BOONE, Iowa – Josh Most, Brayton Carter and Jeff Ware were among the drivers who earned guaranteed starting positions in their respective IMCA Super Nationals features Tuesday evening at Boone Speedway.
Most and Carter split a pair of prelim features for the IMCA Northern Sportmods while Ware captured the IMCA Hobby Stock prelim feature.
The best race of the night was the IMCA Hobby Stock feature, which saw Ware start 14th in the the 28-car feature. A red flag for a flipping car with 16 laps left eliminated some of his competition, elevating him to seventh after he’d worked his way to the back of the top-10.
Sticking to the bottom of the track, Ware was able to pass a number of cars in the laps immediately after the restart and soon found himself running in third. He went to the top to steal second with nine laps left before setting his sights on the leader.
Ware narrowly avoided a multi-car pileup with seven laps left that brought out the caution flag, allowing him to close the gap on leader Dan Strandberg. Ware and Strandberg waged a war for the race lead in the final laps, with Ware crossing over in front of Strandberg to take the lead as they raced to the white flag.
The two made contact through turns one and two, with Strandberg emerging with the lead. Down the backstretch Ware closed back in on him and dove low going into turn three. Coming out of turn four it was a drag race, with Ware getting to the finish line first by half a car length.
“I drew the last pill, 14 out of 14. Wow, I can’t believe we did it,” Ware said.
Also punching their tickets to the Super Nationals Hobby Stock main event were Strandberg, Blake Luinenburg, Cody Williams, Sal Hernandez, David Crimmins, Curt Reed and Eric Knutson.
Most started fourth in the first IMCA Northern Sportmod feature and was running fifth four laps into the feature when the third and second-place cars of Jason Bannister and Austin Schrage made contact and spun.
That elevated Most up to third and utilizing the top line, he roared up to second during the restart. Most made his move with 18 laps left in the 25-lap feature, getting a big run out of turn two to get alongside leader Cody Brill down the backstretch.
Most was able to clear Brill to take the lead coming out of turn four. He would hold the lead for the remainder of the feature despite multiple caution flags in the final six laps.
“I just kept doing what I was doing. I don’t know how good we really were starting up front,” said Most, who will start in the middle of the front row for Saturday’s main event. “Everybody knows me knows either I’m going to win it or I’m going to DNF.”
In the second IMCA Northern Sportmod feature, Carter started second and took the lead on the initial start. The race was slowed multiple times by incidents in the opening laps, but during each restart Carter held serve.
Once the race got going Carter steadily pulled away and went unchallenged as he worked through slower traffic to earn himself a starting position on the front row for Saturday’s feature.
“Lap traffic was getting kind of dicy there, I didn’t know if I had a good lead or not so I figured it’s better to just full send it all the way through them. It worked out good,” Carter said.
The top-eight finishers from each Northern Sportmod prelim feature advanced to Saturday’s finale. Those earning starting positions in the Northern Sportmod Big Dance were Most, Carter, Tyler Nerud, Adam Birck, Andrew Pearce, Colby Fett, Alec Fett, Bo Partain, Hunter Longnecker, Kyle Olson, Eric Elliott, Izac Mallicoat, Nate Whitehurst, Jarett Franzen, Lee Horky and Tony Olson.
Fans who can’t be at Boone Speedway in person can watch every lap of both the Prelude and the complete week of Super Nationals via SPEED SPORT TV affiliate IMCA.TV.
This story is part of the LIVE From the IMCA Super Nationals Presented by MyRacePass.com.
