BOONE, Iowa – Kyle Vanover and Abe Huls headlined the list of eight drivers to earn starting positions in Saturday’s stock car championship feature during the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s at Boone Speedway on Thursday evening.
Vanover and Huls won their respective qualifiers, which were originally scheduled for Wednesday but were pushed to Thursday due to poor weather conditions. The top-four finishers from each qualifier earned guaranteed starting positions in Saturday’s finale.
In the first stock car feature, polesitter Buck Schafroth took the lead at the start only to loose it to third-place starter Wayne Landheer by the time the field got back to the start/finish line.
Landheer’s time at the front would also be brief as Mitch Meier, who started eighth, would charge to the front and lead the second lap by a nose over Landheer. Meier would pull clear of Landheer down the backstretch on the next lap to take the lead.
The first caution of the race came with 18 laps left for debris in both corners of the track. Meier held the lead on the ensuing restart, but Vanover, who started sixth, had made his way to second and began hounding Meier for the lead within a few laps.
With nine laps left the leaders caught the tail of the field. As Meier attempted to pass a slower car in turns three and four the slower car drifted up and blocked his path, allowing Vanover to rocket to the inside to take the lead.
Once out front Vanover quickly pulled away, easily winning the first qualifier by nearly two seconds to earn his seventh trip to the stock car championship feature in the last 10 years.
Meier settled for second and a starting spot in Saturday’s finale. Loren Pesicka Jr. and Buck Schafroth finished third and fourth to also earn spots in Saturday’s championship race.
The second feature started off with a bang as Eddie Ingram rocketed into the lead from the second position. Things quickly went sour for Ingram, who spun down the backstretch to start a multi-car incident to immediately bring out the caution flag.
A complete restart was called for and this time polesitter Kole Nordquist jumped into the lead ahead of Justin Luinenburg. The caution would wave again with 21 laps left, this time for a car spun in turn two.
On the ensuing restart Ingram’s not got even worse as a chain reaction crash sent him sliding into the muddy infield, where his car made contact with a light pole on the drivers side. He wasn’t injured, but the multi-car incident required a red flag period to clean up.
Once the mess was cleaned up racing resumed, only for the caution to wave again after one lap. The green flag would wave again and Nordquist would continue to lead Luinenburg, but Luinenburg soon found a way by with 18 laps left. The caution flag would wave one lap later for a car stopped in turn four.
At this point Huls was running fifth, but on the restart Huls moved to third as Luinenberg soon found himself being challenged by Mike Nichols. The battle at the front would continue until the caution flag waved with 14 laps left for Nordquist, who’d spun in turn three.
Another restart followed by a quick caution with a 11 laps left saw Luinenberg continue to lead Nichols and Huls. When racing resumed Luinenberg and Nichols went to war for the lead, but that war had consequences as both men would start to slow with flat tires from contact.
That’s when Huls made his move, blowing past both men to go from third to first coming out of turn four. One final caution flag with three laps left gave new runner-up Kelly Shryock a chance to challenge, but Huls held on to win the qualifier and advance to Saturday’s main event.
Joining Huls and Shryock in Saturday’s championship feature from the second qualifier were Jeffrey Abbey and Jeremy Christians.
Only 11 of the 30 starters finished the second qualifier.
The finishes:
First Qualifier: Kyle Vanover, Mitch Meier, Loren Pesicka Jr., Buck Schafroth, Les Lundquist, Wayne Landheer, David Smith, Tejay Mielke, Chad Palmer, Benji Legg, Mike Petersilie, Jesse Sobbing, Luke Lemmens, Devin Smith, Kevin Opheim, Cody Gustoff, Austin Bouzek, Brad Whitney, Donnie Gustoff, Tyler Boyda, Kyle Everts, Mitchell Evens, Dustin Larson, Rich Pederson, Troy Woelber, Shaylon Holloway, Tommy Fain, Larry Sutton, Anthony Hofbauer, Bruce Plumisto.
Second Qualifier: Abe Huls, Kelly Shryock, Jeffrey Abbey, Jeremy Christians, Damon Murty, Josh Steele, Shane Stutzman, McCain Jennings, Shawn Ritter, Justin Nehring, Blake Peeler, David Brandies, Chad Schroeder, Dustin Vis, Kole Nordquist, Justin Luinenburg, Mike Nichols, J.J. Baumli, Jacob Dahle, Austin Brands, Jared Siefert, Bo Partain, Eddie Ingram, Bryce Carey, Randy Brands, Todd Decker, Randy Smith Jr., Donavon Smith, Tom Cannon, Chanse Hollatz.
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. Check out all of our coverage of the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals on our coverage index page!