Mike Marlar has always wanted to follow the Summernationals, but the financial realities of fielding his own team have prevented him from hitting the road since going dirt Late Model racing in 2003.
This year, however, Marlar, 29, got his chance to travel thanks to the resources of Flemingsburg, Ky.-based Stephens Motorsports, which he joined late last season. The team’s owner, Owen Stephens, passed away last fall just as he was discussing with Marlar the possibility of running a national tour like the World of Outlaws Late Model Series in 2007, but Stephens’s wife decided to keep the team operating and the Summernationals was put in its crosshairs.
Marlar doesn’t know what’s in store for Stephens Motorsports in 2008, but his performance on this year’s Summernationals certainly proved that he’s capable of getting the job done against top-notch competition. He won three times (June 19 at Lebanon , Mo. ; June 23 at Pevely , Mo. ; July 7 at Fairbury , Ill. ) and was in the thick of the championship battle until running into some problems during the tour’s second half.
“We had a motor problem that took us a week to get through, and this week we had two rearends go bad,” said Marlar, who slipped to a tie for fifth in the final points standings. “We ran into some real tough breaks at the end here. We had to spend a lot of extra time getting stuff fixed and swapping motors.
“But we won three races and made some money, so I’m happy. I knew the championship was a long shot anyway since probably 80 percent of the tracks I’ve been to for the first time.
“We had some highs and lows (the lows included sitting on the highway in the rain with a broken-down truck after the Lake Ozark event was canceled), but overall the whole experience has been good,” added Marlar, who estimates he traveled 7,000 miles and spent over $3,500 of fuel during his month on the road. “I met a lot of good people, and I think this deal is gonna make me a better racer.”
“We’ve run out equipment into the ground, but after we get home and get our stuff freshened up, I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”
GETTING SOME ATTENTION: Summernationals railbirds couldn’t help but notice Eddie Kirchoff of Gillette , Wyo. , and A.J. Diemel of Navarino , Wis. , two young drivers who made unexpected fulltime assaults on the tour.
Kirchoff, 24, made the long haul from his Wyoming home – roughly 16 hours just to reach the heart of the series in central Illinois – to try his hand against tough competition on a nightly basis. The third-place finisher in the 2006 WISSOTA national points, he came to the Summernationals looking for full-blown Late Model experience.
“The main reason I’m here is to see if I can eventually do this (race a Late Model for a living),” said Kirchoff, who drives a ‘MasterSbilt by Mars’ car owned by his father. “I’m not sure if I’m gonna get a job or go racing.”
Kirchoff certainly flashed some talent, setting fast time on several occasions and finishing as high as fifth (twice) en route to a seventh-place finish in the points standings. He figures that his one month on the Summernationals trail was equivalent to almost a full season of action at one of the two tracks ( Gillete , Wyo. , and Rapid City , S.Dak.) that he frequents.
Kirchoff’s racing will take a back seat come the fall, of course, when he returns to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City to complete his industrial engineering degree. He is scheduled to graduate in December.
Diemel, 25, is another driver from the WISSOTA ranks who entered the Summernationals looking to increase his learning curve. He’s run a dirt Late Model for five years, but this is his first season in the Super Late Model division.
One of the many drivers from Wisconsin who steers a car owned by Seubert Calf Ranches proprietor Mike Seubert, Diemel ran into some trouble early in the series when he flipped his mount at Lebanon , Mo. But with the help of two crewmen he patched the machine back together and ran it in all the remaining events, finishing a tour-best third in the finale at Oakshade and placing 10th in the points standings.
TIRED: Benton , Ill. ’s Rodney Melvin started the Summernationals strong with a second-place finish in the June 15 opener at Kankakee ( Ill. ) Motor Speedway and a fourth on June 18 at Mt. Vernon , Ill. , but by the end of the tour he was worn out and rethinking the direction of his racing career.
A three-time UMP Late Model national champion, the 33-year-old Melvin ran the first 13 events of this year’s Summernationals before dropping off as a regular. With not enough crew help (his father was often his only assistant at the track) and his thriving auto body business needing his attention, Melvin simply ran himself into the ground attempting to enter every show.
“I hadn’t been feeling very well for a few days,” said Melvin. “I think trying to get the car ready and run the business caught up with me. I went to take a nap before the (July 1) show at Danville ( Ill. ), and when I got up I just didn’t feel like racing.”
Melvin entered only two more shows, finishing 12th in the standings. He’s now evaluating whether he wants to continue racing his own equipment, noting that he simply can’t put enough time in to compete at the high level that he is accustomed.
NOTABLE…
* Veteran Kevin Weaver of Gibson City , Ill. , was a familiar face on the Summernationals once again, entering all but four of the points shows. Driving a Bill West Enterprises Chassis, the 2000 Summernationals champion was victorious on June 21 at Morgan County Speedway in Jacksonville , Ill. – his first tour win in five years – and finished eighth in the points standings.
* Jason Feger of Bloomington , Ill. , missed only four Saturday-night shows that were part of the Summernationals, opting to stay home those evenings to chase the championship at Kamp Motor Speedway in Boswell , Ind.
Although still adjusting to a new Bob Pierce car that he debuted just two weeks before the start of the Summernationals, Feger had some strong outings en route to a ninth-place finish in the standings. He had several fast times, and his fourth-place finish at Danville , Ill. , was his best ever on the tour.
* One year after entering every Summernationals show and finishing fifth in the standings, Randy Korte of Highland , Ill. , backed off a bit on his travels. He entered the first eight events, then ran just eight more of the next 17 nights.
Korte did win twice on the series (back-to-back on June 17-18 at Haubstadt , Ind. , and Mt. Vernon , Ill. ) and finished 11th in the standings.
* Terry Casey of New London , Wis. , took his first major stab at the Summernationals. He entered the first 13 shows, but was absent from the remainder of the tour.
Casey, who nearly won his first career Summernationals A-Main on June 24 at Lincoln , Ill. (O’Neal passed him on the final lap), was in need of more crew help. His wife and young son were often his only assistants at the track.
* Oakshade standout Rusty Schlenk of Jackson , Mich. , started the tour with high hopes of chasing the entire schedule for the first time in his young career, but he had to pull out after eight events because his engine supply had been depleted.
Still retooling his own team, Schlenk drove Dusty Moore’s backup car in the Summernationals finale at Oakshade so he could compete at his hometrack.
* There was a vintage feeling to the Summernationals thanks to the victories of O’Neal, Weaver, Billy Moyer of Batesville , Ark. (two victories) and Shannon Babb of Moweaqua , Ill. (four in-a-row the last week of the series). The former champions rank as four of the seven most prolific winners in tour history.
* The UMP DIRTcar Racing Summernationals officially comes to a close this Saturday night (July 21) with the ‘Herald & Review 100’ at the one-fifth-mile Macon ( Ill. ) Raceway. The event is a non-point show after it was rained out on July 5.
For more information on UMP DIRTcar Racing, visit www.umpracing.com.
2007 UMP DIRTcar Racing Summernationals Event Winners
6/15: Kankakee Motor Speedway/Kankakee, IL (Dennis Erb Jr.)
6/16: Kamp Motor Speedway/Boswell, IN (Dennis Erb Jr.)
6/17: Tri-State Speedway/Haubstadt, IN (Randy Korte)
6/18: Jefferson County Raceway/ Mt. Vernon , IL (Randy Korte)
6/19: Lebanon I-44 Speedway/Lebanon, MO (Mike Marlar)
6/20: Highland Speedway/Highland, IL (Dennis Erb Jr.)
6/21: Morgan County Speedway / Jacksonville , IL (Kevin Weaver)
6/22: Farmer City Raceway/Farmer City, IL (Rain – Rescheduled to July 13)
6/23: I-55 Raceway/Pevely, MO (Mike Marlar)
6/24: Lincoln Speedway/Lincoln, IL (Don O’Neal)
6/25: Peoria Speedway/Peoria, IL (Dennis Erb Jr.)
6/26: Poplar Bluff Speedway/Poplar Bluff, MO (Billy Moyer)
6/27: Lake Ozark Speedway / Eldon , MO (Rain)
6/28: Paducah International Raceway/Paducah, KY (Billy Moyer)
6/29: Western Kentucky Speedway/Nebo, KY (Rain)
6/30: Clarksville Speedway/Clarksville, TN (Jeep VanWormer)
7/1: Vermilion County Speedway / Danville , IL (Don O’Neal)
7/2: Midway Speedway/Crooksville, OH (Earl Pearson Jr.)
7/3: Lawrenceburg Speedway/Lawrenceburg, IN (Jeep VanWormer)
7/4: Day Off
7/5: Macon Speedway/Macon, IL (Rain – Rescheduled to July 21)
7/6: Tri-City Speedway/Pontoon Beach, IL (Don O’Neal)
7/7: Fairbury ( Ill. ) American Legion Speedway (Mike Marlar)
7/8: Quad City Speedway/East Moline , IL (Shannon Babb)
7/9: C.J. Raceway/Columbus Junction, IA (Shannon Babb)
7/10: Quincy Raceway/Quincy, IL (Shannon Babb)
7/11: Spoon River Speedway/Canton, IL (Shannon Babb)
7/12: LaSalle Speedway / LaSalle , IL ( Steve Sheppard Jr.)
7/13: Farmer City Raceway/Farmer City, IL (Brady Smith)
7/14: Oakshade Raceway/ Wauseon , OH (Jeep VanWormer)
7/21: Macon Speedway/Macon, IL (non-points) |
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