BOONE, Iowa — In addition to the late model main event and the hobby stock and Northern sportmod qualifiers, Monday’s IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s card also featured heat races for the Northern sportmod and hobby stock Race of Champions features scheduled for Saturday.
IMCA hosts Race of Champions events during the Super Nationals for the modifieds, stock cars, hobby stocks and Northern sport mods. In order to be eligible to attempt to qualify for a Race of Champions feature, drivers must either be a 2020 IMCA track champion, a past Super Nationals champion, a past IMCA national champion or a past IMCA regional champion.
Each Race of Champions feature will be 12 laps, with only 12 drivers taking the green flag.
The hobby stock Race of Champions heats were won by Brandon Nielsen, Aaron Rudolph, Brandon Cox and Cody Nielsen. The Northern sportmod Race of Champions heats went to Tony Olson, Adam Birck, Jayden Schmidt, Jason Roth, Colby Langenberg and Colby Fett.
• Jeremiah Reed and Chance Huston were involved in a bizarre incident during the fourth C Main for the Northern sport mods. With three laps left the fuel cell broke loose from Reed’s car and landed in the window of Huston’s car down the backstretch.
As Huston rolled into turn three the fuel that was escaping from the fuel cell ignited. He quickly brought his car to a halt and began to work on exiting his vehicle when his car was struck in the rear by the car of Justin Bell.
WHOA! ?? @imca_racing driver Chance Huston walked away from this WILD incident at @BooneSpeedway today during Day 1 of @SpeedwayMotors #SN2020 powered by @caseysgenstore.
Soooo…… who had “fuel cell lands in racer’s lap” on their 2020 bingo card… anyone? Anyone?? pic.twitter.com/q0OMbRWGXH
— SPEED SPORT TV (@speedsporttv) September 8, 2020
Despite the contact from Bell, Huston quickly exited his car as safety works arrived on the scene to put out the flames. None of the drivers involved in the incident were injured.
The damage to Huston’s car was minor and he got back out on track to compete in one of the Race of Champions Northern sportmod heat races, though he failed to advance to Saturday’s 12-lap Race of Champions feature.
• Johnathon Logue, the defending Northern sportmod Super Nationals champion, saw his night come to an end in the third heat race after an early spin. The incident left his No. 69jr entry with nose damage and he wasn’t able to recover, finishing seventh in the nine-car field. He’ll try again to qualify for Saturday’s Northern sportmod feature on Tuesday night.
• Michael Miller brought out the first caution flag of the Super Nationals after spinning during the third Northern sportmod heat.
• Northern sportmod drivers who didn’t qualify for Monday’s qualifier weren’t just racing for pride in the C Mains and B Mains.
The top-24 drivers in points who don’t advance to Saturday’s feature on either Monday or Tuesday will get one last chance to race into the main event on Wednesday. Six of those 24 drivers will earn spots in the Northern sportmod feature via a last chance race Wednesday.
• One of the closest finishes of the day came in the final Northern sportmod heat, with Colby Langenberg barely edging Doug Smith to earn a place in the qualifier by three one thousandths of a second.
Unfortunatly, Langenberg got the worst draw possible for his starting position in the qualifier, with only the 20th starting position remaining in the redraw by the time the final heat was complete. He finished 13th and failed to advance to Saturday’s feature.
• Joe Zrostlik ran just a little bit wide coming out of turn four during the fourth and final late model heat race and slammed the right rear of his car into a large tractor tire that separated the track from the end of a concrete barrier.
Zrostlik got his car rolling to exit the race track in turn one, but the track crew had to spend a few minutes returning the tractor tire to its proper location after the tire rolled into the infield following the contact with Zrostlik’s car.
• Shane Butler led seven out of eight laps during his hobby stock heat, but a mechanical issue suddenly slowed his car in turn four on the last lap as he was battling Malik Sampson for the lead. To add insult to injury, two cars came together behind him and bounced off his slowing machine. He limped across the finish line in sixth.
All six nights of the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s on Sept. 7-12 will be broadcast live via SPEED SPORT TV affiliate IMCA.TV.